As a road racer you never forget the first time you drag your knee through a turn. It’s easier for some riders to earn that racing accomplishment than others. Case in point – check out how effortless Kevin Fardoux makes dragging his knee look back in June of 1985 at a WERA D Superbike race at Blackhawk Farms. The lesson here is it helps if you can actually lean your bike over far enough and also helps if you have a 38-inch inseam! Fardoux won the race. Behind him is Dave Barnard, who won the novice class. It looks like both were riding Yamaha RZ350s, perhaps the most popular club road racing machine of the early-to-mid-1980s.
Check out how effortless Kevin Fardoux makes dragging his knee look back in a WERA D Superbike race at Blackhawk Farms in June of 1985. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Rider Files 
I remember the first time I touched my knee down. It was in the carousel a bit behind where Kevin is here. When my knee touched down I flinched. I had no idea that my knee was any where near the ground. I immediately copied an idea that I got from Gary Gibson and collected a few discarded plastic drink cups from the concession stand, broke them in half and taped them on with duct tape.
That winter I had the local shoe repair man put big chunks of shoe leather on my knees. This turned out to be a terrible idea, as the leather provided too much friction. I almost immediately taped on some more cups.
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Hey, I’ve got that picture on my office wall! Yes, I’m a gangly dork, but that actually made it kind of awkward to find a good leg position with the rearsets on my RZ. As a novice, I had Heine Gericke street leathers, that didn’t allow me to move like that, so the Dainese I’m wearing here were a revelation.
Truth is, I think Dave smoked me in this race. As I’ve mentioned before, he started on a GPz550, so when he picked up that RZ from Lance David, it took him some time to adjust. I lost count of how many times he spun the nut off the flywheel, because he would downshift so hard. Once he got the hang of it, he found a whole new world of speed, and went on to battle with people like Jamie James, and Scott Zampach.
Hey Geek, if you’re reading this, tell everybody the truth of how blind you were, and the big reason you were so fast, was you couldn’t see the corners to slow down for them!!!
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Wow, more memories!
in June of 85′ we were in the midst of the Fardoux, Barnard rivalry, that stemmed from the end of the 84′ season, and I fed on that. There was only one guy on the track I wanted to beat,that was Kevin! And since he was up front or winning a lot, that raised me to a higher level.
Man i loved that RZ, once i figured it out it was unbelievably fun to race with all you guys, Kevin turned me on to Lance David, who was selling his RZ that i bought.
Truth is Kevin is the reason that i bought my first street bike, an 83′ gpz550, meeting him at Dick Browns Kenilworth 76 station as a new employee. We somehow survived the street and went to our first riders school together at Grattan Raceway.
I never knew whether to thank him or blame him for my obsession with speed and knee dragging. We had some really great years in WERA together.
Glad I met you “GEEK”
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