![]() ![]() It took a lot of energy to ride them fast and I was aware of this from the very beginning. ![]() “250 two strokes were exhausting to ride. Gordon himself picked up his third British Championship title in 2003 with Honda (after scoring back-to-back two-stroke championships), but he certainly had to push himself and change how he rode. It came on the market and straight away it was very successful.” So began the legacy of the Honda CRF, which continues to this day and has helped Tim Gajser seal his second World Championship crown. Certainly, riding Hondas, they had developed a really pioneering bike and had done such a good job as the CRF450R was dominating in just about all of the championships that were entered in. “I was very confident making the switch from two strokes to four strokes because I was on a Honda. While there was resistance to it at the time from the purists, very quickly four strokes were winning everything, with the Honda CRF450R leading the way. We moved onto four strokes, which are a lot more controllable, have a lot more linear power, more torque, less snap and punch.” With such a change came the need to approach things differently as a rider, and also led to a proliferation of technical development, which Honda once again proved themselves very adept at. They were very exciting to ride and still are. “We were changing machinery from 250 two strokes, which were very thrilling, loose, ragged, always on the edge and very difficult to master riding. You couldn’t be bitter and you had to learn new ways to prepare and setup and race four strokes but it wasn’t easy.” Especially as each machine had such different characteristics and rose-tinted spectacles continue to fuel debate to this very day. You had to be very good at accepting the change. “There were a lot of changes, not only from two stroke to four strokes, but also the championships began to merge into one premier class that had a mixture of 250 two strokes and 450 four strokes. Gordon’s role was a natural progression from his previous job as Head Coach and Series Manager for the Honda 150 European Championship, which at the time changed his career path from motocross coach to one which saw him back at Grands Prix working with the Honda CRF150R and over 30 riders per season, in what was a very unique and exciting opportunity for any young motocross prospect and which has helped kickstart the careers of several leading lights in the junior MX categories.Ĭhange has never been something that Crockard has been afraid of, especially when racing in what was one of the most tumultuous periods in motocross history at the start of the millennium, as the sport swapped from two-strokes to four strokes and experimented with a variety of different classes and race formats. “I’ve had 30 years of study of motocross to build experience and knowledge”, and those three decades have seen marked change - not just for “Crock” as he is known within the sport - but for the World Championship-winning Honda CRF (formerly CR) and for motocross as a sport. I think that I’m in a very good position to handle the racing activities” said Crockard. “It’s a job that I feel like I have a lot to offer because of my background as a rider, as a mechanic and as a coach. Now, after a racing career that spanned over 20 years (and is still going if you count the Veteran Motocross des Nations at Farleigh Castle, UK each year), Crockard has swapped his jersey for a collared shirt and is seen on the in-field of a race track rather than behind the gate, as he performs his role as Off Road Racing Manager for Honda. ![]()
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