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Motorsport Hall of Fame welcomes the Motorcycle Heritage Museumby Steve Bond |
| Reprinted from International Motorcycle Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 3, July 2002 | |
| The Canadian Motorcycle Heritage Museum was incorporated four years ago to preserve the rich Canadian motorcycling history and its long-term goal is to seek a permanent home. "We've been operating as a traveling road show," says museum founder Bar Hodgson. "We display several of the museum's motorcycles at various events throughout the year and adhere to a 'theme' according to the event." The recent Ride To Remember had a Japanese motorcycle concours so the museum displayed a number of its significant Japanese bikes. Recently the museum negotiated for a permanent display at the Canadian Motorsports Hall of Fame in Toronto. The Hall of Fame's focus is on racing and to that end, the museum is showing a number of competition motorcycles from different disciplines. "We've got ten motorcycles on display right now," Hodgson says. "And we try to have a bike from each type of motorcycle competition. Currently, we're exhibiting a couple of roadracers, we've got a trials bike, the Harley hillclimber that's on loan from the AMA Hall of Fame Museum, two desert racers, a Jawa speedway bike and a few others." Hodgson adds, "We've got some brochures and other carry away information for visitors and we plan to rotate the display inventory on a regular basis so it's always fresh. For example, there is no drag bike on display and the Museum has a couple, so they'll be slotted into the rotation at some point. One of the most significant bikes in modern Canadian racing history is at the Hall of Fame right now. Colin Fraser, Canada's foremost roadracing expert calls the Heritage Museum's 1993 Kawasaki ZX7-RR "the winningest bike in Canadian Superbike history." No less than four National Number One plate holders have raced this particular motorcycle - Steve Crevier rode the bike to his 1993 title, Michael Taylor in 1994, Don Monroe used it as a backup and teenaged Jordan Szoke also won the Race #1 Plate on it. Hodgson notes that, "As other acquisitions are made, these motorcycles will also be rotated through the Hall of Fame." Currently, there are several motorcycles with impressive racing history that have been acquired and are currently under restoration. "We have three of Rueben McMurter's bikes, his 1985 Yamaha FZ750, his 1986 FZ750R and his GPZ750. The '86 is very trick with lots of handmade billet aluminum bracketry." "The Museum has Steve Baker's YZR750 that was converted from a twin-shock to a monoshock by the Yamaha factory. There were only four of these made and no one really knows where the others went so it's very rare. We also have Baker's TZ250 'lowboy', which is a standard Yamaha 250 roadracing engine shoehorned into a custom Doug Schwerma frame." The Museum has also recently finished the second legendary "Hindle" bike, an early 80s Kawasaki KZ1000J with the twin plug, S1 engine. Lang used two bikes during his Superbike battles and would switch back and forth depending on the track and conditions. Hindle will actually race this motorcycle during the Vintage Road Racing Association's Mosport festival in August. As for the future, the neighbouring Canadian Sports Hall of Fame has an option to move to Ottawa and if that happens, the Motorsport Hall would like to expand into that building as well. The Motorcycle Museum also has an extensive collection of memorabilia that would be difficult to display properly under the current format. The magazine collection alone is probably the largest in Canada, which makes it easy to check the history and race results of the various motorcycles. | |
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