This bike would have been a major attraction when these photos were taken at Daytona ’75. The newly unveiled Kawasaki KR250. Not certain whose bike this is – either Yvon DuHamel’s or Jim Evans’ – but it was a huge step from Kawasaki away from its previous inline twins and triples to a tandem twin, designed to reduce engine width and the overall frontal area of the machine. Kawasaki was making noise that this machine was going to be a Yamaha killer. And in its racing debut at Daytona, it appeared it just might be. DuHamel won his qualifying heat race, so a victorious debut for the new KR250. But the Kawasaki team and riders new they were in trouble. On long runs the KR tended to overheat and they didn’t have time to re-engineer, so they made band-aid fixes hoping to finish the race. Also, its front brakes faded quickly. Evans crashed early in the week and was out. Kawasaki brought in Ron Pierce to fill-in. In the race DuHamel dropped out with five laps to go and Pierce, with practically no front brakes, nursed his KR home to 13th. Not the earth-shattering debut Kawasaki had hoped for, but they continued to develop the machine and the KR250 would eventually win AMA and Grand Prix titles. (Gary Van Voorhis photo) 
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