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Wayne
Hinson: History of Hinson Racing Clutch Components
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Hinson
Racing's Wayne Hinson |
Wayne Hinson, owner of Hinson Clutch Components,
began his racing career when he was 15 years old.
Fascinated with drag racing at an early age, he
and his friends would climb the fence at their local
drag strip in Pomona, CA just to watch the races.
Wayne’s infatuation with the high-speed sport
eventually led him to start drag racing himself
and stayed in the sport until 1970, when he bought
a motorcycle. “I wasn’t very good at
it, but I had a lot of fun riding it.” Wayne
reminisced. “But I’ve always liked working
on the bikes, it’s always been my passion.”
Even after he quit racing, Wayne was able to continue
pursuing what he loved to do when his kids developed
an interest in racing dirtbikes.
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| Hinson
Racing's orginal steel clutch basket |
It was during that time that Wayne met and became
involved with fellow race enthusiast, Gary Denton.
Hinson and Denton worked side-by-side in the racing
industry for 10 years designing aftermarket parts
and supporting the racing community until Denton
retired from the racing scene. Shortly after Gary’s
retirement, Hinson crossed paths with Doug Gust,
and worked with him and the Suzuki race team ever
since.
It was while working with Gary Denton that Wayne
Hinson developed the product that Hinson Racing
is most widely known for: The Hinson Clutch basket.
His innovative idea for the clutch basket came
about when Denton was at the starting line at
Nationals on his Honda 250R and the brand new
clutch basket he was running, broke, costing Denton
the race. This inspired Hinson to take matters
into his own hands, so he went home and immediately
began designing a new clutch basket out of steel.
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| Hinson
Racing's Famous Akalized Aluminun Clutch
Basket |
The new design was quite innovative and worked very
well. The holes that are in the fingers were part
of the original design and put there initially to
help circulate more oil to the clutch, which isn’t
a factor with newer machines now, since most of
them have a dry sump system, but Hinson has not
found a need to change their design. After a few
years of making the clutch baskets as more of a
hobby, Wayne’s product caught the eye of Honda
Racing and Wayne was asked if he would be interested
in making a clutch basket for none other than the
“King of Supercross”, Jeremy McGrath.
“Once that happened, it turned into a lot
bigger business…Things grew real fast after
that and we became a staple in the world of racing.”
Said Hinson.
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Wayne Hinson
& Jeremy McGrath
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Hinson
Racing's Wall of Champions |
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