The YZ moniker made its debut in 1974. But perhaps the most surprising thing about the first that first YZ250 was that was initially a project taken on by a father and son team in the States, Don and Gary Jones. With some help from Yamaha, Don built Gary a bike out of a DT-1 that would go on to win the very first AMA motocross title in 1972. They shipped the bike back to Japan where Yamaha went to work improving on the base the Jones’s had established and by 1975 Yamaha had the first mono-shock motocross bike in the world. From there Yamaha would go on to innovate time and again with reed valves, power valves and liquid cooling amongst the list of firsts.
Yamaha also singed future Hall of Famer, Bob “Hurricane” Hannah, in 1975 to ride the YZ125 and it’s often not recognized that Hannah actually won all his championships on a Yamaha and never won another after he left the team. His all-time winning record would stand until it was surpassed by another rider who bagged a heap of titles on a Yamaha in Jeremy McGrath.