NSR - Northshore Racing ?

Slingshot92
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Slingshot92
Edited Date/Time 4/16/2016 4:25am
What is /was the story behind this company. I used to have a ported NSR cylinder in my RM-125, 1990. I've seen few for sale on Ebay also. Would like to know the story / history behing the company, for example does it still exists, etc.?
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Uncle Tony
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Uncle Tony 3/1/2016 6:21am
3/1/2016 6:21am
I remember them Being pretty big in the late 80's early 90's I had a cylinder for my cr500 from them I believe eric gorr did the porting for them
Uncle Tony
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Uncle Tony 3/1/2016 6:22am
3/1/2016 6:22am
They are no longer around, but gorr is
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yzvet426
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yzvet426 3/1/2016 6:49am
3/1/2016 6:49am
The only North Shore Racing I know of was a shop owned by Les Klinko in Highland Park Illinois. I bought my first few bikes from him. I left the sport in 1980 and from what I know that's about when he started to sponsor a few riders in the pro ranks. I think of a few of the guys I race with has sponsorships from them if you need more info

My brother in an old NSR shirt


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Tuffy
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Tuffy 3/30/2016 7:46pm
3/30/2016 7:46pm
Actually you got that sorta right...I started NSR with the owner of Northshore Honda Yamaha in Highland Park Illinois (Chicago area). His name is Chick Baruffi. He bought the dealership from the family of mobster, Allen Dorfman after he got whacked. He was Jimmy Hoffas finance guy who managed the teamsters pension fund that the mob used to build Las Vegas. Allen was whacked in a hotel parking lot in a Lincolnwood Illinois (the purple hyatt for those that know the area). He was depicted acurately in the movie Casino and was whacked at the end of the movie.

Anyways, I was the general manager and we were partnered with DGY which was in Downers Grove, Illinois. We became pretty powerful around 1986-1991 and sponsored both National and GP riders. We sold more FMF pipes than anyone in 87-90. Donny Emler is a cool dude.

Eric Gorr was our engine builder and it was Erics incredible talents that made our short run of fame and success. Numerous successful tests in MXA, Dirtbike, SuperMX mags made us a Honda mail order powerhouse.

Eventually we ran into financial problems for various reasons beyond our control and not because of mx... we moved about 70 miles into DGY's building...things kinda slid downhill from their. Eventually DGY NSR was sold and became just a normal honda, yamaha dealership.

I went into motion picture film production, chick opened a dive resort in Central america and a shooting range in waukegan illinois and it all disapeared before our eyes...Eric Gorr is still building the best engines in the world...look him up...forward motion...by the way, my name is Mike Ruffolo. I designed that sticker...that black sticker was the very first design...so cool to see it again...
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Slingshot92
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Slingshot92 3/30/2016 11:18pm
3/30/2016 11:18pm Edited Date/Time 3/30/2016 11:25pm
Few details of the RM125, 1990 cylinder porting:




Made a small comparison with my locally ported RM125, (1992 cylinder is ported according Suzuki Factory team guide).

NSR and my cylinder looks almost the same. NSR cylinder has a little bit different type of washing channel shaping. Suzuki advices to open it completely, NSR has just carved it a bit angled.


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Slingshot92
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Slingshot92 3/30/2016 11:25pm
3/30/2016 11:25pm
Question to Mike Ruffolo:
Was there a Europe NSR company also?

I have seen NSR cylinders with the identical logo with the decal/sticker. In the cylinder carving there is a special type of lettering in front of NSR text. Looks like T, etc.

Tuffy
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Tuffy 3/31/2016 3:54pm
3/31/2016 3:54pm
Slingshot: Yes, there was a European dealer...I believe "T" is correct, but I have been trying to remember the importer...His son was a GP rider (250 class) and his father/mechanic became our importer/dealer...but that was almost 30 years ago and I cannot remember his name.

