Hugh Melling (No. 655), on a Yamaha RZ350 sans bikini fairing, leads a group of riders that includes Frank Brotz (No. 45), Rich Doan (No. 666) and possibly Jim Ghilardi through a turn at Gateway International Raceway during a WERA sprint weekend in July of 1985. This must be a photo from a practice session since I couldn’t find any races where all four of these riders raced together. Doan went on to work for Yoshimura Suzuki in AMA Superbike.
Hugh Melling (No. 655) leads a group of riders that includes Frank Brotz (No. 45), Rich Doan (No. 666) and possibly Jim Ghilardi through a turn at Gateway International Raceway during a WERA sprint weekend in July of 1985. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Rider Files 
I’m thinking number 45 is Frank Brotz on a Honda NSR250 street version.
Anyone remember him and his bikes?
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Marshall, Good call. I think you’re right. I made the correction.
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Frank always had cool bikes and he is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet.
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Holy Smokes! I thought I was the only one who had pictures of Rich on his GPz.
I recall one race at IRP (think it was ’85), where his 550 pitched a rod on #3, blew through the front of the engine cases, and cleared a hole all the way around through the back of the cylinder block. The rod ended up wedged in the cylinder fins. Here’s the kicker…it was STILL RUNNING. He pulled in from the exit road, and said something like “hey, it’s running kind of rough…I think something broke”. You could see daylight from the front of the engine.
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Wow. They always said those Kawasakis were bullet proof. There goes your proof I guess.
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I was actually behine Richie when the motor blew. It was IRP and it looked like one of the World War II shots where they dog-fight and you end up flying through all of the shrapnel. Rich Doan is one of the big shots at Yoshimura now. Larry, it’s so cool you have all of these great shots!
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Keep the old pictures coming.
Andy do you get to Sheboygan alot?
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