was really sensational in the days. The man who organized all of these events is YOSHIZAWA Hiroyuki. Especially, "Over All" event is still organized today and many riders from many genres came in to compete for No.1. Riders from Motocross, Trial, Enduro, SUPERMOTO, Road race and Dirt Track came in. All rider battle on the same field, all riders means professionals and general riders. This is quite unique here in Japan, to be open minded and organizing a race opened to all.
YOSHIZAWA always sensed the sense of era and made new proposal for the next trend.

Race Planner, YOSHIZAWA Hiroyuki

"I want to do a race men (riders) battle, you know. A race that human gets attention, that's what I wanna do" said YOSHIZAWA.

"When you talk about racing, you often focus on machines. Like magazines, you may get those articles as it connects to more advertisement insertion, but I basically do not agree with "Machine Rules" kind of stuff. Looking at tracks, I would rather have the races at the place where riders never ride before, making announcement of the course just before the start. You don't do practice and practice to conquer the track. I like to do that kind of thing. Suddenly a course appears in front of the riders and everybody just fight with what the strength and riding ability they got. I would like to see that kind of battle."

All of photo is from 2005 MOTO1, the start-up. YOSHIZAWA today organize MOTO1 Rd.3 Nagano/ Ina and Rd.8 Motegi. He has engaged with MOTO1 from the launch and worked as key person of SUPERMOTO in Japan and lead the SUPERMOTO culture.

A motor sports event held inside gigantic city of Tokyo. MOTO1 was one of the contents in this event. SUPERMOTO was not really known in Japan at that time and this "MULTIPLEX" made a good contribution to the publicity. Recognition of FMX was also made from this event.
"GAMES Tokyo" was an event evolved "MULTIPLEX", focusing on watching races at night time. This was also held in Odaiba, Tokyo. Jeff WORD from Team Troy Lee Design and many other names came in for race.

Hit Maker, YOSHIZAWA Hiroyuki

It is not directly related to MOTO1, but we need to tell another side of YOSHIZAWA. He created the "TWer" or so called Harajuku Bike which was an extreme hit. This motorcycle has become a fashion icon among young culture and the main actor in the very popular TV drama at that time even ride on it. During that time, among the motorcycle industry it was natural to think "fast bike is a good bike" but the bike came out by denying that idea. YOSHIZAWA is always filled with original thoughts.
He may not believe in so called common sense. In other words, he is not relying on information from media but always spreading his antenna to sense things from his eye, ears and nose to create things based on the personal thoughts. That must be the reason why he brings new message and move our emotions.

"OVER ALL" It's a mass fight. All variety of road condition is here! Tarmac section, dirt section and jump section, rocks and logs and artificial extreme section. It's all mixed up, professionals and amateurs. Some fight for victory and some join as happy event race. A sense of liberation is here. All kinds of machines came over, SUPERMOTO, motocross, dirt track machines to classical machines. It's really Over All! The winner of 2011 was a MOTO1 rider No.4 JAWS MASUDA + YZ450F(F17inch x R19inch MX Tire) / Photo right bottom

An Ultimate Nosy Parker, YOSHIZAWA Hiroyuki

"Let's do a race in the heart of Tokyo, Odaiba! We shall do a motor show with real action, not the conventional one that only display and still. That's the kind of things people wants and expecting."
This was how that famous "MULTIPLEX" born. Today in Odaiba you may see F1 car doing demonstration run and it was "MULTIPLEX" that started this kind of activity. However at that time, everybody said "that's impossible." Nobody was able to even imagine what the outcome could be. In this "MULTIPLEX", SUPERMOTO MOTO1 was also held. There were many people who learned SUPERMOTO and bought SUPRTMOTO bike, started SUPERMOTO as they wanted to be in the race.
"I really want people to see it! "Hey guys, check out the real cool stuff in the scene called bike" I always think that kind of things but that is already nosy parker, isn't it? Nobody is asking me to do something but my mind is always made up by the idea that "if anybody sees it, they'll love it". Honestly, I'm a nosy parker."
The affect from this event is tremendous because motor sport event in the gigantic city did happened and proven that it is possible. Everybody thought it was impossible to do it in Japan. He has released motorsport from circuit.

Ska Tune, T-dub, T-dubber (one who loves T-dub). These are the words came from YOSHIZAWA's motorcycle created by his motorcycle shop "Motoshop Goro" and spread through media. It's a motorcycle you can enjoy on street, fits on everyday clothing, a bike everybody can ride regardless of their riding skill. Since the debut of this motorcycle, many similar ones came out from variety of makers.
A photo shooting with federation representatives from Asian countries. Middle right is Mr. Stephan "Macky" P. Carapiet of FIM Asia President / FIM Vice President. YOSHIZAWA stands to his left.

"SUPERMOTO might have been the closest answer to me."

Q: Why did you pay attention to SUPERMOTO?

