HONDA'S AMERICAN JOURNEY
Honda's need for speed
In 1965, Honda added a second Formula One driver, Richie Ginther, who won the Mexican Grand Prix with the automaker's 400-hp engine. The win was Honda's first and broke the stigma that it could win only motorcycle races.
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It began with founder Soichiro Honda, who at the age of 22 adapted a V-8 Curtiss-Wright aircraft engine to a Ford chassis and set a Japanese speed record of 75 mph. In 1936, Soichiro Honda had an accident and pledged to his family that he wouldn't race again.
Tom Elliott, American Honda Motor Co.'s executive vice president of automobile operations from 1988 to 2005, was a great supporter of Honda's racing efforts and a driving force behind the company's entry into CART racing.
Italian race car driver Alex Zanardi won CART championships in 1997 and 1998. In the foreword of the book A Winning Adventure, Honda's Decade in CART Racing, Zanardi wrote that Honda is “very different from the Italians, who may mind a little business during the week and then on Sunday rush a solution for a particular problem.” About Honda he said: “They sit down during the week thinking about which problems they can end up solving during the race weekend.”
U.S. executive Tom Elliott, now retired, was the first president of Honda's racing arm, Honda Performance Development.
Honda celebrates a victory in the Acura LMP2 class at its American Le Mans Series debut in 2007 at the 12 Hours of Sebring.
You can reach Diana T. Kurylko at dkurylko@crain.com. -- Follow Diana on 
