American Honda was born (or, if you want, established) in June 1959. I was born in March 1960. Think about that for a moment—in my lifetime, Honda motorcycles have always been around. For the first nine years of my life no human had walked on the moon. I have been through all the cycles with Honda.

In 1967, my local Honda dealer was less than a 10-minute Schwinn Sting-Ray ride from my house, I’m sure I took hundreds of dollars of brochures from the shop racks to tack on to my bedroom walls. In 1970, I (okay, my father) became a customer with the purchases of an SL70 and in 1972 again with an SL100, and then many more Hondas after that. From 1976 through 1986, I worked at local So Cal motorcycle shops, mostly Honda dealerships, and I even did 90 days working at a Honda automobile dealership.

In December 1986, I went to work at American Honda in the Motorcycle (AHM) Division. Twenty-eight years and four months later I retired from AHM. So, the circle is complete. Young fan, customer, dealership employee, Honda employee and now back to “old” fan.

The Friday before the opening round of the 2022 AMA outdoor MX Nationals at Fox Raceway in Pala, California, you might have heard that American Honda gathered the motorcycle press for the release of their 2023 CRF450s and to recognize the beginning Honda’s venture into motocross racing, celebrating Honda’s 50th year of participation in U.S. motocross. I was invited to attend this event as an official “old guy” to help the company celebrate. Honda, of course, brought out the new CRF450R and CRF450RWE, and the surprise was the release of the CRF450R in 50th anniversary livery of red-gold-blue inspired by the 1985-87 CRs. Honda also displayed many of their factory, aka works, motocross bikes form the past, including Gary Jones’ CR250 Elsinore (which was Honda’s first national championship-winning motorcycle) the late Marty Smith’s fire-engine-red RC125 championship bike, and Jett Lawrence’s 2021 championship CRF250R. In support of these motorcycles Honda also had many of their past racers in attendance and the entire 2022 Factory Team.

The focus of Honda at this press event was, beginning in 1973, 50 years of motocross motorcycles and 50 years of motocross racing in the U.S. That is, of course, quite an accomplishment.

But 1973 was a watershed year for Honda motorcycles in general. Along with the 1973 CR250M Elsinore, the XR75 was introduced, and with the 2023 XR650L still being in Honda’s lineup, that’s 50 years of an XR motorcycle offered for sale in the U.S. market. Also, in 1973, Honda released the XL350, a four-stroke single-cylinder enduro/off-road capable motorcycle (better known now as dual-sport motorcycles). This was a big-deal motorcycle in the U.S. market. Yamaha had to counter this bike with the TT500 two years later.

So, the circle is complete. Young fan, customer, dealership employee, Honda employee and now back to “old” fan.

American Honda used the XL350 engine as the base for a factory Open-class MX bike ridden by Buck Murphy and Rex Staten. Honda wouldn’t offer an open-class motocrosser to the public until the 1981 CR450R.

Another anniversary for Honda in 2022 involves Johnny Campbell. The 11-time Baja champion has been associated with American Honda for 30 years. When you think about it, the XR model name and the XL350 motorcycle type were combined into the first “big” XRs in 1979 with the introduction of the XR500 single-cylinder four-stroke dirt bike, which really launched many off- road and Baja race successes for Honda with the likes of Al Baker, Bruce Ogilvie, Chuck Miller and Campbell. And now, the mighty XR lineup has morphed in to the CRF lineup, with Campbell having a foot in both eras, and now Mark Samuels’ Slam Life Racing (SLR) racing continues with the CRF line.

That’s my memory of being a 13-year-old in 1973—what an amazing time to be into motorcycles. I wonder what a 13-year-old today will be remembering in 2073. Take it from me, kids: it goes by in a blink of an eye, so soak it all in.

On a closing thought, this 50-year thing is not the exclusive territory of Honda. In 1974, Yamaha introduced the YZ label for its top-of-the-line motocross motorcycles, and Kawasaki adopted the KX label for its motocross motorcycles.

In 1975, Suzuki first used RM on its new 125 motocross motorcycle (by 1976, all Suzuki MX bikes were called RM. Before the RM, Suzuki dubbed the MX bikes TM).

So, hopefully we’ll see more gathering of neat MX motorcycles and famous racers in our near future. CN

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Michele Colaninno is New President of ACEM