Diary Notes - Ramblings of Bonzai Bob Laszko

Diary Notes
Bob Laszko

How did I get into racing? I guess you have to go back to when I first starting riding ..........

I started my two-wheeled experience back in the early 80's riding an old Honda CB650. It was a semi-touring rig, with a frame mounted fairing and luggage rack. I really loved hitting the twisty back roads of Southern California, but the bike wasn't really suited for that kind of riding. After two or three years I got into Honda ATCs (the original three-wheeled variety, not the wimpy four wheelers you see today). The 650 sat neglected in the garage while I banged around the local fire trails. I sold it to a buddy who rode it back home to New York.

Fast forward to the early 90's and a mid-mid-life crisis. Honda had just come out with their latest incarnation of the 750 Nighthawk. Looked a lot like my old 650, but sleeker and 100cc larger. I dropped by the local dealer to check it out, but as I walked in the door I spied a beautiful black '84 CB650SC Nighthawk. It was outfitted it w/a Supertrapp pipe, K&N filter, jet kit and PS shocks. Sounded mean, looked tough, and was about one-third the price of the new Nighthawk. SOLD! The bike handled well enough for spiriting twisties riding, but was still comfortable enough for long distance rides.

I managed to convince the entire family that this riding stuff was a helluva lot of fun and they should all get bikes. The Old Man and a younger brother (Steve) picked up Vulcan 750's (both have since traded them in for Honda Shadow 1100's, then the Old Man moved on to another universe when he picked up a Harley Dyna Wide Glide). My mother bought a Kawasaki 250 Eliminator and I picked up a Honda 250 Rebel for my fiancee (Ellen). There was, of course, a method behind my madness - if everyone rode a bike, no one could bitch about me riding. Seriously, though, it gave us all a common bond, outside of work & computers, that brought us all closer together.

Wait a couple more years and add a younger brother (James) getting tired of trailing behind his two older brothers on his mother's Eliminator. ('Is that your Momma's bike little boy?' would really piss him off!). Honda had just kicked off their annual Red Hot Deal Days and were offering $0 down on 600F2's. It didn't take much prodding to convince James that he could afford the monthly payments, and what the hell, so could I. We picked up a red/white/black one for me, a purple/yellow/black one for James. The Bonzai Boys were born!

Skip ahead ONE WEEK. James got nailed by a Toyota Land Barge, broke his foot and totaled the bike. In his defense, he was riding slow & sane, but the Toyota pulled out of a blind driveway and blocked the entire road. Back to the Honda dealer, but this time for a red/white/black F2.

The brakes, acceleration, and handling of the F2 flat knocked my socks off. I've always been a conservative street rider, but the potential of this bike was pushing me to find out what it could really do.

A couple of months later, James & I signed up for one of Reg Pridmore's CLASS sessions at Willow Springs. I haven't been the same since. Ask me what it's like to get on the track and this mild-mannered, reserved computer geek turns into a slathering, testosterone-overdosed race nut! Dr. Jekyl & Mr. Hyde - Yep!

About a year later, fate dealt James another card and he tagged a blue hair in a classic left-turn scenario. He & the F2 went up and over the Pontiac M1A1, totaling the bike and leaving James a bit sore for a few weeks. I bought the bike from the insurance company for the paltry sum of $600 and started getting serious about this racing stuff.

The rebuilding & prep process is covered elsewhere on this site, so I won't go into it here. I headed out to Willow in January of '96 to start checking out bikes and get into the swing of the activities during a race event. Most of the race prep came from ideas I saw on bikes there. My first race weekend came in May of '96.

OK ..... so that's how I got into racing.

I knew if I was going to become a decent racer, I'd need to keep notes about my experiences, experiments, and impressions. The diaries that you'll find here are excerpts from my racing log books plus recollections from the events.

My intent in publishing the diaries is two-fold. First, it forces me to review my notes and glean the important info to help me become a better racer. Second, I hope that they will serve as a source of information for, and encourage responses from other racers.

I'll apologize in advance for the grammatical gaffs, switching from first person to third person mid-sentence, and interchanging past and present tense. I hated English in school and never was very good at expressing myself in writing. If you find the diaries informative, great. If you find them nothing but rambling drivel, then don't read them.

Bob