THE BIG TIME…
The Daytona 200 Mile race in 1972 marked a major turning point in the career of Paul Smart. He had turned his back on the European Grand Prix scene in favour of Formula 750 racing in the USA with Team Hansen, the official Kawasaki team.
It had been Paul’s performance at Daytona in 1971 that had placed him so firmly on team manager Bob Hansen’s radar He had been a fast qualifier on his Triumph triple and was in the lead of the race, with only 40 of the 200 miles left to run, when the engine burned out its exhaust valves.
But there was to be no repeat of that performance in 1972, instead, Paul’s dismal debut with the new Kawasaki 750cc H2R at Daytona lasted just two laps at which point the two-stroke triple fried its ignition system. Art Baumann was a fast qualifier on a Suzuki and there was not a single Kawasaki to be seen on the finishers’ list. Paul must have wondered what he had done…
Thankfully, things soon got better and less than a month later he stood in an American Victory Lane for the first time when he finished 3rd behind the Suzuki of Jody Nicholas and his Kawasaki team-mate Yvon Duhamel at Road Atlanta (later in the year he was elevated to 2nd when the Suzuki was disqualified for having non-production cylinder heads that were outside the F750 regulations).
Paul was a much happier man than he had been after the Daytona debacle, but no sooner had he packed away his gear before heading for the airport to rejoin wife Maggie in Southern California, than he got a call from her telling him to head in the other direction – across the Atlantic to Italy.
His contract with Kawasaki in the USA did not preclude him from riding in Europe on a non-Japanese motorcycle and awaiting him
