The Rise and Fall of HRC
We all got so used to Honda winning everything for so long that their slow-down in race results, followed by recent pull-outs, have sent wagging tongues into overdrive. What’s really going on at Honda and why?
In the Eighties and Nineties World Championship motorcycle racing was a relatively simple affair. If
Honda entered, Honda won. Honda were so good they even made the final results of some racing series boring with such unremitting success, and their numerical domination of most other classes. Doohan, Lawson, Gardner, Dunlop, Merkel, Spencer, Kocinski: the list was endless and assured. No one could deny that Honda had it all under control when they chose to wind up the wick, on any number of fronts. They were The Untouchables.
And then things changed. Bit by bit, Honda stopped winning so much. The championships came, but with more effort and not as regularly. Key people left, moved on. And psychologically, the arena had altered. For example, if you were a prospective MotoGP racer right now and Rossi, Stoner and Pedrosa all decided to retire tomorrow, would you automatically chose to ride the factory Honda any more? In the days of Doohan, Rainey and Schwantz, you would have rushed into that Honda awning with a tin of silver polish before you could say “and the next world champion is...” But today, that choice is far from automatic.
Down Memory Pitlane
If we take a snapshot of what seemed like a typical year of other-era competition for Honda – in 1997 – the contrast between then and now is amazing.
Doohan is World Champion for the fourth of five times, NSR500s of some kind win every GP contested and Honda wins its 10th constructors’ championship. Biaggi wins 250cc championship first time out on an NSR250. The NSR500V twin, the saviour of many 500GP privateers, goes on sale. Kocinski is WSB champion on an impossibly expensive full-factory RC45. Itoh and Ukawa win 8-Hours. Stefan Everts retains his 250MX crown.
Even in 2004 Pedrosa won in 250s, Dovizioso won in 125s, Muggeridge won WSS, Ukawa/Izutsu took the 8-Hour, Takahisa Fujinami won World Trials. But the tide was turning. Valentino Rossi won MotoGP on a Yamaha, motocross was becoming the domain of virtually everybody apart from Honda, and Ten Kate was forced to run a virtually private/ Honda Europe Superbike effort after the factory left WSB in a huff in 2003.
And so to the present day. The championship successes of Honda in all forms of major racing in 2008 are just World Supersport, World Trial and the Suzuka 8-Hours. Unthinkable just five years ago. Honda used to win just about every single championship they took seriously. It was their ethos, the way they did things, and it was expected by everyone. It’s still expected today. But now the paucity of results Honda has had compared to its previously dominant position in all levels of competition begs all manner of questions. And their exit from the u¨bermoney world of Formula One (to the tune of around £200 million) is nothing short of a tsunami shock wave in motor racing.
