Letter From Japan

LETTER FROM Japan

The real hero of Suzuka

They took the lead at the start; eight hours later, they crossed the finish line first. “They” were Wayne Gardner, Dominique Sarron and a very special Honda RVF750 racebike. This trio teamed up to win the Suzuka 8-Hour endurance race without ever giving up the top position to a rival team throughout the event.

Certainly, the talent of Gardner and Sarron was a major factor in the team’s domination of the race, but the special RVF750 was just as impressive. Built by hand at HRC, the bike was made just for this one race. And it was made for just one purpose: to win. It combines elements from the ’85-’86 European endurance bike with the latest version of the VFR engine similar to

the one that powers Wayne Rainey’s Superbike in America. This makes the Gardner/Sarron No. 4 RVF unlike any other motorcycle in the world. The bike’s performance was so overwhelming that, through the heat races and the final, it maintained a two-second-per-lap edge over the competition.

This edge was accomplished in no small part by the fact that the bike puts out over 130 bhpat 12,500

rpm. But the real surprise is the machine’s overall size. While its basic dimensions are roughly about the same as those of the 1985 model, it is lower and lighter. The engine has been moved slightly forward in the frame, and the swingarm is singlesided to facilitate quick rear-wheel changes.

When asked why the bike was developed so late in the racing year, the HRC project leader explained that the standard endurance bike was doing well enough as it was, so there was no need to improve it. For Suzuka, however, Honda wanted to have the best bike possible to make sure that no one would be able to have a better one.

Obviously, that plan succeeded. But it surely didn’t hurt to have two of the best riders.

Koichi Hirose