I met him through one of our main European GP riders we sponsored who you may remember named Jorgen Nilsson. He introduced me to this young kid who ended up being really fast and doing well...we also helped him out with mods, parts, and also bikes at the USGP, etc...but again, I cannot remember his name.
Tuffy
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Tuffy 3/31/2016 3:58pm
3/31/2016 3:58pm Edited Date/Time 3/31/2016 7:11pm
Also, Eric Gorr ported all our cylinders using a Flow Bench.
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Slingshot92
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Slingshot92 4/1/2016 2:10am
4/1/2016 2:10am Edited Date/Time 4/1/2016 2:12am
Thank you for the additional info. The reason I actually started this topic was that I used to own RM125, model 1990 bike in early 90's here in Finland. The bike had NSR cylinder and it was always a mystery for me. My friend actually thought that it was somehow related to Honda NSR street bikes. Smile

The bike had a cylinder with a NSR logo in the side. Before me the bike belonged to 1990 Finnish mx 125 champion Marko Koskela. The story told that they ordered some parts for the bike from North America so this backups the story.
I think that some of the bottom end channels were also fine tuned and case matched so maybe the whole engine came from NSR. Too bad that I didn't understand the value of the cylinder then. Would be super cool now. Smile

The reason I asked about the cylinder extra decal was that I am almost certain that in my cylinder it only said 'NSR' without that extra 'T' -letter in the front. Maybe the basic NSR lettering was in USA cylinders and TNSR in Europe models?
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mx200
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mx200 4/1/2016 6:09am
4/1/2016 6:09am
Maybe the "T" was after Pedro Tragter
Mini Elsinore
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Mini Elsinore 4/3/2016 8:54am
4/3/2016 8:54am
Tuffy wrote:
Actually you got that sorta right...I started NSR with the owner of Northshore Honda Yamaha in Highland Park Illinois (Chicago area). His name is Chick Baruffi...
Actually you got that sorta right...I started NSR with the owner of Northshore Honda Yamaha in Highland Park Illinois (Chicago area). His name is Chick Baruffi. He bought the dealership from the family of mobster, Allen Dorfman after he got whacked. He was Jimmy Hoffas finance guy who managed the teamsters pension fund that the mob used to build Las Vegas. Allen was whacked in a hotel parking lot in a Lincolnwood Illinois (the purple hyatt for those that know the area). He was depicted acurately in the movie Casino and was whacked at the end of the movie.

Anyways, I was the general manager and we were partnered with DGY which was in Downers Grove, Illinois. We became pretty powerful around 1986-1991 and sponsored both National and GP riders. We sold more FMF pipes than anyone in 87-90. Donny Emler is a cool dude.

Eric Gorr was our engine builder and it was Erics incredible talents that made our short run of fame and success. Numerous successful tests in MXA, Dirtbike, SuperMX mags made us a Honda mail order powerhouse.

Eventually we ran into financial problems for various reasons beyond our control and not because of mx... we moved about 70 miles into DGY's building...things kinda slid downhill from their. Eventually DGY NSR was sold and became just a normal honda, yamaha dealership.

I went into motion picture film production, chick opened a dive resort in Central america and a shooting range in waukegan illinois and it all disapeared before our eyes...Eric Gorr is still building the best engines in the world...look him up...forward motion...by the way, my name is Mike Ruffolo. I designed that sticker...that black sticker was the very first design...so cool to see it again...
^^^this is why I love Vital. Information straight from the founder! Thank you for sharing the story of NSR.
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yzvet426
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yzvet426 4/4/2016 7:24am
4/4/2016 7:24am Edited Date/Time 4/4/2016 11:24am
Tuffy wrote:
Actually you got that sorta right...I started NSR with the owner of Northshore Honda Yamaha in Highland Park Illinois (Chicago area). His name is Chick Baruffi...
Actually you got that sorta right...I started NSR with the owner of Northshore Honda Yamaha in Highland Park Illinois (Chicago area). His name is Chick Baruffi. He bought the dealership from the family of mobster, Allen Dorfman after he got whacked. He was Jimmy Hoffas finance guy who managed the teamsters pension fund that the mob used to build Las Vegas. Allen was whacked in a hotel parking lot in a Lincolnwood Illinois (the purple hyatt for those that know the area). He was depicted acurately in the movie Casino and was whacked at the end of the movie.

Anyways, I was the general manager and we were partnered with DGY which was in Downers Grove, Illinois. We became pretty powerful around 1986-1991 and sponsored both National and GP riders. We sold more FMF pipes than anyone in 87-90. Donny Emler is a cool dude.

Eric Gorr was our engine builder and it was Erics incredible talents that made our short run of fame and success. Numerous successful tests in MXA, Dirtbike, SuperMX mags made us a Honda mail order powerhouse.

Eventually we ran into financial problems for various reasons beyond our control and not because of mx... we moved about 70 miles into DGY's building...things kinda slid downhill from their. Eventually DGY NSR was sold and became just a normal honda, yamaha dealership.

