The BANNED Motorcycle That Was TOO FAST For Racing

The Yamaha TZ750 was a two-stroke monster built for road racing. In 1975, someone shoved its engine into a dirt flat-track frame, handed it to Kenny Roberts, and watched him win the Indianapolis Mile from the very last row of the grid. Then he voted to ban the bike himself. This is the story of how two-stroke motorcycles dominated racing for decades, terrified every rider brave enough to climb aboard, and were systematically removed from top-level competition through rule changes, politics, and the uncomfortable truth that they were simply too good at making power. From the TZ750's legendary single flat-track victory to Honda's campaign to kill the 500cc Grand Prix two-strokes, to the final two-stroke GP race in 2011, this is the complete story of the engines that outran their own era.