[KJ's RR]

Last week I watched round 1 of 05 World SuperBike from Qatar.Looked into it.My question is how comw it doesn't appear tha tHonda isn't that involved w/that series? Also on 2wh tues they annouced that Honda America is now gonna be on it's own from HRC. Is big red getting outta being a factory sponsor team??

[abtech]

Honda has been unofficially out of HRC action in the US ever since Brian Uchida closed up shop in Torrance California in 96 and joined Commonwealth racing full time. They are still supporting Commonwealth, Erion and probably Bruce in a satellite effort, but the days of HRC US are long ago and far away . . .

As far as WSB goes, when they rewrote the rulebook 5 times in 3 months, most of the Japanese factories saw it as a slap in the face and pulled out of "official" participation. Ten Kate is a notable exception for Honda, although they raced most of last season on a personal privateer effort without any HRC assistance. The spec tire situation hasn't helped the series any either, as shown by lap times at Laguna last year when the US National riders were typically a full second faster than the WSB leaders running the Italian labeled German tires . . .