Written by Martin Hodgson
With almost any style of motorcycle there are different stages of customisation you can go to while still accomplishing a complete build. A race replica doesn’t need a 200hp engine and the very beauty of a cafe racer is only a handful of changes can get the job done. But building a board tracker is the exception, you have to go all-in or not at all. So when Chris Kent and the team at Iowa?s Smith Brother?s Classic Cycles & Customs decided to push their chips to the middle of the table they were committed to doing it once and doing it right. With the help of some of the best in the industry, the result is this beautiful 1973 Honda CB350F board track racer for the road.

?The National Motorcycle Museum is about 20 minutes from my house and every time I go in there I find myself drawn to the display area of an original board track with the period-correct racers. This was a great source of inspiration and ever since I first stepped into the museum it?s been something I knew I wanted to undertake,? Chris explains. The more he thought about the project the more he realised a small donor bike for the build would keep the dimensions similar to the sleek and minimal look of the machines of old.
Thankfully one of the Smith boys had the Honda in the shed and it was soon up on the lift with the measuring tape being offered up. ?Initially I was going to try and modify the original frame but once we had the bike stripped down it was obvious that was ...