R
B
Return to the Inner Sanctum
Inside Honda's Indy race shop
Mike Velasco gets ready to pull an engine out of a special shipping case
that logs many miles between Indianapolis and California.
By Bert Shepard
Five years ago Cycle News visited Honda's
Indianapolis race shop which at the time
served as the. eastern headquarters of the
Japanese manufacturer's dirt track team:
The tea m was managed by
former Grand National Cham.
G
R
nd h
pion e!le omero, . an .t e
factory pilots were MIke Kid d,
18
Hank Scott and Terry Po o vey.
Mechanics Dan Maurel, Den n is
Jones, Dave Bird and Jerry Griffith
prepped the bi kes.'
Clearance for that 1983 visit came
from the then head of HRC, Mr.
Kazu ka. Perso n n el cha nges have
occure d up and down the line at
Honda since that last visit and the
occupants of the Indy building now
are tu ners Skip Eaken and Mike
Velasco. Ap proval for our visit this
summer came from the boss of the
Bubb a Shobert Racing Team Bub ba Shobert.
O ne thi ng has not changed - j ust ยท
as m 1 9~3, the only re~~lt of what
goes on m the Indy Iacility must be
winning.
"I'd like to win every race, every
time we unload the truck," said tuner
Eaken. ''' We have three goals for this
year : one, win the Camel P ro title;
two, collect the Grand National
Championship; and three, take the
Superbike ti tle. Any other records
that might be broken or tied (Jay
Springsteen's' 40 National victories
and Carroll Resweber 's four Grand
National Championship titles) will
just happen; they are not goals."
Eaken has been with Honda since
1984 and makes up a third of the
H onda-backed Bubb a Shobert Raeing T eam.
