Mugen ME125RB 1981 The Year in Motocross

So this is a story about a year, 1981, in motocross history in the USA and a story about a bike from 1981, my Mugen ME125RB. Where to begin… well, right from the start, 1981 looked like it was going to be another exciting and interesting time in the world of motocross. Although the new production motocrossers generated plenty of talk amongst the fans, the big news in America to start 1981 was the return

1981

The Year in Motocross

(and my Mugen ME125RB)

of the 1979 250cc AMA Champion, Bob “Hurricane” Hannah. Bob had missed all of the 1980 season after breaking his leg in a water skiing accident in late 1979. The Hurricane had dominated the AMA 250SX (Supercross) class in 1979 and was looking unstoppable for 1980 until the accident.

The first race of the 1981 series was in Anaheim, CA., where Bob put on a good show charging from a 14th place start to a 6th placed finish overall. However, for the season, Bob would only be able to manage a single first place finish (at Pontiac, MI), ending the season with a 5th place overall in the 250SX class.

Suzuki dominated the majority of AMA 250SX races with Mark Barnett, Kent Howerton and Darrell Shultz, while Yamaha’s Mike Bell gave the Suzuki riders all they could handle. Suzuki’s Mark Barnett won the AMA 250SX Championship and Yamaha’s relentless Mike Bell finished 2nd, followed by Barnett’s team mate Kent Howerton in 3rd and Team Honda’s Jim Gibson came in 4th overall in points for the season.

The 1981 250MX outdoor series went much better for the Hurricane; with three first place finishes in the series; the final victory coming over Kent Howerton in the last race known as the infamous “Massacre at Saddleback”. Hannah finished second in the 250MX outdoor series behind Howerton, followed by Donnie Hansen and Kris Bigelow for the 3rd and 4th positions respectively.

As for the 1981 AMA 125MX outdoor series, it was owned by Team Suzuki’s Mark Barnett. He flat out dominated the series, winning ever y race except the final at Carlsbad. Barnett had to sit out Carlsbad after snapping his collarbone while practicing just a few days before the race, ending what could have been the perfect season. Even so, Barnett had already clinched the 1981 125MX crown before the race, finishing 66 points ahead of the young, up and coming Team

Every Honda rider (and many non-

Honda riders!) desperately wanted a

Mugen but few realised the dream. They remain a very desirable machine.

Honda rider Johnny O’Mara in 2nd place. Following a very close 3rd was Jeff Ward with just a four point separation between him and O’Mara. Team Honda’s Jim Gibson ended up finishing 4th overall.

An exciting season of AMA motocross had come to a close, however the most fascinating story in American motocross didn’t reveal itself until the end of 1981. That was when a team of what were considered to be ‘second string’ riders were selected to represent America in Europe’s most prestigious motocross event, the 1981 Trophee des Nations in Lommel, Belgium. They were to compete against the best in Europe, then again a week later at the motocross des Nations in Bielstein, West Germany. The Europeans were considered by many to be the best motocross racers in the world, and rightly so, as they had dominated the sport and the des Nations since their creation.

Suzuki and Yamaha declined to send their riders as part of the American team, not wanting to absorb the cost, possible injury to their riders and/or an embarrassing loss. However, a few fans of the sport, namely Dick Miller of Motocross Action Magazine and Larry Maiers of Hi-Point, along with the sponsorship of Bel-Ray Lubricants, had already raised the money for the team by selling t-shirts prior to Suzuki and Yamaha pulling out. Larry and Dick also talked the ‘big four’ Japanese manufactures to put in $5000 each for team USA. With the absence of a representative race team, Roger DeCoster convinced American Honda to assemble a team to represent America.

The 1981 Motocross des Nations America team consisted of Chuck Sun, Danny LaPorte, Donnie Hansen and Johnny O’Mara. The team was to be coached by Roger DeCoster, who had been part of previous Belgian race teams. The Europeans hardly took the America team seriously; in their eyes, they were worse than a second rate group of riders. DeCoster was criticised by the Europeans for bringing a team of half rate riders to such a prestigious event, labeling them as America’s ‘B Team’ without any of them being 1981 champions. The American team was also denied the starter money given to all national teams. This team would have to work for everything they were going to get.

The Trophee des Nations was the first order of business and held in Belgium, as they were the nation whose team had won the previous year. The Europeans believed the Belgium team to be unbeatable, and they were the obvious favourites racing on their home track. The Belgians were not required to race the qualifying motos, however the Americans were, and so they did. The young Americans ended up taking first place in the 20 minute qualifiers and even so, the Europeans had a cynical view towards them, and gave them no chance of winning the main event. After all, the main was 40 minutes long plus an additional two laps. The European’s believed that the Americans wouldn’t be able to hold up for 40 minutes on the rigorous Belgian track. Despite all the negativity and criticism surrounding them, the American team believed in themselves and one another. They had come to Europe to compete, and so they did. In the first moto, Andre Vromans of Belgium took 1st place, which wasn’t a big surprise being the favorite, however, what

