Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127123
hi s first World Championship title in the seaso n that had just ended. That titl e came a quarter of a cent ury after Honda's first Australian World Champion road racer, Tom Phillis, gave them th eir inaugural cro wn in th e 125cc class. Nothing to do but hop int o the back of th e massive HRC transporter to cha nge, ' and head for th e hot tub, Japanese-style, to thaw o ut. Next morn in g, at least it was dry , if bitterly co ld, a nd th e rain (or was it snow?) held off long enough for me to get , 20 laps of the 3.7-mile Suzuka track o n Gardner's weapon - the motorcycle ch a m p io n of cha m p io ns. The excitement of being accorded such an honor by HRC was tempered by th e knowledge that, to begin with at least, it was so cold th at th e massive Michelin radial slicks were hardl y getting up to full operatin g tempera ture, and yet here I was, entru sted with a 150 bhp-plus projectil e capable of more than 190 mph and costing untold mi llions of yen. And, of co urse, I was supposed to return it all in one pi ece if I ever wa nted to test a factory Honda again! It wasn 't j ust th e cold weather th at was making me shiver. H onda's reconquest of the coveted World Ch ampionship 500cc road racing tit le last season was a textboo k ' a ffa ir, both for th em an d their ' A ust ralian Wayne Gard ner dominated the 500cc Wo rld Champio nship Series on the Honda N s R50 0. Impression: Honda NSRSOOD Road Racer Riding,Wayne Gardner's world beater By Alan Cathcart Photos by Koichi Ohtani A cold dark mornin g ·a t J apan 's Suzuka Circuit in early December, clouds gathering overhead, an d the occasional spit of rain on my visor. Yesterday was spent kicki n g my heels' in the so-called Driver's Saloon cafe, waiting for -I the rai n to stop and the track to dry, ' bench-racing with HRC personnel and slurping slithery noodles with the he lp of am ateurishl y-held chopsticks. An exploratory lap after the weak winter sun had been out for an hour or so showed the track still far too wet for me ' to venture out on the bik e I'd traveled halfway round the world to ride: the Honda NSR500 V-4 road racer which took Wayne Gardner to A lan Cathcart puts the 500cc V-four through its paces at the suzuka Circuit in Japan , 28 Australian star rider. In the 'co urse of th e longest ' GP season ever, Gardner and his NSR500 remarkably enough scored points in every one of the 15races, including the German ' , G P where the only real mechanical hic cup of the season saw Gardner drop down the race order with a misfire later traced to the ignition system. After tha t, Honda's electronics supp lier Kokkusan changed the black box and revamped the filter system to exclude any chance of outside interference from shortwave radio broadcasts affecting the cornputerized chip controlling the ignition, and there were no more problems . Gardner never rea lly looked .likely tobe overhauled by the Yamahas in the point standingsand won the title with a race to spare. Both he ,and the new NSR500 had performed to perfection, with total reliabili ty. In the case of the bike, that was all the more remarkable because the 1987 model Honda NSR500D was effectively a comp letely new design, rather than a revamped version of the first V-4 two-stroke Honda which appeared in 1984. While retaining