Big read: Meet Gerald Davison, the man who put Honda back on the grid

In the 1980s Gerald Davison was described as the most powerful man in British motorcycling. He was Honda’s
Director of UK Operations for cars, motorcycles, and power products and was also an adviser to HRC (Honda Racing Corporation) in Japan, as well as being Honda Motor Company’s representative to the FIM and a personal friend of company founder, Soichiro Honda.

What he did for Honda’s racing programme alone was extraordinary. Between 1976 and 1983, Davison was personally responsible for signing Phil Read, Alex George, Charlie Williams, Ron Haslam, Joey Dunlop, Takazumi Katayama, Graeme Crosby, Marco Lucchinelli, Tony Rutter, Mick Grant, Roger Marshall, Stan Woods, Freddie Spencer and Wayne
Gardner in the road racing world plus Graham Noyce and Dave Thorpe in motocross, and Rob Shepherd in trials.

It’s an extraordinary line-up, and testimony to just how good a talent-spotter Davison was. Not only that, he also set up Honda Britain Racing in 1976 and managed Honda’s return to Grand Prix in 1979 as racing boss of the NR500 project…