Honda To The Rescue

 Back in the day when 2 smokers were the GP bikes both Honda and Yamaha supplied customer engine race bikes as well as engines for chassis companies to do the final work, all to stuff the grids to keep racing healthy. Younger riders often started on these so called "B" teams and having good equipment meant good results which could help land that all sought after factory ride. Fast forward to the 2000's and arrival of the 4 strokes and all 4 Japanese companies along with 2 Italian ones were quickly designing new bikes to take advantage of the new rules. In the first era of motoGP you had 6 manufacturers(Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Ducati, Aprilia) and 4 different engine configurations(V5, V4, Inline 4, Inline 3), this was real prototype racing in years as the former 2 smokers were not necessarily trickling down the technology to the consumer world, thus lessening their importance to some people. Now we had all the relevant players in the biking world playing motoGP and the average race fan took notice. The races grew in huge numbers here in the States alone and for once my friends were wanting to go to the races, f-in newbs.
After a couple seasons it became apparent who was going to survive and who was not, after all racing is not cheap and racing prototypes is the most expensive way to do it. Aprilia would be the first factory to bail on the series and taking the inline 3 cylinder Cube with them, if memory serves well Suzuki would be next and the v4 GSVR would be gone to the museum. Kawasaki would pull the official plug after a Dorna injunction and the inline 4 Ninja would retire to the pagoda never to be seen again.
This would begin the new dark era  for motoGP and the grids have now lost 6 bikes, Ducati had satellite bikes by that time so for once in my lifetime half the grid was close to being Italian, if it wasn't for the satellite Yamahas that became a reality, but still the grids were lacking so somebody at the Dorna got the idea to allow hot rodded superbike engines in aftermarket chassis to run with the prototypes. These bikes could at times qualify high on the grid depending on weather conditions but on the average were well off the pace of the fastest prototypes and while it added to the grids it did little to add to the excitement of real world racing and as far a I know nobody was a great fan of the bikes nor the idea. Why couldn't Honda or Yamaha supply engines as in the past? I was not the only one asking this question but little in the way of quality answers ever seemed to come form Japan as the world still struggles with the economy and Japan still dealing even today with the after effects of the bad earthquake they had years a go.
Honda has finally stepped up to the plate with a customer GP bike, the RCV1000R, one that teams will purchase and not lease and this means more bikes on the grid that in the right hands can actually win a race, in maybe the right conditions. These bikes will not only really give the factory bikes a run for their money, after all who wants to sell perspective customers bikes that a rival can beat, but will really get the grid alive for the first time since the change to these environmental safe 4 stroke noise beasts.
Honda rocks for getting the bikes going and I would guess Yamaha will not want to be outdone so that might get them going as well, not too mention Suzuki plans a return to the grid in 2016 or something like that, Aprilia have made some kind of announcement but they are in financial trouble again so we will have to wait and see. Remember that old Honda saying? Honda, come ride with us. Thank you Honda for helping keep motoGP going, Nicky Hayden has got to be happy right about now...