Our Kawasaki Cover Explained
Updated with more detailed information.

Our vintage Kawasaki cover has garnered some interest judging by all the e-mail we've gotten on it. For the record, the men pictured in the photo are from left to right, Steve Johnson (then Eddie Lawson's mechanic at Kawasaki and now Team Manager of Team Muzzy Kawasaki); Eddie Lawson (then merely a one time AMA Superbike and 250 champion when this photo was taken); Ron Pierce, then a Kawasaki rider, and Rob Muzzy, engine builder and crewchief for Kawasaki, at that time.

The back row has in it Bud Aksland who worked for Kawasaki on a freelance basis that season (Bud was instrumental in Kenny Roberts' career, and still works for the King developing engines for the KR3, he also tuned John Marvin Kocinski's AMA 250s), the other fellow is Norm Bigelow who was and still is an employee of Kawasaki racing in America.

In July of 1981, Kawasaki entered the AFM Budweiser six-hour endurance race held at the now defunct Riverside Raceway. Lawson and Pierce won the event riding a KZ1000-based Superbike.

Hence the "This Bud's For Us" headline. -Dean