WERA National Endurance teams walk on pit lane waiting for a heavy fog to clear at the WERA National Endurance race at Elkhart Lake’s Road America in October of 1984. You can see Team Hammer’s John Ulrich kicking the tire of another competitor’s bike. Just ahead and to the right of Ulrich is well-known former Harley-Davidson engineer and racer Alex Bub. I believe on the far right in the black leathers with white stripes might be Andy Fenwick. The endurance race eventually got underway and was won by North Ridge Racing.
WERA National Endurance teams walk on pit lane waiting for a heavy fog to clear at the WERA National Endurance race at Elkhart Lake’s Road America in October of 1984. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Rider Files 
That’s defintely Andy on the right. The biggest thing about that weekend wasn’t the races (and we REALLY shouldn’t have been racing in those conditions), but rather the 150 car accident in Milwaukee on the way home. Word is, some blonde haired Hoosier journo caused the mess…..
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Ha, ha. I didn’t cause it, but I saw it. Actually took out my camera and was taking pictures of crashes as I was driving. Not one of my smarter moves, but somehow I made it through.
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Cool picture Larry. Reminds me of Pocono.
Can’t tell ya how many times we stood around at that place waiting for the fog/monsoon/sleet, etc to pass.
Funny too how as we age we sometimes have difficulty remembering certain things but never forget something as inane as being able to ID a bike from afar by the tiniest detail, like the front wheel of the VF750F Interceptor seen here between Ulrich’s legs.
Most of us can still ID the bikes of the 70’s and 80’s with a quick glance, getting incredulous looks from our spouses when we say “yup, that was a ’78 Honda 550F and a ’79 Kawi KZ1000 MkII that just went the other way…!!”
Great pictures and memories Larry, keep ’em coming!
DH
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That was a strange day. Fog socked in the upper part of the track but the lower sections were fine. Coming up the hill out of 14 the visibility just plummeted and you couldn’t see much in front of you. I made good use of the track brake markers that day just as a reference point.
I was on the Bill the Cat racing team, Kawasaki KZ650, with Ed Key and Bob Patten that day. We won Middleweight Superbike, and if I recall we were in the top 5 overall.
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Also rode the Southeast Sales BMW R90 with Dan Luchon. Don’t recall how we finished on that. Riding two completely different bikes in the same endurance race was tricky but I did it a couple of times that year. Lots of track time.
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At the time there was some rumor going around that RA had wanted WERA to give up the date so they could run another event. WERA held them to the contract, the race was s near total waste and WERA never got another date there. Can anyone confirm any of that?
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Ed, I believe you are correct. WERA has never been back again, a disappointment since I think they are still a premiere racing group. Not sure about the financials that took place that weekend but the rumors I heard were similar to your recollections.
I believe we were racing my brothers GS1150 that day and came in 4th overall, but my memory of that era seems to blend the races together. But great times!
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I think the rental fee for Elkhart was something like 3 times the next most expensive track, and even with a good rider turnout, WERA lost big money on any weekend there. We never really had many spectators, probably due to a lack of promotion.
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