Jake Weimer Jimmy Lewis Travis...
Jake Weimer
Jimmy Lewis
Travis Preston
It is well known that being on the factory Honda race team is the pinnacle of the sport of motocross. So much so that young racers dream of it, support riders strive for a position and when champions arrive, they are expected to win, for they are perceived to have every advantage. When champions leave, beating Honda is usually one of their top priorities. So what is it like to be a member of Team Honda? If we could tell you, we would. By begging and pleading, we got factory-rider treatment for one day with Team Honda, obtaining an invite to an SX test session and a behind-the-scenes peek at one of the most secretive operations in motocross. We even got to ride a race bike!
Our experience wasn't the glamorous side of being one of the few talented enough to make the cut at Team Honda-the kind of rider who sees a crowd line up to get our autograph, who is cheered from the stands as we dazzle them with our stellar riding ability on the unobtanium machine, knowing we're compensated with a big-bucks contract. No, this was a more typical day, most particularly for Andrew Short, who was out to practice, train and test some parts on his machine. Testing and practicing are a huge component of the game, a piece of doing what it takes to get on top and stay there. And this is one of the recognized strong points of Honda-going the distance to give its riders everything they need to win. There are very few doubters of Honda's race bikes.
"Within reason, they can have anything they want," says Dan Betley, the team's motocross research and development manager. "Our job is to continually test and develop better stuff and offer it to them to race with, as well as set up the bikes exactly as each rider wants." From what I can tell after riding a lot of factory bikes, that is the biggest advantage a factory rider gets-the attention in testing and developing settings that make his bike the best it can be. The bike is made for him and him alone.
For Honda, it takes a fleet of full-time guys, from truck drivers to in-house development guys to suspension techs to the factory mechanics. Even Jeremy McGrath is a big part of the team, and apart from his extremely successful part-time racing gig, he is mainly a test rider for development of the race team's 450.
"The sport is so specialized that it isn't like back in the day when mechanics were cutting frames and laying down shocks. Now we have a technician for everything, with the mechanic just responsible for building the bikes and keeping them tuned to the rider." Betley knows this because he's been through the game, wrenching for Jeff Stanton during his championship years.
Dirt Rider was one of the first outsiders to have been allowed to ride a race bike during the season (it was actually the 250F test bike for Davi Millsaps and Andrew Short) and make some changes to it to have a taste, even as small as it was, of the secrets of the Red Riders. From lever position and shock clicker setting to getting the opportunity to ride a second engine with a different setting, Matt Armstrong and I were "in." To top it off, Short's mechanic, Chris Loschiavo, was very attentively watching over us as if we were his riders (wouldn't you if your bike was in the hands of amateurs?). We were getting star treatment, which meant being bombarded with questions such as, "What did you think of that?" and "How did this work?" McGrath was there to pick up a test bike and even dished out a few pointers to me, as he does for the team riders in his role as test rider and rider coach. "Just leave it in third," he told me. Why do a lot of top riders always tell me that? "I've never seen that done before," jokingly referring to my riding in places on the track that had been touched only by tractor cleats previously, never motorcycle tires. And it was late in the afternoon and beginning to get dark when the action really became intense. That's because the Honda test track in the foothills of Corona, California, has stadium lighting, set up so riders could better acclimate themselves to ride under lights, and the team is able to test in conditions more similar to a true race scenario. The air density is different, there is moisture coming out of the ground, things change when night sets in. Travis Preston was there testing some clutch stuff on his 450. Later Jake Weimer and Tommy Hahn showed up to do laps on their Sobe/Samsung/Honda bikes.