was a surprise was that the American team finished off in the top 4 places, with Johnny O’Mara finishing 2nd, Danny LaPorte 3rd and Donnie Hansen 4th. Chuck Sun finished 8th due to a blown shock. This was good enough to give the American team the first moto win at the Trophee des Nations. This shocked the European and U.S. media outlets, as they both had little confidence in America’s “B” motocross team. Even with the victory in the first moto, the Europeans believed the Americans would falter under pressure in the second moto. The second moto was much like the first, with Belgium’s Andre Vromans getting 1st place again. However, America’s B team showed that they were up to the task of competing with Europe’s fastest riders with Danny LaPorte finishing 2nd and Johnny O’Mara 3rd while Keens Van Der Ven took the 4th position and Hank Van Mierlo got 5th spot. Chuck Sun took 6th and Donnie Hansen finished 11th, giving the American team a total of 20 points, which was good enough for a 1st place overall win at the Trophee des Nations! The Belgians finished with 37 points for a 2nd place finish. The Trophee des Nations was a race that had been dominated by the team from Belgium for the previous 10 years and this event had now been won by an America team for the first time in history. Ironically, Roger DeCoster had been a member of the Belgium winning teams for six of those years. One week later in Bielstein, West Germany, was the highly anticipated Motocross des Nations for the 500cc motorcycles. With the American team winning the Trophee des Nations in the manner in which they did (by 17 points), they had earned the right to compete at the Motocross des Nations in Bielstein. Trim and terrific. The American team had to put in a good ride to get their victory the week before, and this race would be no different. O’Mara had never raced in the 500cc class and Hansen had been racing in the 250cc class, so winning in a class against Europe’s best open riders was a tall order. The first moto was far from easy for Roger DeCoster’s young American team. From the drop of the gate, the best position of Roger’s team was Chuck Sun in 6th place, who would end up being ousted from a top 10 position due to a thrown chain. Hansen’s start would also be just out of the top 10, however, he would fight his way up to a 2nd place finish while chasing down Sweden’s Hakan Carlqvist, finishing in 1st place. LaPorte managed a 6th place finish even after starting in the second row, as the first starting gate only accommodated 24 of the 32 riders. Jonny O’Mara, who was having his own troubles on the track, was able to manage an 11th place finish. That front numberplate certainly shouted out - “I’m a Mugen!” The second moto of the Motocross des Nations wasn’t to

Main: They do look fast, and were fast! Insets - below: 1. Terry fork kit up front. 2. OEM plastics were hard to locate. 3. Mugen top end provides the power. 4. Fox Twin Clicker shock.

be any easier for the American Team. A steady rain had started, adding another degree of difficulty to the track. The mechanics for team USA were barely able to keep the bikes running due to the lack of parts; but they too were committed to the team and determined to fight through the adversity. Dave Arnold, the team Honda lead mechanic, was busy wrenching on the bikes until just minutes before the start of the second moto. With all the rain, the track became muddy and rutted in no time at all, making things even more challenging. Although Chuck Sun was accustomed to riding in muddy conditions, he crashed, re-injuring an old ankle injury that forced him to drop out of the race.

With all things in the universe being equal, Team USA would still have their chance. The team from Britain made up of Dave Thorpe, Dave Watson, Geoff Mayes and Graham Noyce were giving the Americans their biggest challenge. However, in the sport of motocross, anything can happen on any given day. This was the case when Graham Noyce’s rear tire went flat during the moto, dropping his position from first to the back of the pack. Soon after Noyce’s flat, the British team suffered another blow which they could not overcome when Geoff Mayes crashed, setting the British team further back. At the end of this raining day for the Americans, LaPorte would capture 2nd place, O’Mara 8th and Hansen 13th. The American “B“ team would finish with 44 points, just one point better than the British team’s 43 point total. Giving the American team a 1st place win overall at the Motocross des Nations. Most would not have dreamed of such an outcome, but team America believed in each other, and in the end, that was all that mattered.

As for the rest of 1981, it brought another new year of motocross, which included a host of new, radical machines, as well as some new and old faces to motocross. The big four manufactures had spent many waking hours in their respective R&D departments, designing their new and innovative machines. Machines that could give visions of victories to anyone who might dare swing a leg over their particular favorite racer. All of the big four manufacturers now utilised a single rear shock suspension (although Kawasaki had delivered their Uni-Track system to the market a year earlier and Yamaha introduced their Monoshock system in 1975). Suzuki and Honda now quenched their 125cc and 250cc engines with liquid cooling, while Yamaha implemented it only on their YZ125.

Suzuki arguably had the best factory motocross machines for 1981 but very few had access to a factory Suzuki, Honda, Yamaha or Kawasaki (much less one of each) to compare them all. Not the case with the 1981 production motocross bikes as anyone with enough money, credit or combination of both could go out and buy a new KX, CR, YZ or RM to draw their own comparison. To have one or several new space-age MXers, all it took was the cash. However, if your mind was set on a new red bike, and you had some extra change in your piggy bank, the options went beyond the choice of a new CR125R, CR250R or CR450R.

