Meet Dennis Zickrick
After my first meeting with Dennis I spent some time gathering pieces of my past with motorcycles for our next meeting. I found lots of great memories with Honda including photos of me and my brothers with our bikes and some from Jim’s time racing. I also brought the signed racing photos of the famous Honda motocross racers as well as a signed full size poster of the late great Doug “the Wheelie King” Domokos on his Honda CR. I was looking forward to seeing Dennis again to show him my memorabilia, swap stories and most importantly to learn about his guru with CB750.

The next week I returned to see Dennis. We entered from the office and after going in I waited a moment while Dennis took a phone call. After he hung up we made our way back to the shop. We went through a connecting room from the office to the shop. There I noticed cool things including a rolling Honda CBX chassis with the engine on a stand next to it, a set of vintage Kawasaki racing leathers on the wall and stacks of dusty, vintage road racing pictures as well as a weathered CB750 tribute poster hung in a decrepit frame with no glass. Going through the door to the shop was a Freddie Spencer V45 race poster tacked up by the light switch. As we passed into the shop I began seeing things on the walls and around the perimeter of the place that you wouldn’t see in just any motorcycle shop. I felt like I was in a Holy Grail motorcycle museum with lots of Honda items everywhere.

Strapped to a stand was a rolling chassis of one of Freddie Spencer’s 1980 CB750F superbikes. In one corner was a custom Moriwaki styled CB750F. Up high on another wall was an unused race fairing designed for Freddie Spencer’s Honda Moriwaki race bike. In the opposite corner up high hung several original number plates from the original Honda superbike racers including Steve McLaughlin, Steve Wise, Mike Baldwin, Roberto Pietri, Ron Pierce and fast Freddie Spencer. On another shelf was a CB750F gas tank from another original 750 superbike. Countless Honda and bike manufacturer and product stickers resembled wall paper as they were plastered over well used tool boxes and cabinets. One red tool box adorned a small plate with Dennis’s name. I spent two hours with Dennis that day swapping stories, showing him my scrapbook and asking questions. That day Dennis explained that he was one of the original American Honda RSC road race technicians with a stint lasting from November 1979 to October 1982.

That day I met an iconic road racing technician with a resume in the motorcycle business that most people couldn’t dream of. I met Dennis Zickrick, one of the original Honda CB750F superbike racing technicians. In addition to a historic stint with Honda, Dennis also has an impressive personal race resume. He earned the MRA (Colorado road racing) number one plate in 1979 (the same year I started riding), he won the 1974 Pikes Peak Hill Climb on a Honda Elsinore!). He has also worked with other local and national AMA superbike racers such as Doug Polen, Fast By Ferracci and Ricky Orlando. When I met Dennis he was in his last season with the AMA superbike Team Hammer Suzuki. The first day I spoke to Dennis he was at the AMA superbike races in Atlanta with the team. In 2009 Dennis was hired to be the lead technician for the Rossmeyer Geico Buell AMA superbike race team. In their first and only full race year the Buell 1125CR ridden by Danny Eslick completed the season with the AMA Daytona superbike championship. After Harley Davidson and Buell parted ways Dennis was hired by Erik Buell himself to lead the technical team for the post championship year race bikes in 2010.