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1986 Honda
RC250 Ricky Johnson
1986 250
National and SX Champion
Before the production rule
went into effect. The gap between Honda’s works bikes and
Honda’s production bikes was far greater than any of the other
manufacturers. Towards the mid-eighties, the cost for each works
Honda was over $200,000.00 per bike. The cost of racing
professional AMA motocross in the U.S. was getting out of
control and Honda was on a runaway freight train. Although some of
the works technology was passed down to the production bikes,
most of the secrets on the Honda works bikes remained secrets.
In 1986 when the production rule went into effect, most
observers thought the playing field would be even. In reality
Honda became even more dominant and up and coming Ricky Johnson
went from being a star to a superstar. At the start of the season, each rider received two
bikes for the entire season, plus an endless supply of parts.
The bike featured here, is the second 250 that Ricky used in
1986. The first bike was destroyed. At the end of 1986 Honda
decided to expand their success to Europe and teamed up with
Honda factory rider Eric Geboers from Belgium. They were going
to make their first attempt at the 250 World Championship. While
the 1987 bikes were being made, Ricky’s number two bike was sent
to Belgium and given to Eric to test. Other than Eric’s super
hard Tecnosel seat, the bike is in the same configuration as was
last used by Ricky. It is also believed that it is the same bike
that Ricky used at the historic Motocross Des Nations race in
Italy. Below are Ricky’s own comments and a great overview by
then team manager, Dave Arnold. Plus there are three pages of
photos and technical info on this historic bike.
Ricky Johnson's comments:
At the end of the 1985 season I was invited to a Honda test
session to try out one of their bikes. It was one of those bait
and switch deals that ended up being very effective. The bike I rode was Ron Lechien’s 1985 full works RC250. That bike was just so
phenomenal. I could not believe how smooth it was and how fast I
could go on it. I didn’t believe that there could be something
that was so much better than what I was already riding. It
really showed me the commitment that Honda had at the time to
make the best bike for their racers.
After that test session I signed a
contract with Honda and rode an initial test session with a pre
production CR250. Because I rode on the ball of my foot a lot,
my ankle would get caught in the “Y” section where the sub-frame
meets the main frame. To cure this, Honda was going to make an
aluminum frame guard and mount it at the spot where my ankle was
getting caught. At a later test session where we were supposed
to get our brand new works bikes, they wheeled out two bikes,
one for Johnny O’Mara and one for David Bailey. Both bikes had
all the HRC stuff on them. I was a little bummed at first
thinking that they weren’t done with mine because of little
things I needed like the frame guard. Then they wheeled mine
out. It was brand-new, full HRC everything, it even had the
frame guard for my ankle. I was like a kid in a candy store. The
bikes came over from Japan already developed and initially when
we first got them, they were exactly the same. Each rider would
change his bike to suit his own personal taste, such as
suspension settings, handlebars, foot pegs, seats and so on. The
bikes were really good but the best part about the whole bike
was the works crankshaft. It made the bike so smooth and it
virtually eliminated all the vibration from the motor. The bikes
were real fast and hit real hard in the powerband. At first I
couldn’t ride it very smooth at all. I was over jumping
everything and I wanted it to be a little smoother for certain
types of tracks, especially supercross tracks where you need
roll on and are not
at full throttle that much of the time.
Mitch Payton came out to some of our
test sessions and he brought along some pipes and a gas welder.
We developed a pipe that made the power delivery much smoother
than the high performance HRC pipe. I used the Payton pipes
mainly for supercross where I wanted the roll on power delivery
and for the outdoor tracks and tracks like Daytona I used the
high power HRC pipe. The bike was really well balanced compared
to the other brand factory bikes. The Honda was also lighter in
the front and this really helped out on the sand tracks. One of
the modifications we made to my bike was to lower the sub-frame a
little so I could hang off the back on the straights, plus I
didn’t like my bikes high in the corners. For supercross we
shortened the shock a bit and for outdoors, we lengthened it so
I had about 10mm more rear wheel travel.
We went back and forth between the
conventional forks that are on it now and the upside-down forks
which were just coming out. I liked the upside-down forks
because of how rigid they were and I could run into bumps really
hard. But the action of the upside-down fork didn’t work to well
at first. In 1986 at Anaheim, I ran the upside-down fork because
I thought I could gain more by crashing into everything. The
rebound was to fast and it just wasn’t as good. After Anaheim, I
switched back to the conventional set-up for most of the season
because I was more consistent and faster with the conventional
fork.
We spent a lot of time setting the bike
up for each individual track that we would be racing on. The
supercross setting was pretty much the same across the board
except for Daytona where we spent a week at Gainesville setting
the bike up there. For the outdoor tracks, the bike changed from
week to week. We would try to test and set the bike up on a
track that would be similar the one at the upcoming race.
The bike was a great bike and it not
only dominated here in the US but it also won the Japanese
National Championship as well.
Dave Arnold
on the transition from works bikes to the production rule
Dave Arnold's Comments:
It’s a little easier to
understand and appreciate Honda’s 1986 production based race
bikes, if given just a bit of background of the manufacturing
motocross race scene leading up to that period.