Honda’s CR125 and CR250 were all new for 1981; new frames, wheels, plastics, engines, suspension and of course decals. They were now

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liquid-cooled and single-shocked Elsinores. In addition to the newly re-engineered CR125RB and CR250RB, was Honda’s first year production open-class motocrosser, the Honda CR450RB. Yes, the CRs were all new, innovative and yet… flawed. True, they were much improved over the previous CRs, but not without their own faults.

Flaws in production motocrossers are often addressed through the aftermarket avenue, however, Honda motocross owners (or those wanting to ride a red machine) had another avenue to address their CR woes - Mugen Ltd. Mugen had worked hand in hand with Honda’s R&D department and knew the Honda machines inside and out. No surprise, knowing that the founder of Mugen Ltd., Hirotoshi Honda, was Honda’s son.

The 125cc bikes were the hottest sellers in the MX market; so being the good marketing people that they were at Mugen, they chose to focus their research and development on the 125cc market with their Mugen ME125. Mugen made lots of tricks pieces to transform a stock CR125 into a motocross missile. So, if you felt that your stock CR didn’t have quite the get up and go you wanted, rather than sending the stock CR cylinder and head out for a port, polish and mill, one could just purchase a new, completely re-designed factory Mugen race kit. If the suspension couldn’t hold up to the pounding you were giving it, there was the works Mugen/Showa race suspension that could be bolted on with little or no modifications to your stock CR. And if a rider felt that the stock CR was just too heavy and slow for their liking and they had some deep, deep pockets, they could buy a full-on Mugen ME125RB factory racer.

The Mugen ME125RB factory bike consisted of a special handmade frame, Mugen works alloy swingarm and suspension, fibreglass tank, radiators and engine. The only pieces left over from the CR were the wheels, cables, seat, plastics and some of the hardware. The engine was a combination of the Honda CR bottom end with Mugen clutch and top-end. The chassis consisted of works Mugen suspension mounted to a works handmade Mugen chromemoly frame. Yes, a vast improvement over the stock ’81 CR125RB, but only for those who could afford one or were fast enough to be given a Mugen factory ride.

Even if you have the cash today, finding such a bike is difficult. People interested in building such a bike have tried to hunt down the rare Mugen parts, then built a kit bike out of a stock ’81 CR125RB and this is the case with the bike featured here. This is one flawlessly restored ’81 CR125RB with a ’81 Mugen engine kit and other performance parts. Locating many of the NOS Honda, Mugen, Moto-X-Fox parts and the Terry Fork kit for such a project took a lot of persistence, patience and a little bit of luck. This project took about seven years to complete, while multitasking on other projects. Locating the NOS Honda plastic was a chore in itself, with some of it being quite expensive once located. But eventually if one is patient and persistent enough in this treasure hunt, those difficult and hard to find items will find their way to your front doorstep.

As for locating the Mugen kit, one may actually have to go on a hunt at several salvage yards or scavenge internet web sites to locate those rare Mugen parts. What probably works best is to have a small circle of friends that have an honest interest in the sport and who are generally interested in seeing you build such a machine, as word of mouth and networking can do wonders.

Once most of the key items were located, the real fun began - restoring parts and assembling the project. That usually goes well until you get hung up on a missing part or have to wait for someone else to make something or put something through their process. There will probably be setbacks; for example, the rear rim got scratched when mounting the tire. This was so disconcerting that the rear wheel had to be torn down and the scratch removed. Then the rim was re-anodized, re-laced/trued and the tyre mounted again. But, there are many small victories, such as obtaining that hard to find part, getting all the parts back from the painter or powder coater, or when the parts are modular enough to start assembling the bike.

This particular Mugen presented many challenges but has probably been the easiest of all of my bikes to restore. This was mostly due to the many parts that were collected for it, and the time frame in which they were found (when the parts were still available through Honda). Another huge factor was the limited number of custom parts that had to be made for this project. Aside from the Mugen top-end and front number plate, seat cover and suspension, just about everything else is OEM Honda. The seat cover logo, decals and a few parts of the Fox Twin Clicker were custom made.

The frame, engine cases, top-end, fork sliders, wheel hubs and items that would have normally been painted by the factory, were all prepped by myself and then powder coated by Sun Western Coating. The crankshaft was rebuilt by Crank Works of Tempe, Arizona and the Mugen cylinder nikasiled by Millennium Plating. All of the other work on this kit bike, for example all the engine, suspension and machining work, was completed by me. However, I do have a short list of people in which I wish to personally say “Thank You” to for their support and help with this project, you have all helped to make my dream bike come true.

To Hazel, Robert, Melissa, Risa and Michael Hawes, Ted Mink, Mr. Schoeing, Jason Cheetham, Gerald Tomas, Mark Buttler and Phil Schaefer… thank you guys!

1. Hubs were powder coated. 2. Rear wheel was built twice to remove a scratch. 3. The project took seven years to complete and the patience shows in every part. 4. Lots of detail finishes.

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