We all had a great day last weekend with Wade and Moose taking us back down memory lane. There were 13 of us there as well as a couple famous ROF sleds. I will try and remember some of the info about these sleds and I hope that Wade will add to this.
This is a photo of most of everyone who attended.
From left-right
Cam (collector of Smith-Roles)
Bill "Moose" (worked at ROF in R&D and Factory Racing Team as racer and tuner)
Louis (ROF collector)
Mack (ROF enthusiast and vintage racer)
Devon (ROF enthusiast, vintage racer and vintage retailer)
Blaine (ROF collector)
AL (ROF collector, vintage racer and former ROF dealer)
Richard (ROF collector and vintage racer)
Wade (worked at ROF in R&D and Factory Race Team as racer & tuner)
Arlen (ROF collector and website founder)
Missing
Richie (ROF collector and vintage racer)
Grant (ROF enthusiast and Gene's son)
Bill (ROF collector and vintage racer) he was taking the picture
First up is a 1970 ROF that originally had a 793 Hirth triple and you can see the partial circle on the right side where the motor ignition/starter stuck through and then the other large hole which was for the megaphone exhaust. I believe it was raced by Al's brother so it may have come through Al's ROF dealership but I was not present for that part of the story.
Next is the famous Hirth Honker Factory Racer which has the motor in it that was originally in the 1970 sled pictured above. Not sure on the story of how that motor was switched between sleds. Blaine was gracious enough to bring it along and as you can see it put a smile on Wade's face as I am sure a flurry of emotion came clawing back!
Not to be left out Moose got his chance to also relive that feeling of raw power!
I also got a pick of Grant on my Wild One as well as Moose and a pick of Wade on my son's Apache racer.
Wade seems to have an uncanny ability to remember very fine details from nearly 40 years ago. It was impressive to see what remains in his memory after so many years. Moose also seemed to have no trouble recalling all the tuning he did and how to best go about it. Those years tuning all the race sleds for the factory have stayed with him. The knowledge these two guys still posess is truely amazing and they are a great asset to those of us who collect ROF sleds.
Once again I can't stress enough the importance of having you guys involved with this site and the willingness you guys have to share with us.
We will be stting a date soon for next year and hopefully more people can make it with the more notice as we have a long list of people to attend. This means you too Gene!
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