Ron Woods......
As soon as I saw this original post last night it brought back such memories. I absolutely loved motorcycle racing back in the 70’s. All the old legendary racers of that time. I subscribed to Cycle and Cycle World and as soon as I would get my new issues, I’d absolutely devour the racing news. One of my favorite racing teams of that time was builder / tuner Ron Woods and racer Alex Jorgensen. At that time Harley was not the only winning team, Yamaha , Triumph, BSA , Kawasaki, they were all competitive. Ron said that he didn’t build his first Norton for any particular reason other than he had one available to him. But the fact that they not only were racing a Norton ( one of my favorite bikes! ) but they were actually winning, really got me going back then. Alex Jorgensen took two Grand National titles on a Ron Woods Norton.
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Here’s a good article on Ron Woods,
https://www.cyclenews.com/2020/12/article/archives-column-ron-wood/
The Norton’s couldn’t beat the Harleys by pure horsepower and the Norton’s were tuned to the upper limit , Ron said if he tried to squeeze any more power out of them, the motor would grenade. So he designed his own lightweight frames, they were over 40 lbs lighter than the Harleys.
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This one was his most famous frame, large but very thin walled tubing was not only very light, but it also carried the engines oil supply. He also was known to have developed the first
adjustable rake on the steering head.
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Ron Woods was truly a legend and a naturally gifted designer. He died just a couple of years ago. Here is another website with some really great flat track photos,
lots of Yamaha racing bikes.
https://gramho.com/explore-hashtag/ow72