A RARE RACER RETURNS

iven that Honda and Yamaha’s earliest attempts at racing machinery were designed to be used on the rugged dirt surfaced courses in Japan like Asama Mountain, they were off-roaders as much as road racers – street scramblers if you like, and often shod with knobbly tyres. It was not until the early ‘sixties that the designs became slightly more refined (coincidentally with the increased popularity of motocross in Japan as a result of Aussie Tim Gibbes’ Racing Schools conducted there from 1963). But back in 1957 what Honda offered the budding racer was what the factory termed the RC70F; a 250cc twin using the C70 (and later C71) engine, which had the ‘rotary’ gearbox favoured by several of the Japanese manufacturers. This had first gear