Cycle News

VOL. 55 ISSUE 42 OCTOBER 23, 2018 P117 1960, Hansen opened a motorcy- cle dealership in Racine and was one of the first dealers in the Mid- west to sell Honda motorcycles. Hansen was soon asked to set up a regional parts warehouse, which he did in Racine. For a time, he was in charge of setting up many of the earliest Honda dealerships in the Midwest. Still in love with racing, Hansen, without Honda's knowledge, built a few Hondas that were success- fully raced in Canada as early as 1962. Honda brass politely asked him to quit building the race bikes when customers began calling Honda to get these "rac- ing models" for themselves. He continued to move up the ladder at Honda and eventually moved to the company's headquarters in Southern California to head up the service department. While with Honda, Hansen headed up several racing efforts with the company's lightweight and middleweight motorcycles. Most notable was a semi-factory Honda effort at Daytona in 1967 with a trio of HRC-prepared CB450s. When Honda introduced its revolutionary CB750, it wanted to prove the speed and reliability of the new machine by racing in the 1970 Daytona 200. Hansen was given the responsibility of head- ing up the effort on the American side. Hansen recalls that the CB750s (of which there were four factory entries) had plenty of speed, but there was a problem with the cam-chain tensioner on the high-speed Daytona circuit. After the problem was discov- ered, Hansen made the decision to keep Mann off the bike dur- ing the final day of practice so that the machine could be totally rebuilt. Mann's bike was the only factory Honda to go the distance and he won the race over the Tri- umphs of Gene Romero and Don Castro, despite Mann's Honda having less than a half-quart of oil left in the engine at the finish. It marked the first win in the Daytona 200 by a Japanese manufacturer. "You have to give a lot of the credit to Bob," said Dick Mann on his 1970 Daytona victory. "He did some extra work on the bike that the European teammates didn't do, and our bike finished and they didn't. We had a good strategy and worked well togeth- er, and it was a real workout for both of us, but it all worked out at the end." Just a few months after Hon- da's victory at Daytona, Hansen accepted an attractive offer to work for Kawasaki. That com- pany wanted to establish a name in racing as well and felt Hansen would be the right person to coordinate its efforts. It proved to be a good decision. Under Han- sen's guidance, Kawasaki won its first AMA national with Yvon Duhamel and became a power- house in U.S. racing. While at Kawasaki, Hansen also served as vice president of the AMA's competition commit- tee, the rules-making body for racing. Hansen was also the U.S. delegate on the FIM road racing committee. By the mid-1970s, Hansen had moved out of the motorcycle industry. After a short stint with the Italian manufacturer, Laverda, Hansen made his living in real estate. After retiring Hansen kept up with his interest in motorcycles by restoring collector bikes and act- ing as a consultant for Heritage Racing, Honda's vintage racing division. He was also in demand at various race gatherings and gave talks on his days in racing. Hansen died February 17, 2013. He was 93. Hansen will always be re- membered for many things, but perhaps most notably for helping Honda see the wisdom of getting more heavily involved in American racing during a period of explo- sive growth in the sport. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives Hansen in 2004.

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