My first motorcycle was this Parilla Wildcat 250. I bought it as a semi basket case back in the late '60s/ I rebuilt the engine, sorted out some other issues, and painted it red. It was a fun project, but I didn't ride it much, and eventually sold it.
My second bike was this Commando Production Racer. I bought it from Dan Gurney in '73, Dan had painted it purple. Said he thought cops would notice it less with a dark color. I repainted it in yellow, rode it on the street for a while, and then started road racing with it. This is me on it in my nivice race in 1974, at Riverside Raceway in Southern California. It was still pretty original, except for the repaint. At that time it was still considered a modern superbike, and I raced it in the AFM 750 Production class, mostlly at Riverside or Onatario.. I raced it regularly from 1974 to 1993, when I quit road racing. I raced it in a variety of configurations, with several local clubs, AHRMA, and eventually AMA.
This is it's final configuration in AMA Pro-Twins racing at Daytona in 1991, with my friend Rob Tulue as the rider. By this time it was 920 cc and pretty seriously modified.
I eventually sold it to a friend, Chris Scott, who had a local bike shop, who had recently purchased a PR with a consecutive serial number to mine. Some coincidence. I sold it without the engine, gearbox, forks and shocks, but included all the original parts, that I had saved while making mods. He restored it, and eventually sold it to a local collector, who displayed it in his private museum.
Ken
