Cw 25 Years Ago June 1989
CW 25 YEARS AGO JUNE 1989
IGNITION
NEWS
A time-warp issue: For two separate stories, our editors asked riding champions from a previous era to sample some new bikes of the day. At Willow Springs, Gary Nixon, Mert Lawwill, and Roger Reiman lapped the Kawasaki ZX-10, Suzuki GSX-R1100, and Yamaha FZR1000, while Jim Pomeroy,
Mike Bell, Marty
Smith, and Gary Jones blasted around Perris Raceway on five new 250cc motocrossers for 1989. Testing wrapped, ourfirst group chose the FZR as theirfavorite Superbike, while our dirt legends selected the Honda CR250.
“If I could have had suspension like these bikes have,” a grizzled Pomeroy summed up after the test,
“I would have won every race in Europe.”
Also tested: Honda’s PC800 Pacific Coast, a new V-twinpowered machine with fully enclosed bodywork that made the bike look like a baby Cold Wing of sorts. David Dewhurst photographed the bike-where else?-on the beautiful Pacific
Coast Highway of Northern California, and although the novel Honda was by no means a unanimous hit with our staff members, we included these words in the test’s conclusion: “Beneath the plastic bodywork, behind the hopes and aspirations of the marketing folks at Honda, there lies a genuinely fine motorcycle.”
Lastly, in Race Watch, we predicted that John Kocinski-winner of the 250CP and GOO Supersport classes at Daytona-would be a future world champion and that Jeff Stanton, Ricky Johnson’s teammate at Honda, “might well be” the next supercross champ. We were right on both counts.
-Andrew Bornhop
