There they sat. Static, at rest. A lineup of Honda’s motorsports heroes at the 2019 Tokyo Motor Show celebrating 60 years of Honda Racing. The gallery started from the beginning: the 1959 grands prix motorcycle looking like a primitive tool from a bygone era; Richie Ginther’s 1965 Formula 1 machine a sepia-toned reminder of a very different time; Freddie Spencer’s 1980s NSR 500 ready to fight in a cloud of two-smoke oil.
And then.
First in the queue: 1988 McLaren MP4/4 Honda. The absolute peak of a Formula 1 era: the final year before turbochargers were banned; the first driver’s championship for Ayrton Senna; the car that won 15/16 races in the season, wheeled by Senna and 4-time driver’s champion Alain Prost. The car is nothing short of legendary, a landmark part of Honda’s racing history and one of the most famous racing cars of the 1980s.
I’ve seen the MP4/4 before — I know I’ve seen it at a Honda booth at a past motor show — but that doesn’t make it any less special. Especially because it’s one of the Senna cars. One of my clearest memories of motorsports from the early 1990s was the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, the event where Senna lost his life as a result of an accident. Senna is still considered a hero in Brazil and amongst Formula 1 fans, so seeing his name and the Brazilian flag remains a special moment. If seeing the white and orange McLaren took my breath away, it was seeing the next machine that made me emotional.
Next: a 2006 Honda RC-211V MotoGP motorcycle. American rider Nicky Hayden rode this machine to the 2006 motorcycle world championship, the two-wheeled equivalent of Formula 1. That 2006 season was only decided at the last race, with Hayden winning the title from behind, decidedly the underdog. Unexpected, but not undeserved, Hayden raced a total of 13 seasons in MotoGP, is the most recent American to become world champion, and was regarded by all as a wonderful character.
The sporting achievement of that 2006 victory is one thing, and would earn it a position on Honda’s rostrum of heroes, but the more recent history is why I teared up seeing it in the carbon and metal. Nicky Hayden died in 2017 after a cycling accident — hit by a driver in Italy while on a training bicycle ride. This was the first time I’d seen his bike in person. After his death two years ago, it sat in the lobby of Honda’s Tokyo headquarters, a memorial to an unlikely but beloved champion gone too soon. And I’m sure it’s on display at Honda’s museum in Tochigi, a destination I desperately need to visit.
Honda could have chosen any number of world champion motorcycles for the display at the Tokyo Motor Show, but it chose The Kentucky Kid’s. Just the fact that Honda celebrated its motorsports history so thoroughly at TMS 2019 gives me a smile.
Doug Bonham Dot Blog 