Bubba Shobert's flat-tracker

Harley-Davidson has dominated the AMA’s Grand National Championship since the inception of the series in 1954. But there was a time in the mid-1980s when Honda took over as the series king—winning four championships in a row.

This is the bike that made it happen: the RS750.

This actually was Honda’s second attempt at building a flat-track bike. The first was the NS750, based on a bored-out version of Honda’s street-going CX500 motor. The company campaigned that bike in 1981 and ’82, and it managed to win one race.

Then Big Red used all it had learned to create the purpose-built RS750 for the next season. The new dirt-tracker made several shakedown runs in the 1983 Grand National Championship, even winning the Du Quoin Mile with rider Hank Scott at the controls.

By 1984, Honda was ready to go championship-hunting in earnest. The company hired ’82 champ Ricky Graham and Bubba Shobert to make a full assault on the title aboard RS750s...