Jerry Holm races his Honda FT500 Ascot through a turn at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, during a WERA sprint race in 1984. Holm’s Honda wears the No. 1 plate because he’d won a WERA National title. That looks like Russ Katzenberger behind Holm. I know Jerry was WERA D Production Champ in 1982, I’m guessing he won a title in ’83 as well, although I can’t find those records. Being a Honda Ascot owner myself, I was a big fan of Holm, who was amazingly fast on his stock FT. Anyone who raced, or even rode the Ascot hard on the street, knows that despite being a single-cylinder bike, it didn’t have the world’s greatest ground clearance. The stock footpegs would hit down very quickly and after that the exhaust mounting dragged. It looks to me like Jerry had his bike pretty close to showroom. How he flicked that thing around the turns like he did I’ll never know. Jerry was a true racing veteran even in 1984. By then he’d provably raced for 20 years or so. The last I talked to him at the Peoria TT a few years ago he was still doing occasional flat track races.
Jerry Holm races his Honda FT500 Ascot through a turn at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, during a WERA sprint race in 1984. Holm’s Honda wears the No. 1 plate because he’d won a WERA National title. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Rider Files 
My first road racer when I started in 1984 was a left over non-current 1982 model. Still have it out in the garage. What a fun bike, the only bike I could really wheelie on, but as Larry wrote little ground clearance. At the beginning that was great, “wow I’m dragging stuff” but as I gained speed not so fun. But at least I never had to replace bodywork, just handlebars, I did break the right fork leg once…
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Sander, I too bought mine as a non-current leftover. I think a lot of people did. I remember I paid around $900 off the showroom floor. Rode that thing from Road America to the Loudon Nationals one year through Canada. It worked great, packed down with camping gear and all.
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larry. thanks for article. getting ready to haul hay bales to peoria speedway for tonights s.t. still riding my ducati and klr. check the rider files everyday. hope to see you at the august nat. jerry
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Jerry! Glad you visit the site. Hope all is well up at Peoria. I’ll see you up there in August.
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