Wow! I was just blown away when I came across this photo. This is shot of arguably the three fastest riders who consistently raced at Grattan Raceway in the mid-to-late 1980s and to capture them all in one frame coming over Grattan’s iconic jump with all three bike’s front wheel in the air… well it just put a big smile on my face. This is Ed Key (No. 34) leading Fritz Kling (No. 421) and Dave Knapp (No. 587) in a WERA race in September of 1987 – almost 25 years ago to the day. It’s funny to think about the diverse riding style of these three – Key was what I’d call old school road racing style. He didn’t lean off the bike much in the turns, but man did he lean his motorcycle. Kling had the contemporary style where he leaned off the machine a bit and with his long legs, effortlessly used his knees as an outrigger in the turns. Knapp was a flat tracker, who had that style where he largely sat up through the turns and pushed the bike down, similar in style today to Larry Pegram. Three different styles that all resulted in amazing lap times around the technical and picturesque Grattan.
Ed Key (No. 34) leading Fritz Kling (No. 421) and Dave Knapp (No. 587) in a WERA race in September of 1987 – almost 25 years ago to the day. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Rider Files 
C’mon Larry…you forgot something! Who won??
Still can’t believe Fritz is gone.
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Larry, did you remember who won this race?
Who’s bike was Ed riding?
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I don’t know who won the race. American Roadracing didn’t have coverage that I could find.
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I’m riding a GSXR superbike owned by Avery Innis. As I recall he was working for Southeast Sales in Milwaukee as a mechanic at that time. I have no idea who won that race but to this day Nattarg is one of my all time favorite tracks.
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Larry – That shot is as good as any I have ever seen. What happened to Fritz Kling? I was not aware that he is no longer with us. John Lambrick
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http://www.cyclenews.com/articles/road-racing/2008/11/08/fritz-kling-1967-2008/
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Hey Ed, where was your FZ for this race? I’m pretty sure you had one in ’86, or did you wad yours up like Gary did?
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If i remember correctly Ed was probably 60 pounds lighter than Fritz and shorter also. Dave was in between those two
They had to ride differently.
Those were great times
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I sold my FZ750 at the end of 1986. Two seasons of money racing and I was lucky to have never put that bike on the ground, unlike Gary! I did go through a ton of front brake rotors and one frame however. The frame on that bike was really weak and would flex dramatically under braking. When brand new the bike would chatter badly on the brakes until the flexing caused the frame to work harden. Once that happened the frame would work OK for about 1 season, then the braking chatter would come back with a vengeance. That’s the only bike I ever ruined a frame on without crashing. The brake rotors were 7 piece, radially vented, brazed together failures. I would get them so hot the brazing would flow and smear across the surface of the disk. These were the rotors that caused WERA to first allow aftermarket rotors on production bikes.
Gary and I both bought Honda 600 Hurricanes for the 1987 season.
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Remember Brian Berney exploding the steering dampner on his, coming onto the front straight at Grattan? Shook the head so bad, there were intermittent skid marks at a 45 degree angle to the direction of the bike.
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