1982 Honda Ft500 Ascot on 2040-motos

Moto blog

Suzuka Eight Hour capers

Chatting to TT legend John McGuiness recently about his first Suzuka Eight Hour experience got me thinking of a few capers the boys and me managed a few years back at what is still Japan's most important race of the season. It is a unique event that starts at 11am and finishes at 7pm making  it a pukka endurance race as the last hour is run with headlights on in the dark. It is essentially an eight hour sprint that showcases the trickest endurance machinery and manufacturer’s sales can be affected the following year depending on who wins or loses.

Do you remember Honda's EVO Blade?

I can remember exactly where I was when I first saw Honda's TT100 Evolution Fireblade: at the dinner table, reading MCN as a 16-year old lad and being told to put the paper down and get on with my dinner! I'm sure you appreciate why the lamb chops had to wait.. It was created by Honda to celebrate their 100th TT victory, however I'm pretty sure Honda had another agenda: to homologate it so they could put it up against the mighty new Yamaha R1 at the TT.

Stoner Tests Honda RCV1000R MotoGP Production Racer

Retired two-time MotoGP Champion Casey Stoner returned to the track this week to test Honda‘s RC213V racer as well as the company’s new RCV1000R production racer at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit in Japan. This was Stoner’s first test on the production racer after rain cut short a previous test session in August. The weather again threatened to derail Honda’s testing plans, wiping out the first day of the two-day test but Stoner was able to finally able to put in some laps on the production racer and came away impressed.