Ed Gray (No. 424) leads Charly Buse (No. 741) in a WERA sprint race at Blackhawk Farms in June of 1985. Gray was racing a Yamaha FZ750 and Buse a Yamaha FJ600. The two Yamaha sportbikes were extremely popular club racing machines in 1985 thanks to a generous contingency program paid by Yamaha. I was once told by a factory representative that the manufacturers actually made money on these contingency programs by way of huge parts sales used by the racers that offset the cost of the prize money paid out.
Ed Gray leads Charly Buse in a WERA sprint race at Blackhawk Farms in June of 1985. Gray was racing a Yamaha FZ750 and Buse a Yamaha FJ600. Both of those bikes were very popular among club racers in the mid-1980s. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Rider Files 
Ed, you made it
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I kind of thought that I would have to show up sooner or later. I am really hoping for one from ’84 as I have no pictures of my own from that year. Charlie and I had some good races, me, the slow guy on the 750 him, the fast guy on the 600.
The leathers in this photo are the set that I mentioned that were stolen in ’93. A nice feature of them was that the top and bottom zipped apart so I could were the jacket for everyday use.
Thanks Larry
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Second coolest comp number ever, eh Ed (after 42)?
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Kevin, I’m not sure how we managed to coexist with the same numbers. I never ran into overlapping numbers until I moved east and started racing at Loudon, and frequently had to add an X.
Larry, I am not sure what turn this is, I think it is the dogleg leading to the carousel but it could also be turn 5.
I believe I managed to pull in a grand total of 375 Yamabucks. Not a lot on the other hand with no significant crashes I also did not buy any parts. My memory tells me that the money came from two fifths and a fourth, I have a third place trophy on the shelf from Grattan in October of that year but I think that must have been a non paying GP class.
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