Yamaha is one of the great names in motorcycle racing with a committment to racing, rather than just building and selling the bikes commercially. It was Yamaha who produced the first over-the-counter racing superbike, the TZ750 whilst also gaining over 350 GP victories to date. Colin MacKellar, with the help of interviews with some of the key personalities that influenced Yamaha's fortunes and covering both technical advances and racing success, charts the development of the first YA1 and its successors. He looks at the early factory RD and RA racers, the giant-killing TDs and TRs and the mythical TZ750 superbike, before rounding off the story with an analysis of the YZ250, the mainstay of production racing over the last 20 years, and the OW and YZR factory racers in the Blue Ribband 500cc GP class.