Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126401
He couldn't compete with it simply because he didn't have the dollars and the knowledge of how to do it. Consequently, they developed two classes. One of them is an out and out class for unconventional type sidecars and the other one is for convent ional type sidecars. I think you might see Superbikes developing into something like thai . It might take one year . it might take two years . Right now the four-cylinder things are just that much advanced over what you have in the rest of the world. Most of the Japanese four -cylinder motorcycles are putting out one-third as much again horsepower as most of the twin cylinder models are. Now they all have their advantages and disadvantages . The AMA is trying to make things fairer this year by allowing lighter two, cylinder motorcycles. They will probably get better gas mileage at Daytona ; they probably won 't have to stop. Most of the fours will have to stop at least once, in some cases , twice . But that might occur. You might see two entirely different classes emerge fro m wha t we know now as Su perbike racing - to the point where people will be all owed to spe nd $10.000 to $12,000 or m ore on an ou t and out p roductio n type mo torcycle with lots of development as opposed to the guy who just wants to go race and compete in AMA, maybe a Su pe rbike class , but on a lesser dollar value . Do you plan to contest any events ou tside of the AMA Superbike P roduction circuit this yea r? Yes, in fact we've been asked to Australia in the beginning of April to race three races. And we'll be at the Isle of Man, probably Formula One, in June. And , in the latter part of the year, depending on how other races go , Craig intends to compete in one or two of the 24·hour races. Just looking to our own development , we've been working pretty hard on it . We're looking to see what it produces in the first two , three or four ra ces this year; to see what the outcome is. Hopefully it will be good. I think 1IIhatwe have to work with is that much bett er than last year. IIAII 01 a sudden I found a tremendous increase in interest in the class Irom outside people, people who wanted to advertise their goods and their wares.. " We had a problem machine at Daytona last year. We had carburetors that were flown across on our .laps . They weren 't tried and tested. Consequently we had really bad carburetion problems; Steve came by me like I was tied to a post . So we've overcome those kind of things in the past year. My crash in Japan didn't help things any because I lost three Nationals. even thoug h I fin ished sixth at Laguna Seca, I'd only been out of the hospital for about five days, with my shoulder pretty severely pinned up. I wasn't in any really good riding shape; I just went out to see if I could get enough points to earn the championship, which is the way it worked out. But my feeling is that, at the end of the year, even at Laguna Seca , the machine was potentially faster than what the Yoshimuras had there at the time , in spite of their winning machine. I think what we had was a better machine, I just wasn't able to ride it. Now I'm all back in shape. I think this year is going to be very interesting, Have you had much track time since l.agulla Scca ? No;-not really. It's a fu nny thi ng a bo ut that. You get to ride one of these projectiles, whic h is re ally wha t they're getting to be ; they're ge tting harder to ride. You don't get to go to the track every week. Bu t it's one of those things where you can jump on a bike and settle into a good pace, a good, hardhitting pace in no time flat . Do you think technol ogy, as far as brakes an d tires a re concerned, is go ing to keep up wi th the horsepower race? O r is somebody going to get killed? I went to an AMA meeting last November , after the AMA banquet and sat in with some AMA officials and could have been more impressed than) really was. I Ret a feeling that as far as rule- making goes , appointing some actual road racers with five years of modem experience would be poSsibly m ore beneficial. I believe that for Mike DiPrete, who has very little road racing experience, to make decisions that in my opinion affeet the safety of road racing, is wrong. Especially on the rule re quiring stock type sea ts with no bump on the back. Well , if this guy had been out and ridden one of these 160 mph machines without a bump on the seat - it's like asking Kenny Roberts to ride his OW without a bump on the back of the seat. It 's very much the same thing. Now the rule was made a nd I hope they change it because, yes, I can see somebody getting hurt . No matter how indirect it is, it's going to have an effect for certain people. I certainly hope it isn't me . There are one or two things I th ink the AMA could do if they were to listen to certain people who were not just interested in their personal gain , but interested in the spo rt as a whol e. I t hink Steve McLaughlin is one of those persons. Steven's done an awful lot to help this particular class of ra cin g. I know what a lot of people say about Steve, how he's very outspoken, he wants to sue everybody, bu t Steven is a pretty good guy at heart. And he just has a lot of good inte ntio ns for Superbike racing. If the y were to listen to Steven a little bit more, instead of judging him , I think they'd come out with a lot better rules than they ha ve now : That's just my personal feeling, you understand. Steven feels pretty strongly about certain points because he's a racer and he can see things just like I can see and feel things. These people who a re sitting in the chair, making the rul es and really having all the sav the y really shouldn 't be there. They have a job as far as administration is concerned and they probably, do ,tha t I very efficiently. Bu