After completely dominating
racing in the late 70’s, the Yamaha works effort seemed to be
struggling in the early 80’s while Honda’s effort and bikes were
becoming a real powerhouse. Ricky Johnson (then a Yamaha support
rider) almost won the 250 National Championship in 1982 on a
nearly stock YZ while some of the factory works riders of the
same period were complaining about their bikes. Along with the
other teams, Yamaha team manager Kenny Clark was really beating
the production rule drum. He said, “If you took the works bikes
away from Honda, Yamaha would win.” His argument was, it would
be good for the sport and it would save the privateer. A lobby
was made and shortly thereafter, the AMA board of trustees voted
in the production rule.
At that time Honda’s motocross
works and production development was handled by two almost
completely separate groups. (HRC for the works bikes and HGA for
production) Historically there was very little communication
between these two groups but for the 1985 season they were
forced to work together in preparation for the upcoming
production based regulations coming into effect in 1986.
The big change for 1985 was
development of HPP (Honda Power Port) an exhaust port power
valve needed for 1986 production bikes. Before this system,
Honda had used the ATAC system that was a plenum chamber in the
exhaust pipe
The 1985 works bikes were the
most exotic and expensive works bikes that Honda ever built. The
electronically controlled power valve was infinitely adjustable,
every aspect of its opening timing, closing timing and speed was
monitored and altered as needed by the engineers scurrying
around and plugging in after every practice and race session
with their laptop’s which I’m sure seemed at the time, just a
bit too F1 compared to the typical down and dirty motocross bike
preparation. The 1985 works bikes were rocket ship fast and had
a ton of horsepower. Our works riders were more than impressed
during preseason testing (more than any other year) and didn’t
want to take the bikes to the preseason “Golden State” warm up
series, thinking the other teams would see our new hardware
giving them time and a chance to re-arm. The riders had so much
confidence that they wanted to show up at the season opener as
their first race with their new bikes.
In reality the bikes had too
much power, were too responsive and borderline uncontrollable
which would become more clear and evident over the course of the
season. For example, the electronic power valve, as good as it
was, was too sensitive. Riders need a certain amount of
forgiveness and this bike didn’t provide that. The bikes would
sometimes loop-out un-expectantly because the power came on so
hard. I can clearly remember David Bailey one of the smoothest
riders in the history of the sport, looping out coming out of a
tight right hand inside rutted turn before the finish line straight in
the Atlanta Supercross while leading the race. It happened so fast he
didn’t have time to even think about shutting off the throttle.
It happened again at the end of the season to Ron Lechien, with
the Supercross championship on the line. In the Pasadena
Supercross, going
through the whoop section Lechien un-expectantly looped out
giving the title to Kawasaki and Jeff Ward. In the end, the 1985
season was somewhat of a disappointment, if considering how
exotic the equipment was and how much talent we had on the team
rider wise. For the money spent we fell far short of
expectations of a team that was slated to dominate.
This all turned around when we received
the 1986 production based bikes the following year. It was
absolutely one of the best years in racing that Honda ever had
and it happened in a year when Yamaha had touted that Honda’s
dynasty would collapse. The 1986 race bikes hit the mark in
every way and in every class. All three (125,250,500) bikes had
a phenomenal balance of big but controllable engine power and a
chassis that had great geometry, ride position and suspension
capabilities. They were from a dynamic standpoint all
exceptional race bikes and way ahead of their time in everyway.
The 250 used a square power valve that had holes in the side of
the cylinder for it. We were worried that the holes in the
cylinder would create too much turbulence and the fuel mixture
wouldn’t be as effective as with a smooth port. When the valve
was closed, it made excellent torque. When the valve opened, it
opened very quickly and the extra turbulence caused by the power
valve holes actually created two powerbands. This turbulence
actually caused a dip in the power delivery so the two
powerbands weren’t connected. Once the valve opened, the power
just ramped up to peak power. So the bike had great torque and
fantastic peak power with tons of over rev. It was an
unbelievable motocross motor. The engineers were also concerned
that a mechanical power valve system would have too many moving
parts, too much friction and too much drag to be as effective as
the electronic system on the 1985 works bike. In reality it was
much better.
I remember how apprehensive I was going
into the first race at Anaheim in 1986. Before, we always had the high
dollar full blown works bikes, so this was new territory for us
and we didn’t know what to expect. Though testing went well, it
was still an unknown. Kenny Clark was never shy with words. He
came up to me and said “Your party is over. Now that you don’t
have your money and your works bikes, you’re going down.” Well,
when it was all over, we got the top 4 out of 5 places. I was
completely blown away. Even our rookie rider Mickey Dymond got 5th
and he was basically an unknown rider that we hired from
Husqvarna. Our bike was so much better than anything out there.
It was like that the entire season in every class. We just
dominated everything. The whole production rule thing actually
worked to our advantage.
At the end of the day, with works
bikes, new theories are tested, new parts are made and
everything is changing all the time. Not every idea works. Some
of the most beautifully handcrafted parts ever made just
didn’t work but you are always pushing the envelope. With the
1986 bike, the stars just got aligned and everything came
together as a package. That bike was way ahead of its time and
helped give us our most successful season ever.
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