Claim: Narazo Shimazu, Shimazu Motor Research Institute founder, went to New York for foreign motorcycle races in his teens.
Evidence: Shimazu was born in Japan in 1888. In 1903, his father bought him a bicycle. In the same year he encountered a motorcycle. He went to Tokyo for races of foreign motorcycles. In 1908, at the age of 20, he established the Shimazu Motor Research Institute, where he designed and built the first two-stroke engine in Japan.