Yamaha Racing Heritage Club Launched at EICMA
Yamaha Motor Europe has announced the formation of the Yamaha Racing Heritage Club, which was launched officially during the 2021 EICMA show in Milan this week.
Designed to protect and share with younger generations Yamaha’s racing history, the Yamaha Racing Heritage Club (YRHC) will bring together selected collectors from around the world who count some of the iconic racing machines from Yamaha’s storied racing history amongst their collection.
The YHRC will be open to owners of bikes from every discipline. From Grand Prix racing the club will admit machines raced between 1955 and the end of the two-stroke era in 2003, while registrations from World Superbike and the Endurance World Championships will be open to machines raced in any of the production classes from 1987 until 2009. From the off-road world the YRHC will be open to motocross bikes raced before 1998 and Paris Dakar machines that raced in Africa prior to 2007.
Collectors will be able to register their historic Yamaha machinery with the YRHC, gaining access to technical information and support from the engineers who were involved in either the development or maintenance of these bikes when they were racing, or who currently work within Yamaha’s racing infrastructure.
YRHC members will also enjoy discounted access to genuine Yamaha parts, and assistance with identifying suitable replacements when genuine Yamaha parts are no longer available due to the age of machinery.
But the YRHC is about much more than just the machinery, it will also bring together those riders that wrote Yamaha’s name large in the history books, reuniting them with the machines on which they achieved their greatest successes.
The collectors and riders will be ambassadors of Yamaha’s Racing Heritage, guardians of the racing history that started at the Mount Fuji Ascent Race just 10 days after the company was established by Genichi Kawakami on July 1st 1955, and which remains an essential part of Yamaha Motor’s corporate culture.
The YRHC will also involve Yamaha’s current crop of racers from all disciplines, providing an opportunity for both them and their army of fans to experience Yamaha’s racing history and the people who made it first-hand, rather than through the pages of a book.
Through a number of exclusive events held throughout the year, the YRHC will bring together collectors and riders, both past and present, to showcase Yamaha’s storied racing history and to share the passion and determination that established Yamaha at the forefront of racing across all disciplines.
For collectors looking for more information on registering for the Yamaha Racing Heritage Club, please email [email protected].
Paolo Pavesio: Director, Marketing and Motorsport, Yamaha Motor Europe
“We have founded the Yamaha Racing Heritage Club not just to commemorate Yamaha’s rich and storied racing history, but also to safeguard it and to bring it alive for future generations to enjoy in person. We want these bikes to be seen and heard once again, not just to sit idle in a collection, which is why supporting collectors to restore and maintain their bikes is one of the primary objectives of the YHRC. Another objective is to relate the human side of Yamaha’s racing heritage, telling the stories of the riders who raced these iconic machines and the people who both developed and worked on them. We want to share our racing heritage with as wide an audience as possible, which is why the YRHC will attend a number of events each year to showcase these historic bikes, bringing them together with riders both past and present to keep our heritage alive.”
