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VOL. 51 ISSUE 24 JUNE 17, 2014 P125 RSC assured the American side that the Superbikes would be in the 140 hp range, but to the American team's dismay, when the bikes showed up from Japan and were put on the dyno, according to McLaughlin, of the 22 engines RSC sent over "not one of them had more than 118 hp." That sent the American Honda team into overdrive, a couple of weeks of intense 24/7 development work to try to find extra ponies, in spite of the fact that Honda Japan specified not to touch the motors. Time was get- ting short for Daytona and after trying numerous things in the motor to bring up horsepower numbers, the team was nearly at wits end. Then late one night, during a memorable non-stop two-day, session at Jerry Branch's shop, Mike Velasco stepped out to the parking lot to take a break. He lit up a "cigarette" and sat there on the bumper of an El Camino thinking. That's when it came to him. McLaughlin explains. "Mike said, 'You know, I think I've figured out what the problem is. I think they screwed up the exhaust system where the collector comes to- gether.' " Velasco began furiously hacking away at the exhaust and once he was done they put the engine back on the dyno and immediately it had 135 horsepower. At Daytona, Honda was back in force for the first time in 10 years. Still a bit shy on horsepower, just as McLaughlin predicted, Spencer was brilliant on the bike and figuring out ways to run with the faster bikes of Kawasaki and Suzuki. In the first Superbike qualify- ing heat race Spencer deftly stayed with Wes Cooley on the Yosh Suzuki, by riding the wheels off the Honda in the infield and staying in Cooley's draft on the banking. Side by side the Suzuki was considerably faster, but the Honda had just enough to briefly slingshot around the Suzuki if Spencer caught the draft right and that's what he did to beat Cooley to the line in the qualifying race and earn the pole. Spencer later recalled what it was like to ride the new Honda Superbike. "It was a handful. With lots of horsepower and sticky slick tires, chassis rigidity was a problem. And it had a light-switch powerband. All the energy would wind up in the frame, and, boy, that thing would really start moving. Once the power would hit, it would wind up the chassis and I had to leave a few extra feet at the exit of the turns to let it react. You had to gauge how much it was going to slide and flex and eat up race track." In the 100-mile Daytona Superbike final Cooley and Spencer went to the front. One of Yoshimura's other riders, New Zealand's Graeme Crosby, on the bike Cooley rode the '79 AMA Superbike title, started from the back because of a scoring technicality in his heat race, but he was quickly making his way to the front. About a third of the way through the race Cooley faded with engine problems. Spencer was all alone out front on the new Honda. After their respective fuel stops Spencer and Crosby ran together on the track. Spencer said he intention- ally dropped back to gauge Crosby and at that point he knew he was in trouble. The brand new Honda was still lacking a bit of power against the fully developed Suzuki. "I wanted to see what the deal was with his Suzuki," Spencer said. "Off the corners his bike would jump right out on mine. If you got out of his draft he'd leave you." Then Spencer's rear shocks began to fade, he later said he thought because he had to ride so hard in the infield to try to stay with Crosby. In the end Spencer finished second 4.9 seconds behind Crosby. Spencer would go on to win three races in 1980, bringing the Honda home first at Elkhart Lake, Loudon and Laguna Seca, managing to match race wins with Lawson and Cooley, but reliability issues meant Spen- cer only managed third in the series behind Cooley and Lawson. In '81 he again won a lot of poles and races, but finished a close second to Lawson in one of the most hard-fought battles in the series history. So even though Honda came back into racing in America with a massive effort in 1980, it would take them two more years before they won a road racing title here in AMA Formula 1 with Mike Baldwin on the revolutionary Honda FWS1000 V-Four, giving Honda the distinction of becoming the first manufacturer to win the AMA Formula 1 title with a four-stroke-powered machine. The inline-four Honda never won the AMA Superbike title. That would have to wait for the V-Four Hondas to come on the scene. CN HONDA COMES BACK TO AMERICA Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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