I went into motion picture film production, chick opened a dive resort in Central america and a shooting range in waukegan illinois and it all disapeared before our eyes...Eric Gorr is still building the best engines in the world...look him up...forward motion...by the way, my name is Mike Ruffolo. I designed that sticker...that black sticker was the very first design...so cool to see it again...
Hey Mike

I'm sure I bumped into you back inthe day. I lived across the street from Mike Belmonte. Two blocks from the Simo's. I always used to joke with the girl I was dating in highschool that her dad was connected. The day the news broke about Dorfman getting axed she told me he lived across the street from her. I stopped making that joke.... Didn't Chick have a hot daughter? BTW the Les Klinko was a typo. I have no idea where that name came from LOL.
Spartacus
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Spartacus 4/4/2016 9:58am
4/4/2016 9:58am
Wow, major flash back!

NSR did motor on my '89 r250 and turned it into a fire breathing monster. Unfortunately, I was not skilled enough to race a fire breathing monster........Sad
Mixon848
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Mixon848 4/4/2016 6:33pm
4/4/2016 6:33pm
Peter Dirx
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mark_swart 4/4/2016 8:37pm
4/4/2016 8:37pm
I used to order a ton of stuff from them in the 80s and their stickers were all over my CR. Lol they probably still have my dads credit card number!
Slingshot92
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Slingshot92 4/5/2016 11:32am
4/5/2016 11:32am
Few more NSR barrel images and marketing ad.















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tuggy450
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tuggy450 4/15/2016 7:21pm
4/15/2016 7:21pm
there was an article nov 1988 motocross action i believe had jorgen nilssons cr 250 by NSR remember following their mods to my cr 250, only slightly did not raise compression though, if anybody has it maybe they could post it up, the cr was fast in 89,

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Slingshot92
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Slingshot92 4/15/2016 8:34pm
4/15/2016 8:34pm
I have understood that for the better compression you need modified cylinder head.
tuggy450
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tuggy450 4/16/2016 4:25am
4/16/2016 4:25am
slingshot92. I forget it was a while ago and i remember them raising the transfer ports I believe, maybe the exhaust ports, I seem to remember maybe they raised the cylinder with a thicker gasket or doubled them?..then milled the deck and or head something like that to raise up the compression..Not exactly sure had read the article again somewhere on the web, recently tried to find it without luck just the cover, I remember not raising the compression on mine because I didn't want to lose ability to run pump gas, and liked the massive over-rev, If I was doing it again though i would mill the deck and mod the head, just to clean up zero the deck and run more cc's int the head to get compression closer to stock. think that would do it. On another note I saw a u-tube video where a 89 cr races a newer yz. the old girl gets absolutely destroyed, I was actually surprised,
Think it ran a psi pipe also but could be wrong, one of these days i will dig out what is left of my my old moto photos, and scan them, most were destroyed in hurricane sandy.
swodown348
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swodown348 10/14/2016 12:33pm
10/14/2016 12:33pm
Tuffy and Slingshot92, thank you for posting and sharing information!

I picked up a 1990 CR125 a little while back. The guy had it siting in his backyard for two years because he couldn't get it to start. I found the issue was no spark plug wire cap. While replacing it I found the "NSR" on the side of the cylinder. I intend to do a full restore on that bike, so if anyone has any NSR themed items or ideas please let me know. Thanks!
joelster 10/15/2025 1:53pm
10/15/2025 1:53pm

Thread revive time lol! A friend of mine just picked up an 87 CR 500 with big a NSR Racing logo on the side. Nice to k own that it's likely an Eric Gorr cylinder on the bike.Screenshot 20251015 152548 Messages

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motox2000 11/4/2025 11:55am
11/4/2025 11:55am

I found a 1987 NSR CR125R that Eric Gorr cleaned up the cylinder and head for me, somehow he marked all of the engines he built back in the day and was able to tell me this bike was originally Troy Bradshaw's.

 

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motox2000 11/8/2025 2:38pm
11/8/2025 2:38pm

Here's how it looks now. Eric from Speedfreeks did the coating and Eric Gorr went back over the original engraving, and cleaned up the cylinder and head.

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mx317
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mx317 11/17/2025 6:01am
11/17/2025 6:01am

I remember Eric Gorr telling me he traveled in Europe to the GPs on a GS750 Suzuki he had shipped over. He had filled the trunk and bags full of ported cylinders on the bike that he used for currency selling a cylinder or two when he went into another country. When the series was over, he sold the bike and flew home with a bunch of Castrol Team jackets that he almost got busted with at O'Hare airport. My vintage Elsinore has an Eric ported cylinder on it right now.

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