... When it comes to racing, Honda hates

to lose In the 1960s the Honda Motor

Company went after the world roadracing

championships with one, two, four, five

and six cylinder machines, and Honda

conquered all After winning the 50cc,

125cc, 250cc, 350cc World Champi-

onships and the 500cc Manufacturer’s

title, Honda withdrew their fantastic ar-

mada from Europe and returned to Japan

in 1967. The factory officially appeared

at Daytona in 1970 with 750cc works

bikes which disappeared after bagging

the 200-miler To this day, virtually no one

knows anything about these champi-

onship motorcycles.

In racing matters the Japanese worship

secrecy with genuine fervor they closely

guard all information concerning their

factory equipment. Much of Japanese

racing technology only reaches the pro-

duction line years later—and sometimes

not at all After eleven world motocross

titles and seven years of domination in

three grand prix classes, the paying cus-

tomer has been able to buy very few GP

innovations from Suzuki

Yamaha has likewise moved forward

and backwards with equal mystery Ya-

maha won the 1973 250cc World Cham-

pionship in motocross with a bike which

had conventional rear suspension,

meanwhile, the production-line moto-

crossers were fitted with Yamaha’s mon-

oshock system. Since Kalevi Vekhonen’s

championship title, not a single Yamaha

GP Monoshocker has made a title threat

Technical information about Yamaha’s

factory motocrossers, past and present,

lies behind a thick wall of secrecy.

That Honda, the all-time champion of

secrecy, stays lip-locked about its. works

motocrossers should not surprise you.

But this situation is nevertheless con-

founding Cycle's staffers have dug

deeply into the bowels of Jim Pomeroy’s

Bultaco, Ake Jonsson’s 400 Maico, the

360cc Husky Mikkola bike, Can-Am's GP

racer, and Jiri Falta's CZ replica. All fac-

tory racers have different porting config-

urations, carburetors, pipes, suspension

units, tires and chassis; yet they can be

championship bikes In general, the Eu-

ropean factories delight in showing jour-

nalists the close, or sometimes distant,

relationship between their works equip-

ment and production-line bikes. But not

the Japanese.

Secrecy becomes understandable

when victory utterly depends upon small

technological margins. But a grand prix

motocross victory rests on three equal

parts—the rider, the preparation and the

machine, Joel Robert was World Cham-

pion on a CZ before joining to Suzuki;

nrrnDcn 1O7R

A SECRET PAINTED RED

Honda's

RC400

Factory

Motocross

Racer

COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY: LARRY WILLETT

Ake Jonsson trampled the competition in

the Trans-AMA on a Maico and then

switched to Yamaha; Jim Wienert was the

500cc national champion on a Kawasaki

before being bought by Yamaha; and

Gary Jones was three-time AMA 250

champion on three different bikes: Honda,

Yamaha and Can-Am. Though the equip-

ment is only one element in winning, the

Japanese stay mum. Honda volunteers

very little information about works

bikes—and treats detailed questions as

unneeded and undesirable prying into

official factory business.

It’s much easier to find out how the

motocross effort fits into the Honda orga-

nization. Honda handles open class

motocross quite differently than their rac-

ing offensive of the 1960s. Similar to the

Baja program, the distributor (American

Honda) is the official racing sponsor in

motocross. This shields the Japanese

factory from any embarrassing failures.

But the factory connection is very real.

The US racing department (the Sports

Division) is strictly controlled by Honda’s

service director, Mr. Teruhisa Ohki.

American Honda purchases the RC 400...