Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

• All it takes to be Champion is a good press agent ~ co ....-< ~ IlJ By John Ulrich ..0 S / Billed as the "United States 125cc GP Champion," 16-year-old Randy Mamola leaves for a fullysponsored racIng tour of New Zealand December 14. Besides six road races at tracks with nam es like Auckland, Wanganoi , Timaro, and Ru apuna, Mamola will also enter six lo ng-co urse speedw ay. races o n a 360cc short tracker. Heavy advertisin g of t he coming of "the fast little ki d from th e United St at es" h as prompted the New Zealand 125cc Champion to issue a personal challenge to Mamola, Tw o top Australian speedway racers have done the same. The t iny, 4-foot, lO-in ch, 95-po u nd Mamola, from Santa Clara, California, will face obvious disadvantages on th e unfam iliar tight and twisty road courses and long, ro ugh speedway tracks of New Zealan d. But in spite of Mamola being an amateur th rown into the m idst of seas on ed an d confide n t pro fessionals, Marnola's sponsor and mentor J im Doyle isn 't worr ie d . "I t hink he 's going to win th e 12 5 GP races, and also win the speedway races, " says Doyle . Th e New Zealand Yamaha distribu tor , the Sp eedway Association o f New Zeal an d , an d a New Zealand radio station have banded to gether to fund the four-week adventure for Mamola's entourage. That seems surpri sing o nly to people wh o don't know Doyle. . It . was Doyle who gui de d th e meteoric rise of Kenny Roberts from small-town amateur into th e most suc cessful professional of our time. And it was Doyle 's ne gotia tions that . arranged th e trip to New Zeal an d for Mamola. " Right now they 're broadcas ting m y name on the radio over there ," Randy matter-of-factly tells a reporter at a recent ra ce ; "J im Doyle flies for Pan-Am Airlines, and he knows a lot o f people in New Zealand. He set it up with sponsors to fly me there." "We guess it 's a big deal, tt says Randy 's mother, Mary. She seems awed at the fact that her baby is. slated for several television talk shows and interviews upon his arrival in New Zealand. The massive media preparations for the coming of Randy and his crew including Do yle and Randy 's father Ed - are almost characteristic of Randy 's short career. When Doyle'sdealing made Mamo1a a contracted rider for Yamaha at age 14 , Randy quickly became a familiar figure in motorcycle publications covering California races, as well as in The San Francisco Chronicle and the Santa Clara Mercury daily newsp ap ers. In 1975 Mamola started road racing under the tutelage of Ron Grant, and attracted even more attention with a fleet of yellow-and-black grand prix bikes painted in the Yamaha racing motif. In two years Mamola received parts, .equipment, and four motorcycles from Yamaha - three dirt trackers and a I25cc road racer. A feeling of " fac t ory " oozed from Mamo1a's pits at every race, especially when a combination of events made him almost unbeatable in 125cc GP A FM road racing. "Th ey're loyal ists, " says Yamaha Pub lic Rel ations Director Steve Foitle, trying to explain the Mamola team 's cultivation of an image of he avy sponsorship that never really ex iste d. "Even if they 're not getting a lot, they say they 're Yamaha sponsored. I think Do yl e crea te s that aura himself. I'm sure it is an advantage in te rms of psyching o ther riders. " Do yle had the dirt tr ackers co mpletely re-worked in his San Francisco motor cycle shop, and 'supp lem en ted Yamaha's 125cc road racer with a 250 and a 50. Toward the end of 1975, th e ro ad racers began to be as far removed, in terms of " trickness," from their origin al fo rm as the dirt tr ackers alre ady we re . Not m an y 12 5s run ma g wheels, disc brakes, an d slic ks. Doyle hasn 't m ade any effo rt to renew Randy 's co n tract with Yamaha for 1976, which will be Randy 's first y ear as an AMA No vice profes sional. In stead , he11 sponsor Randy h imsel f. "I can 't ask much fo r a sportsman or a Novice rider," say s Doyle . "So my str ategy is to sp o nso r him