When the WERA National Endurance Series came to Roebling Road Raceway near Savannah, Georgia, in September of 1986, Human Race team owner Dave Zupan had a plan. He’d find a local Roebling specialist and put him on the HRT Yamaha FZ600. Zupan made some calls and came up with a perfect rider – Donnie Rowe. Rowe knew Roebling like the back of his hand and he did the bulk of the riding for the team that day, which also featured Fritz Kling and Robby Braunscheidel. Things got very interesting in the final hour of the six-hour race. Team Hammer was six laps up and wouldn’t be caught, but the Humans were only a lap behind Solmax Racing, on their Yamaha FZ750, in the battle for second. Zupan called the HRT bike in early for an unscheduled pit stop so he could get Rowe back on the bike and go to work at catching Solmax. It almost worked. Rowe turned in amazingly fast laps on the little FZ600, got back on the same lap and started closing in on Solmax. Solmax picked up the pace trying to keep its gap on HRT, but burned up their rear tire in the process. In the end Rowe’s hard charge came up about 30 seconds short, but it made the final hour of the race very fun to watch.

Donnie Rowe, with knee in the grass, wringing out the Human Race team Yamaha FZ600 in the closing hour of the WERA National Endurance race at Roebling Road in September of 1986. Rowe, who was picked up by the Human Race Team due to his skills at Roebling, helped the team finish third overall in the race that day and Rowe nearly caught second-place Yamaha FZ750 mounted Solmax Racing in the final hour. (Larry Lawrence photo)