YOSHIZAWA: SUPERMOTO is a battle regardless of genres, road race or motocross. At the end of the day this will be resulted to the focus on riders. These two are the main points.
Later, I discovered that by doing motorcycle sport event in the city you can attract people who never had any interest to it. In the" MULTIPLEX", we do SUPERMOTO as part of MOTO1's special round.
Because it is SUPERMOTO, you can do in the city. City roads are too narrow for road race and to run motocross event will be expensive as you need to bring in dirt to the sight. If you spend too much for preparation, we were not able to organize event with more contents and ticket will be expensive. After all that will be irrelevant one.

Q: What was the reason for making MOTO1 into series competition and not as single event?

YOSHIZAWA: Up until then, our organized races were "Hill Atack" and " Over All" that was single event style. After several events we started thinking that this SUPERMOTO will be a good material, very good material to send out my message with it.
Instead of promoting as a one off event, I thought MOTO1 should be placed as the pinnacle of SUPERMOTO sport and popularize this sport from here. That's why we decided to join MFJ and also created good relationship with media. Supports from riders were awesome. As we have set our goals larger, goal became our dream and probably we came this far with a lot of people, with sympathy.

People around me say "YOSHIZAWA is a nosy parker". I already start thinking of the

spread when we just start the project.

I personally wanted to see a race where many top riders from different category gather

together with their talent and start a serious mass fight. By making MOTO1 into big

annual series race, I thought this could be possible.


"Message" means from your previous talk "human gets attention, not machine", right?

YOSHIZAWA: Yap. Machines don't won, human wins. I like to produce a race that people will be the main factor. If you have dirt, jumps and tarmac fast curves and all kinds of road condition in the course, you cannot race with the performance of machine alone. There is a lot of room for human skill to work on. That's the part I like about SUPERMOTO. I was doing a race called Over All before I start MOTO1. This was a SUPERMOTO based race with new idea and concept was "human gets attention, not machine". Not only the participants but also media and manufactures showed understanding to this idea and that was the time I got the feeling that SUPERMOTO will be accepted.

But generally speaking, if it is not for the claim "victory was brought by machine", makers and parts manufacturers may not be joining the race?

YOSHIZAWA: That might be true. But none of the Japanese makers and motorcycle people said things similar. Everyone loves motorcycle. Actually, they were all agreed with my idea.

YOSHIZAWA often brings up innovative proposals and sometimes motorcycle makers may face with difficulties. However, with wonder, all the people from makers became YOSHIZAWA's friend and be cooperative at the end of the day. Riders do the same too. He receives really good trust from them.

"Nowadays, generally people are becoming materialistic talking only about machine and performance. But you got to know that if people can't handle that performance to the limit, it's nothing"

"When I was doing bike shop as my main business, I thought the value of motorcycle means "whether you are fast or slow" or "performance is good or bad" like the two axis on the graph. And then I started to think there is another axis customer wants which is "looks cool or not. If I am the customer, I would love to buy one of these. So that's how I customized YAMAHA TW into TWer or so called Harajuku Bike. It was a motorcycle born with my customers' voice."
(FYI; Harajuku is one of the cool fashion district in Tokyo)

"I started thinking presenting lifestyle born from motorcycle, not selling motorcycle. Not being just the hardware motorcycle shop but to be a motorcycle shop that sells software and style related to motorcycle."

All kinds of words spread out from him. The episodes may be from the past but all message with in is a still fresh one.

"YOSHIZAWA-san might be a lonely-hearted guy, that's why he is so generous to the company including riders like me. He is really kind, even to the youngest fellows. He gathers all the friends and started to play with motorcycle. MOTO1is a motorcycle sport, but may be for YOSHIZAWA-san it's more like a "fun with motorcycle" kind of stuff. That's why we are attracted to MOTO1 and YOSHIZAWA-san", said Mr. MOTO1 Jaws MASUDA. MASUDA is a development rider for YAMAHA's 4 stroke motocross machine YZ-F series and one of the rider who created MOTO1. He has long relationship with YOSHIZAWA.

"I want to be connected to everyone in the world, firmly"

We hope motorcycle races to be a motorsport fitted to today's trend.
YOSHIZAWA: One aspect is that role of races for the development of machine purpose has ended. The performance of machine has reached way beyond the expectation of ordinary riders require. Now, let me ask you this way. What can MOTO1 race present and bring to people?

I would say first, presenting SUPERMOTO as one of the choice for sport. MOTO1 will take the role as a symbol for SUPERMOTO. It will be an admiration and goal for the people who do SUPERMOTO.

Second, It will be an existence to present excitement and fascination of motorcycle sport to everyone. I think MOTO1 should not only talk to motorcycle fans but to be connected to everyone in the world firmly to share satisfaction together.

Riders competed in "GAMES Tokyo". Jeff WORD from Team Try Lee Design in the center.