Sun going down in the East
I never got to see team Sunn, my experience of them was purely through magazines which I would read and re-read, fascinated by this ’super team’.
What made them special, other than having a roster of the best riders to ever grace a racetrack, was the image. This was a true factory team. Data loggers, timing sections of a track, even testing the soil acidity (not sure even I believed that one mind), some great graphics and paint jobs mixed up with genius of Max Commencal all added together to make Sunn a team that you followed with fascination. This was surely the future of race teams I remember thinking, hell, they didn’t even have a joint sponsor (The Sunn-Un period) and they looked and acted like they had money to burn.
When they folded and companies began pulling budgets for race teams it was a pretty sad time for a downhill fanboy like myself.
When Honda announced they were making downhill bikes I was pretty excited, when I saw them and saw they had Greg Minaar riding for them I was really excited, and when I finally saw the bikes in action I was gobsmacked.
The factory team feeling was back.
You couldn’t help but be dragged along by it all. The mystery bikes with the top secret gearbox, Showa mechanics who spent a season on the DH team and then went off to be part of the MX team, the image, it was all there, and it was electric.
Now the Honda team is no more and I’m left feeling like I did when Sunn disappeared, like something special has been taken from our sport.
I’m sure Honda have their reasons for pulling out, and in a way I kind of admire them for quitting whilst on the top of their game, but I hope that they don’t take away what they’ve learnt from DH and leave us with nothing. It’d be good to know that their findings, whatever they may be, will be used to further bike technology and push the sport forward.
So thank you Honda for bringing something special to our sport that was sorely missing, thanks to the riders for making the bikes exciting to watch and thanks to the mechanics who must have been the most watched mechanics in any pit I’ve ever seen.
Sayonara team Honda G-Cross, we’ll miss you.
Sim