to his Junior ye ar and t hen look aro un d. That's what I did with Kenny [Ro berts I . I' m going to b uil d Rand y in to a product 1 can really sell." Always wi th an ey e fo r publicity, Do yl e calls the New Zealand trip " q u ite a promotion." It is true th at Randy has o ver 700 racing trophies at home, and that he has won the Am eric an Federat io n of Motorcyclists 125cc GP Championship this year. But it is also true th at Doyle's media pl ay o f Mamola as " un de feated," and " Un ited States 125cc GP Champion" omits cert ain im portant considerations. For one thing, Cali fornia's AFM is only one of eight organizations "I don 't think he's the U.S. Champion . . . Saying that is lik e selling the Brooklyn Bridge. " Ron Pierce sanctioning 125cc GP racing in the United States. It is not the largest organization in terms of 12 5c c co m petiti o n. Secondly , Ron Pierce ran away from Mamola at the first A FM race of 1975, at Riverside Raceway. AFM politics got in the way of Pierce 's easy victory - he approved wasn 't racing with an competition number - and the win was thrown out. That made Mamola, who was a distant second, the technical winner. Pierce hasn't entered an A FM 125cc GP race since. "Name one person who can beat him," challenges Jim Doyle when questioned about the "United States Champion" tide. "Ron Pierce," volunteers a reporter. "No way," says Doyle. " Rand y . was very upset when Pierce didn't show up IlJ U IlJ c with a 125 at the last race. He said to me , II can beat him.' " " He's a pretty goo d li ttle rider," says Pierce when asked ab o u t Mamola 's riding skill. " Bu t I don't think he's the U.S,. Champion. Sayi ng that is like selling the Brooklyn Bridge - it's a little bit de ceiving. "I don 't think anybody 's unbeatable," adds Pierce . " Even big Kenny Roberts proved that by finishing tenth in the 250 race at Ontario in October, and Randy's ju st a little Kenny . Of course for a 16-year-old boy it would be nice to believe. " Mamola credi ts one race wi th Mike Baeder , Laguna Seca Novice winner, as being the toughest road race of his career. Told of Randy's " U.S. Champ ion" label , Baeder says "Th at 's a bunch of hogwash. He's good fo r his age, but he 's not that good because he's lacking a lot of experience. His bike is really fast, he 's really small, and h e's just plain lu cky. That last Ontario race (Septem ber 21) Rudy Galindo almost beat him. You get Rudy, Kevin Stafford, me , and Mamola on identical bikes, and Mamola would be so far behind ... " " If he 's the 125cc United States Champion, then I'm Grand National Number One," says Rudy Galindo , AFM Overall GP Champion. "He has a lo t of potential," Galindo says. "But he wins because he has a really fast bike and only weighs about 80 poun ds. And ' there's no real comp etitio n in the 125 class. Nobody tries to build a co mpe ti t ive 125 excep t Ma mola. Everybod y 's bikes are st oc k. No body's seriou s. " September 2 1 at Ontario, Galindo charged through th e pack after a poor start to pass Mam ola. "He was 10 b ike lengths ahead of me going down the straigh t ," explains Galindo, " and halfway through the in field I was in front of him. He must have h ad seven or eight mph on me down the straight." In th e last turn of that race , a lapped rider changed his line as Mamola and Galindo t ried to shoot past to the finish . The rider moved right in front of Galindo , and Mamola won by half a wheel at the line. " Saying h e 's the U.S. Champion is ri dic ul o us," says Galindo. Even so, Mamola's AFM record is im pressive. After days and days of prac tice at Sears Point Raceway prior to his first 125cc road race, Mamola went on to score te n 125 cc wins, one DNF (due to a seizure and crash while leading) , and one ac tual loss to Ron Pierce, although scored as an o ffici al win. Doyle discounts that one loss by· pointing out that it was a non-points race. The 250cc Yamaha that Doyle added to Randy 's stable featured a special (Continued on page 32) 23

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