dealerships, and I even did 90
days working at a Honda auto-
mobile dealership.
In December 1986, I went
to work at American Honda
in the Motorcycle (AHM) Divi-
sion. Twenty-eight years and
four months later I retired from
AHM. So, the circle is complete.
Young fan, customer, dealership
employee, Honda employee and
now back to "old" fan.
The Friday before the opening
round of the 2022 AMA outdoor
MX Nationals at Fox Raceway
in Pala, California, you might
have heard that American Honda
gathered the motorcycle press
for the release of their 2023
CRF450s and to recognize the
beginning Honda's venture into
motocross racing, celebrating
Honda's 50th year of participa-
tion in U.S. motocross. I was
A
merican Honda was born
(or, if you want, estab-
lished) in June 1959. I
was born in March 1960. Think
about that for a moment—in my
lifetime, Honda motorcycles
have always been around. For
the first nine years of my life no
human had walked on the moon.
I have been through all the
cycles with Honda.
In 1967, my local Honda
dealer was less than a 10-minute
Schwinn Sting-Ray ride from my
house, I'm sure I took hundreds
of dollars of brochures from
the shop racks to tack on to my
bedroom walls. In 1970, I (okay,
my father) became a customer
with the purchases of an SL70
and in 1972 again with an SL100,
and then many more Hondas
after that. From 1976 through
1986, I worked at local SoCal
motorcycle shops, mostly Honda
P136
CN
III GUEST SPEAKER
BY RAY CONWAY
FULL
CIRCLE
VIA
HONDA
Gary Jones and his
1974 championship-
winning Honda
CR250M Elsinore.
