We had a discussion awhile back in a comment section about Ed Hessel. Hessel raced motocross with Kurt Hall back in the early 1980s and then the two started doing some street riding.
“When we’d street ride all of a sudden he was leading me and I didn’t like that,” Hall said of Hessel. “Edward and I went in halves on a used [Kawasaki] GPz550 to go endurance racing and that’s how I got into it.”
This is Hessel racing a GSXR at IRP in 1986. Apparently he’d moved on from his purple leathers by then. Fellow racer Kevin Fardoux said that Hessel crashed this bike and found some sucker to buy it – namely Kevin Fardoux.
From what I hear Ed is still wrenching on bikes somewhere in the Louisville, Kentucky area and building a Suzuki Bandit based streetfighter.
Ed Hessel racing at Indianapolis Raceway Park in 1986. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Rider Files 
Awesome! I’d love to dig through your archives, Larry. Too bad I can’t post a picture on here, as I’ve got a shot of just how ugly I made that bike after I bought it from Ed. The leathers he’s wearing in this pic are purple and red I believe. For some reason I thought they were all purple, but I think it’s probably because the red portion had been scuffed up to the point of not being noticeable. I endurance raced this bike after I bought it from Ed, and it just never handled right. I’m pretty sure the steering head was bent, as the bike would turn left ok, but it would slide going right. We had a great bunch of guys in the North Central back then, and Ed was one of them.
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Kevin
I can see the purple now that you mention it. Plus check out the number plate. The four of 498 looks pretty much standard issue, but check out the nine and eight!?
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Better than duct tape numbers, right? This picture reminded me of Ed’s unique riding style. Notice how his right hip is way forward, and his knee is tucked in closer to the bike? I think he was trying to keep the front loaded more through the corner, so he kept as much body weight forward as he could. He did an endurance with us at Indy on an RZ, and it looked like he was falling off the thing.
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Excellent pic, this site is too cool.
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Those are my “Harro” street leathers purchased while in Germany, the purple leathers were made by “Lou’s Leathers” early 90’s, remember the 90’s pinks & purples and teals we “in”.
I always liked going left!
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