history

in 1971 The AMA had announced that the regulations for 1972 had been changed to allow 750 cc two strokes to compete in 750 cc class, leading Kawasaki to develop a race version of the road-going H2.

in 1972 During practice for the bikes first outing, the 1972 Daytona 200, it was found the chains and tyres had trouble handling the claimed 100 bhp of the machine.[7] Yvon Duhamel, Gary Nixon and Paul Smart all retired from the race with chain and tyre problems.[8]

 For 1973 the AMA changed the regulations to match the newly introduced In 1973 FIM Formula 750. The FIM regulations required the road bike cylinders to be used. Kawasaki had cast new outer cylinders for the H2R with exhaust ports pointing inwards towards the centreline to allow the fairing to be narrowed. On the road bike the ports pointed outwards. To overcome this Kawasaki swapped the outer cylinders to the opposite sides. The outer cooling fins had to be machined down to allow this which made cooling of the engine marginal leading to a number of failures over the season