Full custom dirt tracker emerges from rusted and forgotten road bike
Plenty of special motorcycles fronted up for the recent Sunday Slide, but none more unique than custom builder Giovanni’s SR540.
The bike started life as a 1988 SR400 roadster and was purchased for the sum of just one dollar after Gio spotted the lifeless and rusty single in a Sydney restaurant car park. Fast forward 400 hours of intense workshop action and the bike has emerged as a 540cc dirt track weapon scoring the Machine Show’s people’s award and Pipeburn bike of the year titles along the way.
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After showing the bike, Sunday Slide was the event chosen to see how the SR540 performed. A cracking May day at Nepean Raceway dawned for the 540’s debut ride where the bike that features many YZ250F parts - including a swingarm, brakes and USD forks – displayed the go to match the show. The rear wheel hooked up instantly – controlled by a single Öhlins monoshock lifted from a Ducati Supersports bike that Gio was saving for the project.
Fitted with an oversize Wiseco piston, XT500 crankshaft and ported cylinder head, Gio was expecting a bit more power – but was still happy with the 540’s maiden voyage around the groomed dirt track circuit. “It was tricky building a bike capable of winning a show and performing well on tracl. But it was a fun build and is even more fun to ride,” Gio says.
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If the colour looks familiar to Yamaha MX fans, that’s because it was based on the 2024 50th anniversary YZ colour scheme, built to commemorate half a century of YZ production.
Gio was joined by another 100-odd dirt track lovers, many of whom rode Yamahas from the 1970s and on including XT500s, DT250s and YZ/ITs of varying capacities. Sunday Slide is a vintage dirt bike meet organized by The Jerkyls in conjunction with the City Of Penrith MCC - but no-one gets too hung up about authenticity. Organiser Geoff Watson took to the track on a vintage looking machine that on closer inspection was running an electric start. An even closer look revealed a cunningly-disguised XT225 motor, built for fun - like so many other machines at Sunday Slide.