Jim Williams Racing leads the Mediumweight Endurance entries at the start of WERA National Endurance Series race in the late 1980s. Motorcycle road racing at Rockingham, or what was then called North Carolina Motor Speedway, was one of the most insane things a motorcycle road racer could do. I vividly remember the look of riders who came off the track for the first time. It appeared many of them were taking stock of their lives and or contemplating if boat sailing in Category 5 hurricanes might be a safer way to spend weekends.
Jim Williams Racing leads the Mediumweight Endurance entries at the start of WERA National Endurance Series race in the late 1980s. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Rider Files 
Loved racing my RZ350 at Rockingham in the late 80’s. On a small, slower bike it was a lot of fun. I think on a big bike, it was insane. I tried Rockingham on a TZ250, it was a combination that just didn’t have the fun factor that my RZ provided.
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Fully compressed susupension, a not so smooth tarmac, nothing but concrete wall to your right if you fall and 150mph motorcycles with nowhere to go should you simply glance off the wall. I was scared shitless just watching.
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I raced at the ROCK alot in the 80s. Other than breaking my arm there, the thing I remember most is bikes catching on fire hitting the wall exiting the bowl. I never saw more bikes burn then there.
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Tony
Yes the fires. Remember the streaks of fire the bikes would leave after exploding from hitting the wall? I saw one of the most potentially lethal circumstances there I’d ever seen in road racing. I still have nightmares about it. A rider hit the wall on the banking, explosion of fire rider laying there perhaps unconscious. Wall of flame riders couldn’t see through. Coming around the banking you were so compressed down you couldn’t see that far around the turn. Bikes coming at speed, wall of fire, rider lying on the other side. Only sheer luck kept a fatality from happening that day.
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I rememder that race at Rockingham in 1988. I believe that is Andrew Stroud on Jim Williams Katana 600. His team riders were Don Canet, Dave Deveau and Mark McDaniel. They were all very fast but the bike never held up. #12 is me on Royale Racing’s Katana and I think we finished 2nd that day to a local team on a Honda.The WERA Endurance series in that time period developed many riders that went on to the Professional ranks. I agree about luck in avoiding a fatality.
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I remember in 1986 riding a freshly crashed Team Hammer racebike in the second hour with no fairing and a tail section cocked to the stars around that silly track. The g-forces on that big bike around the banking was crazy. Some guy named Ulrich made me ride it. I crashed it in exactly the same spot as it was crashed the first hour. Chivington was chasing us around that weekend if I remember correctly.
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I loved racing my Guzzis at Rockingham in the late 80s and early 90s. Before the GSXRs would bottom out on the banking and grind thru their oil lines forcing WERA to install a chicane, you could (on a 65 HP twin) hold it flat out thru the tri-oval and turn one and two. It was like a carnival ride. So many G forces, you could feel your face and any other loose flesh being pulled toward the banking. I swore I was doing push-ups for 3 weeks before I went back there.
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Yes the bowl there was even more challenging then the gravity cavity at Road Atlanta .One race I can remember at thr Rock was a 1.5 hour endurance race. I rode the whole stint with no pits and finished 2nd to Jeff Atwell.I was stoked.
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Doug!
Yes it was probably the 600 Kat and Deveau, McDaniel, Joe Brett William and the days of “6 Hour” races.
THAT was a painful year.
It WAS reliable and it was decided to lighten up the valve train “for reliability”.
So, in go a set of zooty Los Angeles racing valve springs. 4 hours later, 1 broken. DNF.
They said, must have been a bad spring and they broke again at about 4 hours.
Then we decide to change brands. Next race, broken and they’d never seen a broken spring before.
They replace the springs and have me shim them differently. Broke, DNF.
This goes on for a few races and we determine that these supposed “god” springs are good for 7 hours. Like clockwork.
Then, we put in a set of kit Suzuki springs.
Problem solved.
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