One of the coolest parts about the Collection Hall is the restoration room located at the rear of the complex. It's a full-service shop that keeps all the vehicles in the collection running strong. Every single automobile and motorcycle in the entire hall can be started up and run. For Honda's 50th anniversary celebration, the collection did a lap around the Super Speedway at Motegi. Most of the time, though, the display cars are tested and tuned using the small mini-course behind the building. If you're lucky, they'll be running tests when you're there. The Collection Hall gift shop swallowed most of my yen. It had everything from Honda cheesecake to watches to audio CDs of every engine in the collection. Unlike Honda R&D, the Collection Hall and the Fun Fan Lab are open to the public. If you find yourself in Japan, and you fancy yourself a Honda fan, you don't want to miss these facilities.
The Race
The remainder of our time in Japan centers around the CART race. We watch, listen, and learn what it takes to compete and win at one of the highest levels of racing. Honda engineers take time to walk us through the workings of the 2.65L turbocharged V-8 engines, as well as the amazing computer technology that goes into each vehicle. The computer systems are capable of transmitting 50 channels of information at one time. We watch as each car goes through tech inspection after its qualifying session (and you think import drag racing inspections are tough?).
We are given free run of the facility so we watch as the teams take an entire engine apart in less than an hour. We watch as the teams practice pit stops, dial in the suspensions, change out body parts, and even pull the back-up car out of the garage to finish running qualifying when the Number One car goes down. Honda Performance Development ships multiple engines for every car to each race. So at any given time there are a half-dozen turbocharged V-8 Honda engines sitting in containers waiting to be used. Do you think they'd miss one if it went mysteriously missing?
In between qualify runs prior to the race, Honda driver Tony Kanaan is asked if he wants to take an S2000 out on the Motegi road course. The road course is closed off for the CART race, so he would have free run of the course. It takes him all of two seconds to agree. A Japanese television crew gets wind of the mini ride-and-drive and comes along to get the entire thing on tape. After a few practice laps up and down a straightaway, the camera crew complains that Tony isn't doing any burnouts. Enough said. He proceeds to light up the S2000 doing a series of doughnuts that fill the infield with smoke. Unfortunately for us auto-weenie types, Tony had to get back to racing his own car before we could catch a ride with him. Next time.
A Conversation With Tom Elliott
One of the high points of my journey was getting the chance to sit down and talk with Honda North America Executive Vice President, Tom Elliott. So who is this guy and why should you listen to what he has to say? Well, you'll never hear it from him, but anyone in the know at Honda agrees that it's Mr. Elliott who makes things happen on the automotive operations side. He is credited with making the call to bring the Integra Type R to America. The Civic Si is also rumored to be here due in large part to Mr. Elliott. For a man who wields so much power (he is also President of Honda Performance Development) he is amazingly down-to-earth and easy to talk to. His knowledge and understanding of the Super Street market goes far beyond what you would expect from one of the guys at the top of the Honda food chain. Put it this way, he agreed to talk to me over lunch while he was overseeing the entire Honda CART racing operations (yes, that's part of his job, too) in Motegi.
Emperor Matt: People often credit you with bringing the Integra Type R and the Civic Si to the States. What was your role in bringing those cars Stateside?