History, they say, repeats itself. Motorcycling history, everyone knows, doesn’t. Two-strokes are a blatant example of that. Fortunately, great two-stroke motorcycles are not dinosaurs and their extinction is by no means absolute. They’re more like white tigers, rare and impossibly beautiful. And I’ve got a date with one surviving specimen in the historic city of Mysore. A Jawa 250 racer.
‘A Jawa? A Jawa racer? Must be slow...’ Not when your name happens to be Somender Singh , who built and raced this bike back in the day, from 1972 to 1986, to be precise. On this very machine, in drag races, sprints, hill climbs and circuit races, Singh and his Jawa took top honours in the 250cc class on 26 occasions besides winning three GPs that were held in India. And then there was his TZ350, but that’s a different story altogether.
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