A new man in the Honda hotseat...
If 1985 had been the realisation of a dream for Honda, then 1986 began as a nightmare – double world champion Freddie Spencer would spend most the season as a spectator. Described at the time as a ‘mystery arm injury’, Spencer had severe issues with tendons and later admitted to being both physically and mentally exhausted by the pressure of winning those two crowns.
This meant the seat of the 1986 NSR500C was vacant and Honda needed someone with the ability to keep the flag flying. The spotlight suddenly fell on Australian Wayne Gardner who had spent the previous season racing for Honda GB on a factory-supported NS3 V3 which was the earlier format of Honda’s 500cc GP stroker. No stranger to the world of Grand Prix racing, the man from down under had managed creditable rankings in the two previous seasons – 7th in 1984 and 4th in 1985.
Gardner had worked his way up the ladder to a genuinely well-deserved GP ride via the normal routes of the time. Staring at 18 on a secondhand Yamaha TZ250 on domestic circuits, four years later he was hired by Mamoru Moriwaki to race in the Australian Superbike championship aboard the Moriwaki Kawasaki KZ1000 fourstroke fours.
Racer Grahame Crosby decided to ‘bring
Gardner on’ by sponsoring him to ride in the British Superbike races. A very respectable fourth at Daytona in 1981 helped publicise his talents and just a year later he would come in fourth on The Island with the Honda Britain team. Winning the British 500cc national championship for Honda in 1984 and scoring points in all five GPs of that year that he rode in clearly illustrated both his versatility, talent and determination. Without Fast Freddie to pilot the NSR500, Wayne Gardner was the logical choice.
Honda’s belief and faith in the gritty Aussie was well placed when he won the season’s opening GP at Jarama in Spain. And to further qualify that achievement Gardner not only broke the lap record by some two seconds, but also out-rode the likes of Eddie Lawson, Randy Mamola and Mike Baldwin – all on hugely potent factory Yamahas. The next race in Italy was a disaster with a lowly 16th place, but the next four races saw consistent 2nd and 3rd spots.
Gardner and the NSR would remain in the top five for the rest of the year with wins in both Holland and Great Britain. At the end of the season he was just 22 points behind the winner Eddie Lawson – not bad for anyone’s first full season in the premier category.
Without doubt Gardner had put up one hell of a fight, riding a machine that was effectively new to him when he took it over and seriously more vigorous than the old three-cylinder bikes. However, some of the credit has to go to HRC for its continual revision and honing of what was its first V4, two-stroke, Grand Prix bike.
Doubtless, lessons had been learnt from the old triples regarding handling, but a sea change moment happened when Honda (along with some of its rivals) adopted the delta-box alloy frame first seen back in 1982 on a Spanish machine. The brainchild of Antonio Cobas, this form of motorcycle chassis linked the key areas of headstock and swing arm pivot directly together, thereby better managing the various forces fed into them.
By the time Wayne Gardner was aboard the NSR500 HRC engineers had moved the engine forward by some 25mm, which put more weight on the front end of the bike. This significantly improved the handling – and anything that made these phenomenally quick machines easier to ride had to be a bonus.
Some might have thought the following season would see the 86 subtly refined in the avowed hope that Wayne Gardner might take the 87 title but, Honda being Honda, it had other plans!