Centuries ago, military philosopher Sun Tzu claimed that, "All battles are won before they are fought." It is doubtful the ancient Chinese wise man had motorcycle racing in mind when he penned those words, but his statement still applies.

American Honda excused their three factory Superbike riders from non-Daytona Supersport duty in the in 2002, and it paid off in a big way with Nicky Hayden winning the AMA Superbike title and Miguel DuHamel finishing third. Team manager Chuck Miller took the advice of his riders, who wanted to follow the Doug Chandler/Mat Mladin-inspired trend and concentrate their attentions solely on the hot 2002 RC51 Superbike. It was the right move because they won 11 of 16 races and the championship despite having difficulties the previous season.

The problem was the riders for the Erion Racing and Bruce Transportation Group teams that comprised the Honda Supersport challenge only managed two podiums all year -- Jake Zemke won at Brainerd and Roger Hayden finished third at Pikes Peak. Honda, having won the Supersport title 5 of the previous 7 years, had to watch Aaron Yates and Suzuki run roughshod over them on the way to the crown. Roger Hayden was the top scoring Honda runner in the points but ended the season 95 behind Yates and in fifth place. Riders from the other three class manus finished in front of them in the standings and that couldn't have gone down well at Honda HQ.

At Laguna Seca, Honda addressed the problem by putting Miguel DuHamel on a 600 in a bid to win in front of the huge World Superbike crowd. DuHamel crashed exiting the Corkscrew, though, and the broken bones in his foot hobbled him for the rest of the season. The experiment proved the very reason why Miguel and his Superbike teammates wanted to sit out Supersport.

Honda will for certain try to reverse the trend next year. Honda is widely rumored to be debuting a new CBR F5 machine at the Chicago dealer show this week. That should help, although rivals Yamaha have already released details on their new R6 and Kawasaki is expected to announce a new version of their rumored new 600 class machine soon.

But what about riders? In a class where all the top bikes are roughly equal, it is the man on the machine that makes the difference. It is all a question of managing the team's resources. Do you keep the pressure on in the marquee Superbike class or support sales of the new machine by planning an all-out assault to take back Supersport?

Sources in the AmHon camp say the plan for next year is yet to be determined. Will the front line riders return to Superbike duty or will Honda have their support teams only carry the flag?

Two riders already under contract to Honda for next year are class heavyweights. Miguel DuHamel is the all-time master of the 600 class with 40 wins and Kurtis Roberts is a past series champ as well. But Honda has augmented its support program by signing up with the Annandale and No Limits teams. There are also some very capable Supersport vets -- Jamie Hacking, Tom Kipp, and Damon Buckmaster immediately come to mind -- on the open market.

At this point, as they say, next year's plans are just an "Ancient Chinese Secret". Or maybe a Japanese one.