It was a great day for the Honda brand at the 47th GoPro Hangtown Motocross Classic, but the Team Honda HRC team didn’t fare so well.
While Honda reveled in GEICO Honda star Eli Tomac’s dominant 450cc victory at the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship season-opening GoPro Hangtown Motocross Classic, Team Honda HRC got off to a rocky start and will be looking to rebound when round two rolls into San Benardino’s Glen Helen Raceway for round two Saturday.
Cole Seely was the team’s sole 450cc entrant as Trey Canard continues to recover from his Monster Energy AMA Supercross season-ending arm injury, and after qualifying sixth quickest in the timed practice session, Seely seemed to be in much the same groove that propelled him to third in the supercross series final standings.
Seely looked strong as he netted a top-five start in the first moto, but his race was short-lived as an early-race crashed ended his race barely after it began. Seely was evaluated by the Asterisk Mobile Medical crew, and he did not return for the second moto.
“I think I was running about fourth or fifth coming around the first turn, but in the second turn I got pushed out a little wide and couldn’t really see where I was going, so I hit a bump and high-sided, hitting the ground pretty hard,” Seely said. “I got a bad Charlie horse on my leg and hit my head pretty good, so the team and I decided it was better to sit the second race out and not risk it so I can come back strong at Glen Helen. Definitely not the way I wanted to start the series, only making it a couple hundred yards, but I’m confident because I had good practice times and the bike felt good. I’ll just bounce back next weekend.”
Honda Changes Up for Motocross
Whereas supercross main events are a practical sprint compared to the two 30-minutes-plus-two-lap motos that make up each Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship rounds, Team Honda makes a number of changes to its factory CRF450Rs for the outdoors, according to Team Honda HRC crew chief Jason Haines.
“For motocross, we use slightly different equipment,” Haines said. “Taking into consideration the higher temperatures and longer races, we use slightly bigger radiators for more coolant capacity. We also use larger works HGA titanium tanks in order to increase the bikes’ range, and the gearing is changed slightly for the longer, rougher straightaways and larger jumps.”
Race-day suspension setting changes are fairly rare by the end of the Supercross season, but it’s not abnormal for the team to continue tweaking the suspension components on its production-based works machines during the first few outdoor rounds. Seely said that the it’s definitely harder to get prepared for the motocross season because of how tight the schedule is.
“We’re testing and riding supercross from mid-September–before Monster Energy Cup–to the end of the season, with just a few motocross test sessions in between and only have a week off before the next series starts,” Seely said. “I enjoy it, though. I like testing and finding new settings because I’m still open to a lot of things and don’t yet know what I like and don’t like. It’s cool to run through the options and see what I like best for suspension, chassis and engine.”
And just like motorcycle tuning, the rider’s tuning–his training schedule–changes as well. Seely said that his training is different for the motocross series.
“Instead of doing sprint sessions, we’ll do longer rides, like 30 minutes plus two laps, to replicate a race situation,” Seely said.
Seely will need to call upon all of that training as he tries to climb back into a Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship Series points race that is expected to be hotly contested, and now he will basically be starting off the year having spotted the competition one full round. Even so, Team Honda HRC team manager Dan Betley is happy with the potential Seely and the team showed at the Hangtown opener.
“The whole team is working great, and we’re on our way up, and I love it” Betley said. “Unfortunately, Cole hit his head, and we felt it was best for him to sit out the second moto. Despite that, I’m happy with where our bike performance is for both riders [Tomac and Seely]; we only had to make a few clicker changes throughout the day, and we were good.”
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