‘Spoon’, ‘130R’, ‘Hairpin’, ‘S Curves’. The corner names at Suzuka have prescriptive, unembellished quality. Except for… Degner.
For a brief time in the 1960s Ernst Degner was a proverbial thorn in Honda’s side, helping Suzuki develop a series of 50cc racing motorcycle engines capable of screaming beyond 17,000rpm, and enabling Mitsuo Itoh to become the first (and so far only) Japanese rider to win the Isle of Man TT. Bettering these pocket rockets was a matter of pride for Honda, a company whose growing industrial might sprung from its founder’s fascination with motorbikes.
