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In 1995, Honda's second year in the Indy Car series, it decided it would supply to Tasman Motorsports. Tasman was a team on the rise, having already won two consecutive championship titles in the Indy Lights category. With rookie driver Andre Ribeiro as its prime weapon, the team was filled with the fighting spirit. Honda, Tasman and Ribeiro were united under the same goal: to take on the older, more seasoned teams.
Honda decided on the Indy 500 for the debut of its HRH engine, which had been under development since the fall of 1994. Honda wanted desperately to win that race, hoping to realize its dream of victory and restore its team members to the level of morale they deserved. And of course it was a golden opportunity to test the new engine.
The decision came not without considerable risk. However, the team members were very confident in their ability to achieve the seemingly impossible feat of completing the Indy 500 with a new engine. The HRH engine had been repeatedly tested at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to ensure that it would have a sufficient blend of power, speed and durability.
May 13, 1995, was the day of the official qualifying rounds for the Indy 500. And at the end of the day at the speedway: a Tasman Motorsports machine equipped with an HRH engine driven by Scott Goodyear, lined up in the front row (at the third grid) facing the starting line. In the qualifying rounds, the results of four laps are combined and tabulated to determine the starting grid for the final race. Since the machines are driven under acceleration to full speed, engine power counts most during these short races. But at last the exhaustive effort that had begun in the fall of 1994 was about to be rewarded. Taking photogra-phs alongside their car in the front row, the staff experienced the welling of tears that accompanies one's best wishes for a true friend.
Then, in the 1995 Indy 500 race May 28, Scott Goodyear pulled off an impressive performance, leading all the way up to the last few laps. However, he inadvertently passed the pace car just before the goal and received a penalty. As a result, he finished in 14th place. Describing what he saw that day, Asaka said, We won the battle, but lost the race.
Efforts to improve the HRH engine continued after the race. Then, in the 15th event of the 1995 season, on the circuit at New Hampshire, Andre Ribeiro drove his Honda-powered car to victory-a long-awaited first win for Honda. Contributing to the victory was the advice given to Ribeiro by the team's chief engineer, Kazutoshi Nishizawa, who said, You can save time by downshifting just before the turn, where the r.p.m. drops, to take full advantage of the Honda engine's high revs and output."
Victory had finally arrived, in the 31st race since Honda's debut in March, 1994. |
