I agree Honda should field a Off-Road team on CR's. Last year I had lunch with Hondas Paul Slavek and raised this very question. He jumped up on his corporate soapbox and delivered the company line that "CR's are for closed course competition only" Honda sells XR's for off-Road use. Even today, Honda insists that there off-road riders like Johnny Campbell "WILL" compete on the XR650's in off road events. At selected "closed course" events off road team riders MAY ride the CR450.
Paul told me, what is important to Honda is being perceived as an "environmential friendly company". Car sales=huge dollars for Honda and it is more important to introduce state of the art energy efficient cars and earn the backing of the environmental movement. Rather than Honda creating an corporate image that "closed course racing machines" are being raced on our nations public lands. Honda feels that supporting off-road riders on CR's would create a unfriendly environmental corporate image.
To bad Honda does not get it, Corporations are the target of the environmental movement. Just like land use, they start attacking small defenseless people, (like the good folks in Klamath). Remember the alar scare with apples, how about using junk science and the endangered species act, falsely claiming the spotted owl as being an endangered animal and its only habitat being "Old Growth" total bunk, yet look at the devastation it caused the timber industry, many peoples lives destroyed. Another hoax was attempted with the Lynx hairs, notice this story remains on the back page because it does not support the politically correct story line. Those of us who enjoy the outdoors with our dirt bikes, snowmobiles, ATV's, Jet Skis, Jeeps etc. have been in the environmental crosshairs for thirty years. Environmentalists are very patient and stick with there game plan. The environmental agenda with corporations like Honda is corporate Blackmail, a very effective way to fleece huge amounts of money to fund the environmental terrorist attack on our country. It's sad that companies like Honda, GM, Ford and many more, have no problem selling out there customers who buy there products. It is also unfornutate to many of us are politically ignorant. Few among us support our political advocates and organizations. Thus, we as a group, are politically irrelevant. Honda looks at the big picture and the dollars the few of us riding CR's Off-Road generate is very small. Honda would rather waste millions of dollars on a public relations scam, there new environmentally friendly, eco-system rider and environmental training center in Southern California than support a single off-road rider competing on any CR.
Join AMA, Blue Ribbon Coalition, CORVA...we must become politically relevent. Consider this, AMA has about 250,000 members, a little less than half there membership are dirt bikers. There are over 500,000 registered dirt bikes in California alone. I hear a lot of complaints about how ineffective the AMA is, how effective can the AMA be, with so few dirt bike riders supporting them nationwide? If your riding buddies won't support the groups who support us, then it is time to find new riding friends.
Dave Wood
AMA charter life member
Blue Ribbon Coalition member
D36 member
trail volunteer
I buy both a Idaho trail sticker and California green sticker to support our trail systems.