Cole Seely to Race Japanese National

Honda HRC announced today that Cole Seely will contest the final round of the ALL Japan MX National Championship at Sportsland Sugo in Miyagi, Japan, on October 22-23. This is the second straight year Honda has sent a rider to compete in the final round of the championship. Last year, Trey Canard represented the team.

The trip to Japan for star American riders was once a time-honored tradition, with riders such as Jeff Emig, Damon Bradshaw, Jeff Stanton, Rick Johnson, Jeff Ward, and David Bailey, among others, traveling to Japan to compete in select nationals and supercrosses. It had fallen on hard times in recent years mostly due to economic reasons, but has seen a resurgence in the last two years. Cooper Webb, Jeremy Martin, Romain Febvre, Tim Gajser, and Canard have all competed at the final round in recent years.

Honda HRC team manager Dan Betley has been a big proponent of the trip, telling us last year he would “do whatever it takes to make this happen. I’m going to push them every year to do this.”

In our “Factory Land” feature (which ran in the February 2016 issue of Racer X Illustrated), detailing the trip made by Yamalube/Star Racing Yamaha and Honda HRC last year, Betley talked about the importance of engineers in Japan seeing riders up close.

“Ever since I became manager, even before then, I’ve been trying to push to make this happen again. The only supercross they ever see is what they see on television. So they’re designing equipment or parts or bikes or whatever for something they’ve never even seen in person. So for Trey to go over there and ride at the level that he rides at … he was four or five seconds faster than anyone who’s ever ridden around it. Those guys were blown away.”