Racing is like life; it has a beginning, a middle and an end. While the ascent of a racer's career is magnificent to watch, the descent can be painful. The slow drop down the order, less-competitive rides, and all too often injuries as the rider tries to capture with pure desperation and force what once came easily, can be sad to watch. The racer mentality, the outlook that gets you to the front, blinds you to the inevitable.
And of all the sports, racing can be the most ruthless and unforgiving when it comes to retaining the athlete. For the team, or the factory, there is no place to carry an underperforming rider, as any given rider is, typically, either half or all of the entire athletic department. Results are all that matters. And you're only as good as your last race. There's little room for emotion, or even doing the right thing; it's a matter of economics and performance.
So there is something that is touching when a factory finds a soft landing spot for a rider who is on the downward arc, a place for the rider to serve the vicious master of ambition and drive that makes them grid up, anywhere, anytime.
Ryuichi Kiyonari enrolled at nine years of age in the Suzuka Racing School junior program, the first student of that racing academy. Kiyo spent his early adolescence being trained as a road racing samurai for Honda. He graduated in 1995 at the age of 13. For 21 years now, he has raced. The racer's life is all that Kiyo has lived.
At the end of 2013, Honda called time on Kiyo's career, with the two not coming to terms on a new contract. At that point, had Kiyo retired, he would have been a success. He had won in World Superbike, won three British Superbike titles, and raced in MotoGP.
Instead, Kiyo left the Honda fold, shopped his services to BMW and Suzuki. He was a ronin, a warrior selling his services to the lord who needed him most. They were adequately successful partnerships; he is a popular figure in the BSB paddock and nearly took the title for BMW in 2014.
But it never felt right. Kiyo was raised by Honda, served Honda, and his BSB title-winning motorcycles were in Honda's collection at Motegi. It would have been somehow unsatisfying to see his career end with another manufacturer's logo on his leathers.
So for 2017, Honda and Kiyo are reunited. At the age of 34, it's likely Kiyo's last factory ride. He'll be racing in the All-Japan Road Race JSB1000 superbike class. And one gets the feeling that Honda made a space for him at the Superbike level, a way of thanking him for a career of representing the company well.
The ronin is home for the holidays.
And of all the sports, racing can be the most ruthless and unforgiving when it comes to retaining the athlete. For the team, or the factory, there is no place to carry an underperforming rider, as any given rider is, typically, either half or all of the entire athletic department. Results are all that matters. And you're only as good as your last race. There's little room for emotion, or even doing the right thing; it's a matter of economics and performance.
So there is something that is touching when a factory finds a soft landing spot for a rider who is on the downward arc, a place for the rider to serve the vicious master of ambition and drive that makes them grid up, anywhere, anytime.
Ryuichi Kiyonari enrolled at nine years of age in the Suzuka Racing School junior program, the first student of that racing academy. Kiyo spent his early adolescence being trained as a road racing samurai for Honda. He graduated in 1995 at the age of 13. For 21 years now, he has raced. The racer's life is all that Kiyo has lived.
At the end of 2013, Honda called time on Kiyo's career, with the two not coming to terms on a new contract. At that point, had Kiyo retired, he would have been a success. He had won in World Superbike, won three British Superbike titles, and raced in MotoGP.
Instead, Kiyo left the Honda fold, shopped his services to BMW and Suzuki. He was a ronin, a warrior selling his services to the lord who needed him most. They were adequately successful partnerships; he is a popular figure in the BSB paddock and nearly took the title for BMW in 2014.
But it never felt right. Kiyo was raised by Honda, served Honda, and his BSB title-winning motorcycles were in Honda's collection at Motegi. It would have been somehow unsatisfying to see his career end with another manufacturer's logo on his leathers.
So for 2017, Honda and Kiyo are reunited. At the age of 34, it's likely Kiyo's last factory ride. He'll be racing in the All-Japan Road Race JSB1000 superbike class. And one gets the feeling that Honda made a space for him at the Superbike level, a way of thanking him for a career of representing the company well.
The ronin is home for the holidays.
