Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 38 SEPTEMBER 23, 2014 P99 Honda had just launched the water-cooled V-Four Sabre. That motor would serve to be the basis for the FWS1000, which actually displaced the AMA's maximum legal limit of 1025cc. The FWS made its racing debut at Daytona in 1982 with Freddie Spencer and Mike Baldwin at the controls. It was nearly impossible to get a close look at the new bike the crowd was so packed around it every time it rolled out of the garage. It was a beautiful racing machine, and in many ways it wouldn't look terribly out of place on the grid of a GP race even today, that's how far ahead of its time it was. A single-shock in the rear with a titanium rising-rate spring, four-piston brakes up front and floating discs riding an anti-dive Showa fork. Mag- nesium wheels, with a 16-inch front tire completed the package. The bike was heavy by two-stroke F1 racing standards, but the 1025cc, water-cooled, gear-driven cam V-four was so powerful and had so much torque, that it would pull that extra weight with no problem. So wide was the powerband that Honda elected to go with a five-speed transmission versus the normal six-speed gearbox on most F1 race bikes. This was at the height of the era of Yamaha trying to catch Honda in sales in the American market. And since Honda was going to show up with this exotic new motorcycle Yamaha decided to throw down its ace card at Daytona in the form of the OW60 Grand Prix machine for Kenny Roberts. The FWS and the OW were just about perfectly matched. With the Yamaha being lighter, Rob- erts had an edge in the infield, but it was negated somewhat by the massive power drives Spencer and Baldwin could get out of the corners with the FWS. The trio split from the rest of the field early on and swapped the lead back and forth numerous times per lap. The big battle between the exotic bikes at Day- tona ultimately proved to be anticlimactic. Rob- erts' GP bike seized about 10 laps in and the FWS proved to be a tire eater and Spencer and Baldwin had to start making unscheduled pit stops for tires, something that prior to then had rarely been done in the 200. Ultimately the established and reliable TZ750 came out on top in the race with Graeme Crosby taking victory. In spite of the extra tire stops Spencer still managed second, while Bald- win fell to fourth after running low on fuel. After Daytona Spencer was off to the Grand Prix Championships and motocross racer Steve Wise, who'd performed so spectacularly in the ABC Wide World of Sports Superbikers competi- tion (Supermoto) that Honda decided to give him a shot as a road racer, ran the FWS that Spencer raced at Daytona for the rest of the '82 season. Wise made a spectacular road-racing debut on the FWS. He led the AMA Formula One point standings for most of the season and was nipped by veteran teammate Mike Baldwin on the other FWS by just three points for the championship. The victory of Baldwin and the FWS in AMA F-1 was a great comeback for both. For Honda it proved a four-stroke, with enough technology and money thrown at it, could beat the two-strokes. For Baldwin it was a triumphant return to America after suffering a serious leg injury in 1979, which kept him out of action for a year. He came back by way of endurance road racing in Europe be- fore coming back to the AMA series in '82. Baldwin put an exclamation point on the history of the Honda FWS when he repeated the AMA F-1 title in 1983, but by now the exotic V-4 low snarl of the FWS was much more commonplace with the advent of Honda's VF750 Superbike (not quite as low of a note, but similar to the FWS). Baldwin later called the FWS one of his all-time favorite race bikes. After '83 the FWS was no more. It became part of road racing lore and one of the iconic racing machines of the 1980s. If you want to see one in person today you'll have to go to Honda's mu- seum in Japan. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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