Don Miller, a good friend of the MPN team, is one of those guys that always has something interesting cooking behind the scenes. The Brackney, Pennsylvania man better known by the moniker of “Donzzilla” owns and operates a t-shirt company called Metro Racing as his primary endeavor. But on the side, he builds custom motorcycles as a hobby and to promote his business.
Tentative readers may remember Miller’s creatively built “Pie Wagon” chopper, which he originally made for the Born Free show and also showed off at Fuel Cleveland last year. This year he brought another cool bike, although this one is more of a restoration project.
Dick Mann, one of the greatest motorcycle racers of all time, worked with OSSA Yankee to build his own race bike, which he won multiple events with. For marketing purpose, the company decided to replicate the motorcycle for the masses, which eventually became known as the OSSA DMR (Dick Mann Replica).
Ed Salley was hired to be one of the factory riders for the new bike, and amazingly came out on top in Daytona in 1971. Salley had tough competition in the likes of Kenny Roberts, Mike Kidd, Gary Scott, Rex Beauchamp, and Barry Briggs, all of whom went on to become future motorcycle racing champions.
Miller knew Salley personally, and after a good amount of convincing, he was able to obtain the famous winning bike from him.
“Once this four-speed 250 motor was no good anymore, a 360 Yamaha went in,” Miller said. “Up until 2010, the legendary Garth Brow was racing this down south with a Yamaha YZ 450 motor in it, and you can imagine the modifications that were done to the frame and everything to get it to that point.”
“It took me two days to grind all the mounts that he had put on there over time. We added brakes since it was raced without them, and we just took everything off and refabricated it.”
Miller found factory drawings that helped with crafting the motor mounts, and good friend Jimmy Yuhas replicated all the welds. Eddie Jones handled the paintwork.
A lot of helping hands worked in coordination to complete a build that also serves as a touching memorial to one of the greats. After Salley passed in 2020, he was added to the Daytona Wall of Fame just two days short of the 50th anniversary of his win at Daytona. For the crowning ceremony, Miller’s restored OSSA was on full display.
If you have a motorcycle, ATV, UTV, snowmobile or jet ski you’d like to feature in MPN’s Ride of the Week series, please email MPN Content Director Greg Jones at [email protected]