t comi ng down to the other sid e of the fence, they should listen to the people who have the experience in pu tting wheels to the ground. Pu tt ing somebody into office who is a motocrosser to advise for road racing - I don't think that is correct policy. To have a lot of people sitting in office who, because of their past ex perience. they happen to have been a road racer 20 or 30 years ago, even that isn't correct because that's not today, that's not now . All they can see is a bunch of m achines flying around the track . They don't have the feeling for what you have to put up with as far as making the machines go in the right direction. I think it would be a good idea to get people who have experi ence in modem day road racing. I think you 're going to see the forming of a union before long if things get out of hand too much; if Superb ike racing becomes what I think it will be come. You'll see the riders getting together and boycott ing o r ta kin g othe r m easures, simp ly because you can't ha ve peop le running it who a re no t in position to say what is best for the ride r . I'm in total agreement wit h them if they want to maintain this class of Su perb ike pretty much stock, appearance-wise. We've tried our hardest this year to keep our machine right to the rule . We don't want to get into the winner's circle at Daytona a nd have somebody say, 'that's illegal. ' Consequently, we've gone out of our way to make sure our bike is legal. I've never seen striking motorcycle riders. The nearest I've come to that was the summit that Cook (Neilson) , myself, Steven, and I think it was Baldwin, got involved in . Cook d id most of the writing, most of the penwork. Two years ago at Laguna Seca the prize money was so poor we just said we weren't going to ride for $300 first prize. Not when we were one of the biggest attractions on the card. Consequently, the prize money was jacked up considerably. . Didn't Craig Vetter do that? , Craig put $5 ,000 in, yeah . It became the Craig Vetter Superbike race. But I th ink the AMA actually got some extra prize money pu t in to which brought it up closer to eight or nine thousand dollars. If, as you forsee , Superbike racing is going to become maybe th e main attraction , it sure is getting poor pay for what they 're doing right now. This yea r at Daytona, I think first place isn't even $2 ,000 . Was, or is, cheating common? This year is going to be much tighter. I think DiPrete has given us some ind ica tion of this . He's probably a good man for that job. He's a good man for sa ying 'O K, there are the rul es. If you guys don't stick by them you' ll be d isqualified or pushed down .' T ha t's what we want . We wan t somebody strong like that. Because last year at Da ytona there was a big hassle over the weigh- in. The weigh -in was almost a big fix. They readjusted scales that were meant to weigh 3,000 po und cars to weigh 400 pound motorcycles and it just made it happen to come out just rosy. There were some funny goings on . If they're go ing to weigh mororcycles , have motorcycle scales . Bu t DiPrete will do a good job as far as pointing th e finger and saying 'that is not legal, that is legal, ' As far as saying what is safe and what isn't safe, I don't think he has that capability yet. Not in what I'm doing . One or two laps around Daytona might make Mr. DiPrete change his mi nd about the stock seat rule . , .. I I . T hese bikes have so much power. I kn ow my bike and most of the other big four-cylinder chargers have the power that enable you just to hang on rather than having to lift your hand off to pull in the clutch. I never use my clutch going up through because I can't reach for the lever. It 's enough just to hang on . You're not tucked in behind a fairing, you've got air speed beating you to death at 150·160 mph. That's go ing to become very fatiguing for some people in a 100 ·200 mile race. T hat's quite a few points to take into consideration. I'm sure Steven has thought of it a lot more. II' never use my clutch going up through, because I can't reach lor the lever.,t's enough just to hang on. " Bu t yes, I'd like to see a rider committee. I'd like to see four or five people appointed to the job , not necessarily making a bunch of new rules, but at least weeding ou t the ones tha t are bad for the interests of the riders. I wa nt to keep racing fair if we can. I don 't want any super advantages over my competition beca use I've also bee n a shoe-stringer. ,I kn ow whatit's like to try and operate on $10 a week. I'm fortunate - through my own ability I've worked my way up to where I've acq u ir ed factory rides , or sponsored rides, whichever you wish to say. I'm fortunate , but I think I've worked hard for it. But I also have a lot of feeling for ,the guy who's just starting ou t or for the gu y who 's running against me and doesn't have the dollars we've got. We don't have any super factory backing. We don't have anything coming from the factory that's trick and unusual. Anything and everything on our bike you can go buy . Whether it's cha nging any kind of suspension parts: Pierre is willing to help anybody. We get a lot of people calling us 'up all the time. Pierre is very willing to help anybody get their machine up to the way ou rs is. If you have the money to go to Axtell , that is probably the only thing that gets a little bit stretchy. As far as factory involvement goes, Kawasaki has come up wi th a la rge bonus program , I u nderstand th at you, Ste ve and Mike Ba ld win aren't eligib le, b u t anybody else is, It 's not quite true . Kawasaki was supposed to produce some motorcycles this year. I don't know ; first I thought it was a ba tch of 25 , then I heard it was a batch of three, for myself, Wes Cooley and Ba ld win , and then the ~~x~ ~~irlg,l)le¥P \f~s.~~l ~~e.fa!=~qr,y.