Ed Hessel, on the No. 498 Kawasaki GPz750, leads a pack of riders in a WERA B Superbike race at Road America. What I love about this photo is that Hessel is leading his buddy Kurt Hall. Notice the numbers – Hessel (No. 498) and Hall (No. 499), that’s because they signed up at the same time to go racing. In fact they used the same motorcycle, going in 50-50 with the purchase of a Kawasaki GPz550 I believe (Ed or Kurt can correct me if I’m wrong) to go road racing. By this point the boys each had their own motorcycles and could finally race each other on the track (instead of the twisty state highways of Southern Indiana and Northern Kentucky, where they’d previously done battle). In the photo with Hessel and Hall is an unidentified rider on the No. 198 Yamaha RZ500 and Charly Buse on what I think is a Suzuki GS550E. A great mix of bikes during a fun era of club racing.
Ed Hessel, on the No. 498 Kawasaki GPz750, leads a pack of riders in a WERA B Superbike race at Road America. In the photo with Hessel is an unidentified rider on the No. 198 Yamaha RZ500, Kurt Hall (No. 499 Kawasaki GPz550) and Charly Buse (No. 741) on what I think is a Suzuki GS550E. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Rider Files 
Attaboy, Edward! Pretty sure this is 1984, as Kurt didn’t run the 550 after that year. For the life of me, I can’t figure out who’s on the RZ500. The only people I knew who had one in our region this early were Ken Davis, and Steve Tayler.
Ed sure did have a distinctive style, didn’t he?
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Kevin, I betcha that rider on the RZ500 is a Canadian who came down to race Elkhart. I don’t recognize him either.
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what year was this?
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I think it’s 1984.
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Larry you do a great job with this stuff, I love the memories it brings back. Some of these guys (Kurt) I haven’t seen in years. This is just awesome, thanks for the effort buddie.
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Mick,
Thanks much. I have fun doing something with these old photos. Great to see Gene having so much fun racing again. That Beemer was really cool.
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I bet that I lead Kurt for about 10 seconds! Larry, I may need to buy all those pictures that you may of taken of me through the years, You definately make a rider look good!
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We bought the bike to go Endurance racing, Risque’Racing. Kurt loved racing and bought me out.
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I think was waaaaay back of these guys in my first year of racing. But this race is also one of my fondest memories. I was racing with the son of a work mate of mine from Wise Honda in Beloit. His somewhat newer GS750 had loads of steam on my ’81, but I was able to pass him at turn 5 and the last turn on every lap. On the last lap I decided not to bother since he was going to beat me to the flag anyway (novice think). After the race he said that it totally freaked him out because kept waiting for the pass. Yes fond memories. I have no idea what place we were racing for. I have a couple of second place trophies on the shelf but I have no recollection of them!
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I’d bet you stayed ahead of him at Elkhart, Ed. Nice long straights, and a 750, had to help your situation a bit.
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Edward an I had such fun traveling to most all the WERA North Central Region races we could get to. As Kevin mentioned, this was 1984. I think we also did a couple of National Endurance events on the (used 1982) GPZ550 I am riding in the picture. It’s so funny, I couldn’t see buying a new bike to toss it down the track. To start 1985 I bought a new Honda Interceptor 500 (and my local dealer let me use one from his shop) I had been bitten by the racing bug in a big way!
Road America was such a fun track to race. That was back before armor in leathers and we thought that track was fine. Does anyone remember that armco on the edge of the carosel?
Larry, thanks for the opportunity to relive those times!
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And what happened when you bought that new bike, Kurt? I seem to remember it coming back in 2 pieces at IRP. Heck, anytime I’d repaint the bike, I’d toss it down in the pits, just to get that over with. Seems if I didn’t, I’d always wad the thing up.
I have to admit to ignoring some of the sketchy turns at some tracks, but the old carousel would definitely make you pucker if you were on the gas hard through there. Probably just as well they changed it.
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1984 was my first full year as a novice and I think I made all the North Central races and more on my RD400. I never thought I was fast enough to worry about that armco. Pretty clueless. I remember two RZ500’s from that period. Brian Berney and a canadian from Sarnia last name Logan and his wife Linda. Saturday nights at the track were always good times.
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Yes, Kevin you have a tremendous memory! After Indy, I left with one complete bike and the other in baskets. The great thing was that I had a full year of practice and development on the Interceptor in time for Honda’s contingency series in 1986.
Kurt
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Pat Logan had the first RZ500 in the USA, and he put it in the trees at turn 1 at Blackhawk during practice, with only 240km on the clock. He was used to a stock RZ350, and used the same braking marker he would normally use, with predictable result. There was literally nothing salvageable from the bike.
Sadly, Pat committed suicide a couple of years later.
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That’s sad.
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