DAVIDBAILEYMX.COM

FEATURE STORY

Works Bike Era
Sure do miss the works bikes. It's not to say the bikes today aren't well put together and forgiving, but this 25-year old bike changed everything! Until then, removable tail sections didn't exist. That particular one was all aluminum. Seats weren't anything but black and they didn't go up on the tank. Roger DeCoster took information from the legendary mechanics as well as Dave Arnold and convinced Japan that after some years of less the great CR's, they needed to step up. They answered. The radiators were lower, the tank came all the way down, the pipe was lower and the seat made us more comfortable riding further forward. It was fast too! Hansen won the SX and 250 titles on it, Magoo smoked Europe on it, I came into my own on it and Honda used this technology to lure Hannah and continue to dominate. The next year we went 1-2-3!

This was when Daytona crossed over pit road and was regular Florida sand, not the golf course crushed rock type soil that exists now to keep the cars from flipping. It didn't rut up as bad and got a lot rougher due to the 40-rider field two-row start!

Darryl Shultz (seated without a shirt) won that day. I was moving up the ladder after a broken foot and finished 7th.

From L to R:

Lisa Hansen, Brian Lunnis who tuned for her husband, an important Japanese guy, Dave Arnold, Jim Gibson?s bike #8, Shultz, Paul Turner trying to fill that tank, which was tricky because all the gas was below the red part.

When Paul retired from factory Honda, he partnered with Steve Simmons to create Rock Shox and Cliff White became my golden wrench!

After Donnie suffered his career ending injury in Germany, Lunnis wrenched for Hannah.

It wasn't until 2-years later that the first ever official SX test track was constructed. John Savitski and his crew carved out Hondaland in Simi Valley thanks to Jim Felt, who stumbled on to that incredible setting while hunting Bobcats!

Enjoy

My dad sent the photo, but he didn't take it. He was busy with the track.

db