Way back when Sport Rider magazine began in 1993, we had heard rumors of a super-secret facility built by Honda up in the California high desert that the company used for testing its numerous two-, three-, and four-wheeled vehicles. Details were blurry and scarce, like something from Lockheed’s heralded Skunk Works; some said the facility was nothing more than runaway rumors, while others vigorously maintained that it indeed existed. It wasn’t until Honda actually decided to let Sport Rider conduct one of its infamous UFO shootouts for the October ’93 issue at the Honda Proving Center of California that the mystical cat was let out of the bag.
When you have motorcycles capable of running more than 230 mph, finding a legal and safe place to test those limits was an extremely difficult proposition before Honda graciously decided to permit SR into the gates of its testing Shangri-La. Encompassing more than 4255 acres with a 7.5-mile oval spanning more than five car lanes in width (with two straights measuring more than two miles in length) in a very tightly secured area, HPCC was seemingly a gift from heaven. And since that time, it became our preferred ultra-high-speed test facility, despite its remote location that required several hours’ driving time to reachand the detailed arrangements and paperwork required to clear the facility’s tight security.
Unfortunately, budget cuts caused by the global economic crisisin addition to more sophisticated static testing machinery that can replicate dynamic testing much better than beforecompelled Honda to shut down HPCC in September of last year, and the company has put the entire facility up for sale. And in these lean financial times, it’s doubtful that another automotive/motorcycle company would be willing to foot the surely substantial selling price.
That’s a shame, because HPCC is truly an impressive automotive testing center. As you’d expect from a company like Honda, great pains were taken to ensure that the pavement replicated nearly every type of tarmac an American-owned vehicle was likely to encounter in the United States. For example, the 7.5-mile oval has one lane that is concrete instead of asphalt, cut with the same rain grooves you see on everyday highways. One section even has the same type of frost heaves between pavement joints that cause the uncomfortable rocking in a poorly suspended vehicle.
In order to test a vehicle’s overall handling, a 4.5-mile, 21-turn road course aptly called the Winding Road Course snakes through the vast interior of the huge oval. Properly testing all cornering characteristics requires elevation changes, something a bit scarce in the flat expanse of the Mojave desert. So Honda went through considerable trouble and expense to move millions of cubic feet of earth to build several hills on the course, with some towering more than two hundred feet in height. The course also carves deep into the earth in many spots, so the layout is anything but flat, with numerous blind-crest turn entries and camber changes. While this might sound like an excellent road course to test sportbikes on, the reason we didn’t is because many of the corners had rough/uneven/bumpy asphalt intentionally built into the pavement, with most of them severe enough to significantly upset a motorcycle at speed.
There is a large skidpad with built-in sophisticated watering system, plus a supercross-style track for dirt bikes, and several ATV and ORV courses. The facility has more than 30,000 square feet of office and storage space, with well-built garages and underground fuel storage tanks. A few months before it was closed, HPCC had just opened a fully staffed kitchen in its lunchroom building, and we were blown away by how good (and inexpensive) the food was.
As you’d expect for a private testing facility, the grounds are also very secure, with perimeter fencing surrounding the entire property and the oval itself encircled by a 25-foot berm with trees and shrubbery to negate prying eyes with telephoto lenses. Although we never noticed any during our extensive time spent there, we had heard that the facility was also rife with hidden closed-circuit TV cameras and ground sensors to detect anyone who somehow got past the perimeter fencing.
We have many fond memories of HPCC, and are sorry to see Honda selling it off (unfortunately, it’s very likely that the facility will be torn down and the property sold to a solar power company). A heartfelt thanks to American Honda and Honda R&D Americas for giving us the opportunity to test there.