"The nail that sticks up gets hammered down."
Japanese proverb

As near as I can recall, his name was Jim West. He was a regular customer of ours at Valerian's Two Cycle City, a Suzuki, CZ and Husqvarna dealership in West Los Angeles during the early seventies. I was 17, racing desert and motocross, and working as a mechanic to pay for it all. Jim was my hero. He was the sort of guy who would turn up at the track at, say, Adelanto, in the Mojave Desert, with three bikes in his truck: a 125cc Sachs, a 250cc Greeves, and a 360cc CZ. With seemingly very little effort, he would win all three expert classes, goof off between motos, then load up the bikes and head home. Meanwhile, I was struggling mightily just to finish mid-pack in the 250-novice class.

To make matters worse, Jim was a thoroughly nice guy. Try as you might, you couldn't dislike him. Still, my forbearance was sorely tested one day when, dropping by to pick up a new crank seal for his CZ, he casually let on that he was doing some modeling work for Honda that weekend at Indian Dunes. Being paid to model motorcycles?! For the fragile ego of a racer-wannabe like me, this was simply too much to bear. From then on, I made a point to avoid Jim when he turned up. I simply wiped him from my mind.

Tiring of the muck and mud of motocross, and looking for headier stimulation, I took to wearing a steel shoe and riding bikes without brakes--fast, powerful machines with special frames and fancy paint jobs that sparkled coldly under the lights; bikes tuned by guys with names like cutting objects; bikes that broke their cranks and spit connecting rods out their cases; bikes that would kill you if you gave them half a chance. Inevitably, though, as with all dreams that don't stand the test of reality, I had to accept the fact that I was not a racer at heart (to say nothing of being a motorcycle model) and got on with a life that led me, eventually, to Japan.

Thus, I became stuck in a claustrophobic little apartment in Ikuta pounding away on my keyboard. Just outside the window, the last cherry blossoms were clinging desperately, futilely, to their buds as the nyubai (the first, tentative rains of the rainy season) gently coaxed them from their branches, prematurely ending their already ephemeral lives.

No other people so extol the beauty of the four seasons like the Japanese. Perhaps this is because the Japanese, in their tiny, poorly built homes, have always lived close to nature. Perhaps it is also due to their finely honed sensibilities. Whatever the reason, no other country has an entire genre of literature devoted to the topic. For example, in "The Pillow Book," the 11th Century work by the court lady Sei Shonagon, she wrote: "Spring is best experienced at dawn. Light quietly suffuses the sky; a ridgeline becomes faintly visible; and purple clouds trail over the mountains." Of summer: "Summers are for the nights. Especially when there is a moon out."

The reality is, of course, more prosaic. There are, in fact, only three seasons in Japan: the season when it's too hot, the season when it's too cold, and the season when it rains too much. Between those three extremes, you get a few weeks of decent weather. And it was during that brief, but pleasant interval before the full onset of the rainy season that Nakada called again.

"Hey, Nick-san! You wanna ride the FZ750?"

"Uh, sure." I'd almost forgotten about our meeting in Ginza a few weeks before.

"Yamaha is holding a track day at Fukuroi tomorrow. I've arranged a prototype FZ750 for you to ride."

Be careful what you ask for, was all I could think. The last roadracer I'd ridden was an old air-cooled TD-2, and that was ten years prior. My current hack, a Yamaha XS650 Special-turned-street-tracker wouldn't lean over more than about 30¯ without making sparks.

Arriving in the countryside after the hustle and bustle of Tokyo was always something of a jolt. In that era of almost instant transportation, you carried the atmosphere of city haste with you to your destination. You stepped out purposefully onto the railway platform, primed for action, only to suddenly realize that that, while your mind was still in Tokyo, your body was now in Kakegawa--where the low, rolling hills are carpeted with carefully groomed tea plantations, and the quiet air is delicately salted by the nearby ocean.

Nakada was already there. Even though I was right on time, I apologized for making him wait.
Fukuroi is hallowed ground for Yamaha--it's where all their bikes are developed. Kenny Roberts broke his back testing there on an OW-something-or-other back in the day, and virtually anyone who is anyone in Yamaha racing history cut some serious laps here. As we rolled through the tire bath prior to entering the track proper, all I could think was: What the @#$! am I doing here?

As it turned out, the setting was quite benign. The track day was a highly structured affair in which we followed one of Yamaha's test riders around the circuit to learn proper racing lines. No passing was permitted. (I broke that rule in the second session.)

In addition to a variety of other go-fast bikes, there was a brace of FZ750s on hand, and as we exited the pits for a few gentle, tire-warming laps I was astonished at the machine's performance. Effortless thrust across the rev range, impeccable handling and me totally lost in Fukuroi's high-speed sweepers. Even today, those early FZ750s (before they lightened the cranks) were one of my favorite sports bikes.

As it happened, Tadahiko Taira, Yamaha's homegrown GP star, was on hand to give us some pointers. Our riding had been filmed, and Taira singled out the riding of yours truly as an example of how not to ride. Typical dirt tracker, I'd been stuffing the bike into turns way too early, forcing me wide on the exits and preventing a proper drive down the following straight.

That afternoon, over a late lunch of oyako donburi, mother & child on rice (chicken & egg over rice), Nakada introduced me to Sakai, one of the high muckety-mucks in Yamaha's PR division. Sakai was typical of the kind of man you find in high positions at large corporations. Their words are considered, tempered, as if they're always keenly aware that a poorly chosen adjective or turn of phrase could negatively impact their future prospects. Heavy-set and somewhat short, Sakai had the florid face of a drinker and was a heavy smoker. It didn't feel as if I was meeting a fellow motorcyclist.

"So, Nick-san, how'd you like our new FZ?"

"Impressive!"

"You looked like you were having fun out there."

"I was, once I found my way around the track."

Then, stubbing out a butt, Sakai said, "We're shooting catalog photos for next year's bikes up in Hokkaido next week. How'd you like to do some riding for us?"

"Er, what about the rainy season?"

"There's no rainy season in Hokkaido. Too far north. That's why we shoot there."

Driving back to the station, Nakada was clearly relieved that everything went so well. He popped a Beach Boys disc into the CD player and turned up the volume.

"Why me?" I asked. "There are plenty of people who ride better than me."

"The catalogs are for Europe. The customers there want to see a Western face staring out of the helmet. If we use Japanese riders, we have to use smoked faceshields, and the photos don't have the impact."

"Why not just shoot in Europe?"

"Not enough time. The final prototypes won't be finished for a few more days. Besides, we don't have the budget to ship all the bikes over there."

"Don't they ride on the other side of the road in Europe?"

"Yes, and so will you in Hokkaido."

Wonderful.

Funny how the subliminal mind works. It wasn't until late that evening, as I was walking home from the station in the late-night quiet, that it occurred to me. What would a big shot like Sakai be doing at a track-day?