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Y
oshimura Research & Development is among the most
recognizable brands in the motorcycle aftermarket indus-
try today. Moreover, race bikes campaigned by Yoshimura
have won multiple AMA and World Superbike championships.
And who among the sport bike elite hasn’t, at one time or
another, considered equipping their bikes with at least one
speed component or another from Yoshimura’s inventory? In a
nutshell, today, Yoshimura R&D is a big business.
But financial success didn’t happen overnight. It was a long,
winding road to the top, and the story
has its origins during World War II when
a young man named Hideo Yoshimura
aspired to become a fighter pilot for the
Japanese Imperial air corps. Fortunately
for motorcycling today, a parachuting
injury forced young Hideo out of pilot
training, and into airplane mechanic’s
school.
After the war, Yoshimura applied his
newfound mechanical skills to main-
taining and modifying motorcycles for
American GIs stationed in postwar Japan.
By 1954 Yoshimura had opened his own
motorcycle shop in Fukuoka, Japan,
where he also earned the Pops moni-
ker. The business, originally known as
Yoshimura Motors, flourished, and Pops
proved himself a proficient race tuner.
He and his wife Naoe were joined in the
business by daughter Namiko, who kept
the financial records, and son Fujio, serv-
ing as Pops’ apprentice.
By 1971 a close relationship with two
former American GIs — Larry Snively and
Don Pedesto, who had set up a small
business in Waterford, California — led toPops and Fujio venturing to America to try their hand tuning
a bike for AMA road racing. That same year Yoshimura built a
Honda CR750 racer for 1964 AMA champion and three-time
Daytona 200 winner Roger Reiman to campaign. The bike fea-
tured a new 4-into-1 exhaust system, a rarity for the time. Pops
and Fujio settled in Los Angeles, and Yoshimura Racing (later
changed to Yoshimura Research & Development) was rolling.
In coming years Gary Fisher and George Kerker raced some
of Pops’ first bikes, but it was when Yvon Duhamel won the
1973 Laguna Seca Super Production race
aboard a Pops-built, Dale Starr Racing
Kawasaki Z1 that people in America
began to take notice of the soft-spoken
tuner from Japan. Within a few years
Wes Cooley was racing a Yoshimura R&D
Z1, and in 1978 Steve McLaughlin put
a Yosh-prepped Suzuki GS750 on top of
the podium at the Daytona Superbike
race. The following year Ron Pierce,
Wes Cooley and the late David Emde
stood on the box at Daytona, all with
Yoshimura logos on their leathers. That
same year Cooley won Yoshimura’s first
AMA Superbike championship, and Yosh
Suzukis won Daytona the following two
years also.
In 1981 Pops returned to Japan to con-
tinue running his enterprise there, leav-
ing Fujio to carry on with the American
program. The rest, as they say, is his-
tory, but consider what McLaughlin once
posted on Facebook about Pops. Wrote
the always vociferous McLaughlin: “The
only tuner I ever raced for crazier than
me ... the last Japanese Samurai!” —
Dain GingerelliPops Yoshimura — the father of Superbike speed
Pops Yoshimura (right) and son Fujio at
Ontario Motor Speedway in 1971.96 MOTORCYCLE CLASSICS September/October 2017
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