HISTORY OF MY 1972 SUZUKI TR500
ENGINE NO. TR10028

This SUZUKI racing motorcycle was one of (2) two bikes supplied to sponsored riders in South Africa in 1972 and arrived by ship at Durban harbour on the 19th of December.  The sponsored riders who were allocated to the bikes were Jon Ekerold and Les van Breda, Jon Ekerold of course eventually would become 350cc World Champion a few years later on a Yamaha.  This particular machine was the bike used by Les van Breda, who had won the South African Championship on earlier XR05 model in 1971.

The bike’s first outing was at a race meeting in Luanda, Mozambique, on the 27th of December 1972.  The first race did not start well as the bike seized at the end of the main straight resulting in considerable damaged t the machine and fractured ribs for its unfortunate rider, Les van Breda.  The machine was then repaired and raced at the Killarney Circuit in Cape Town in early January in the first round of the South African Championships in 1973.

Les had finished 2nd overall to Kork Ballington on an ex- Gillie Cruise TR500 in the previous 1972 season, Kork was another South African rider who was to leave for Europe early in 1973 and of course later to become a double World Champion in 1978 and 1979 on the Kawasaki Tandem Twin.

During the 1973 season the standard Fontana 4-leading shoe front brake was swopped for the Ceriani unit from the earlier machine which Les still had in his possession, and the standard Suzuki PEI ignition was replaced with a Spanish Femasatronic System to improve reliability.

In 1973 many well known international riders were invited to contest certain prestigious events in South Africa.

The first of the South African T.T. series was held at the Roy Hesketh Circuit outside Pietermaritzburg, Natal, where Les riding the TR500 finished second to John Cooper – BSA 750cc, Derek Chaterton was 3rd with Giacomo Agostini 4th having slowed on the M.V. Agusta with machine problems.

The second race in the series was held at the Kylami G.P. circuit in Johannesburg, where Les was the quickest local rider passing Tony Jeffries – Truimph 750cc, Barry Sheene – Seeley Suzuki TR500 and Agostini on the M.V. Agusta to take the lead which he held for most of the race.  A few laps from the end, holes began appearing on the expansion chamber of Les’s TR500 due to scraping on the road in an attempt to defend his lead from Agostini who came past 2 laps from the end of the race as the Suzuki lost power.  Les was awarded the Dickie Dale Trophy for his efforts in this International series as best local rider, and went on to claim the South African Championship on his bike in 1973.

In 1974 Les was given the new more powerful water cooled TR500 and his air cooled machine was sold to another local rider Roy Hill in 1974 and then re-sold to Van Rooyen Motors a well known motorcycle dealer in Bulawayo, Rhodesia, where a local rider named John Warburton won the Rhodesian Championship in 1975 and 1976.

In 1978 the bike and its rider officially retired due to the escalating war in Rhodesia all racing was suspended, the bike was then stored in a garage in Bulawayo until 1982 by which time white Rhodesians were leaving the country in large numbers as the economy and lifestyle deteriorated under the new government.  John and his family loaded all possessions they could carry on a trailer and headed for Botswana, the Suzuki now in a very dilapidated state was stored with household goods on the trailer and towed thousands of kilometers across Africa to Botswana.

I first heard rumours of an old Suzuki racing machine lying under a cover in a dusty corner of a garage in Gaberone, Botswana, from a friend who was a traveling salesman.  At first I thought it was just a modified TR500 production machine similar to the one which I had ridden in Classic racing events from 1978 to 1990, but from the description I was given I felt sure this might be the real thing.  I negotiated for the bike and bought it without actually having seen it, and it was subsequently smuggled across the border back into South Africa and delivered to my Johannesburg home in June 1992, on returning from a trip to the Isle of Man TT races, I found the bike in my yard awaiting my arrival in a rather sad and neglected state, but at least it was complete and mostly original, the bike even came with the original spare barrels, heads, pistons, clutch plates and factory parts list.

Les van Breda who is still a Suzuki dealer in South Africa was able to provide me with the detailed history of the bike, during our conversation he mentioned the fact that the top frame rail was actually broken in the high speed crash in Luanda at his first outing on a racetrack, and that the frame had been “fixed” in the pits by brazing on a piece of conduit tube obtained from a local contractor.  I inspected the bike on my return home to find that one chrome moly frame was still being held together with that piece of conduit tube, in spite of the fact that the bike had changed hands on 3 occasions.  That repair, and the fact that it had the Ceriani front brake confirmed that this was indeed his original bike.

The restoration project was completed by July 1995 and once again another rather special racing motorcycle has been saved for future generations of racing enthusiasts and represents the ultimate engineering technology available in 1972.

I must thank my specialists in South Africa for their help in restoring the bike in those instances where my skills were lacking, and to those people who assisted me in tracing and identifying the bike and it’s colourful history.

Word by – P.J. DE GRUCHY