Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

looked, and the lights on, and I went , OH NO - Well, Mike says if it just comes on once in a while, don't worry about it until it stays on all the time. Then you have three laps left. "I couldn't think then if he said three laps or four laps! And I wondered what he said because when I went by the lap board they just had put up four laps. So I went, 'OH NO, I got four lapsl Did he say it would go four laps or three laps?' And I couldn't, I couldn't - I didn't know what to doll said, 'If I stop, I'm gonna lose the race, and if I run out of gas they're gonna kill me!' And I kept cWISing why in the heck did they put a gas gauge on here, - let me try to make a decision whether to pull in for gas or what, you know? "At this point, my lap time dropped off four seconds right off the bat, and Ferrari comes right down within five seconds at this point. So the next time I went by the pits, I was frantically going, you know, 'The gas gauge is ~n.' and they knew what I meant. They pulled Sarrori in, who rides the other factory Yamaha, because he wasn't doing so good, checked his gas and then the next lap hung out a gas okay - GO. I got three mechanics standing up on the wall going GO GO! That was the third to the last lap, and I think I cut my fastest time of the race. I thought they're on me now, they're going to catch mel "I didn't have as much of a tire problem as I thought I had, because when you cut the fastest lap the last two or three laps ... The last two laps I kind of gave up because I knew I had eight seconds on him. "That was it. I said, 'No more gas gauge - I'm not going to ride with no more gas gauge. ' "So we get to Spain, and everything's great. I probably should tell everybody, I told everybody there, all the press. I get to Spain and I - in Europe you're paid a minimum: they have a set minimum of what you get paid for stan money because they don't pay purse money. "The FIM establishes what you should get paid as a minimum. Now they can pay you more, but you know, that's like saying this is $10, this costs $10 - but you can give me; $12 if you want. Naturally, you're gonna pay $10 for it. And I told them, 'Why do you call it a minim1'1m, why don't you just call it a purse?' 1 said, 'Come on - be realistic,' and I told this to the FIM guys, and they didn't like it. "I went to the organizer. He's paying me $1,000 less than what I'm su pposed to g~t. It goes on how you finish the year before. And they 24 haven't raised this mInimum in six years. The justification of that was, well this year, because there was so much screaming about it last year that I did, I guess, I don't know - this year we're gonna pay any stan that you have at the race you ride. It doesn't matter if you ride a 250, 500 or what, you're supposed to get that start. So that means I get my ,250 stan, which I got founh after quitting halfway through the year. I got second in the 750, and I won the 500, so I'm guaranteed this much money. "Well, now all of a sudden. it's a $1,000 less. And I said, 'It's so chicken shit, the amount of money you're paying me, I shouldn't be griping.' I JUSt said forget about it: but I said it's just the principal. "Well, FIM said, 'We don't have to pay it.' I said, 'What do you mean you don't have to pay it? It's right here in the FIM rules! You have to pay! They said, 'Oh yeah, but we don't want to do that; we protested against that.' And I said, 'How can ,you? You know you have a race here - a GP - and you're supposed to pay this. You say you don't 'have to pay any money. Why don't you just pay everybody nothing?' '''Well,' they said, 'you know we just do what the FIM tells us to do and if you don't like it, I'm sorry.' Well. they didn't say they were sorry. 'If you don't like it, pack it up.' is what they said. And they were pretty rude about it. "I get paid nothing anyway, but all of a sudden I get paid $1,000 less. Why, who's doing all this? I'm tired of it. I asked for eight passes. and they almost had a hean attack because Friday Suzuki was gonna leave because they couldn't get passes to get into th'e track'. Yamaha - I had them almost convinced to leave because they couldn't get passes to get into the track. And they just won't give anybody passes. "In Italy I said some English they probably never heard! I was screaming and yelling. and I was gonna go home. They finally gave me four passes. I . couldn't believe it! I couldn't believe it was that much trouble to get four passes. So I said, 'Look, let's go home and forget about this, 'cause without, the factories, they ain't got no race!' When they heard me say that. 'cause they were all in the room, the passes staned flying like wallpaper, just everywhere. Who needs a pass? Who needs a pass? Anybody standing there had one at that time. So, everything got smoothed out. "Well. I still had a bitch about the stan money. They said - the FIM said - 'That's not our problem. We're here to discuss this race, and tbat's not our business.' I said 'Whose business is it? We don't get paid, and it's not the FIM's business?' They said, 'We have to pay you just to stan on your 500. We're giving you 10% more.' I said, 'No, you're not because I'm not taking it. I'm not going to be obligated to you because you paid me 10% more. You paid me less than I should be getting now, and you think you're paying me 10% more. You can take your 10% and stick it in your butt!' And off I went. "Everything was jake; they don't care. They wouldn't care if I said anything because the journalists are so tired of everybody griping about it that they're not gonna write it down. So everything went great. The race went on as planned. "I didn't have too many problems. I had Hanog racing with me for 20 laps, and I had - le~'s see, what else was going on - we were lapping a lot of people because Spain's a real up and down hill, real short course. It's not a high speed thing. And a lot of brakes and lots of acceleration. And Wil (Hartog) was, like I said, we were racing. We had been racing 20 laps and the race was 30 laps. "We guessed on a couple of things. We guessed on the gear box, guessed on the tires and we guessed on the suspension because I changed it all the night before the race and it turned out alright - everything was good. "Mike Baldwin was third. He was catching us of a second on a lap, and I thought, 'Well, I'm racing with Hartog, ,and I'm not really trying td get away, but I'm racing hard to stay with him.' And I said, 'If Mike Baldwin comes up, and he wants to race, and he catches us, and we're lapping people, there's not gonna be room on this track.' I got run off the track twice. And I almost hit one guy, and I don't know how ~any guys Wil almost hit, 'cause there's not enough room. "You know, when you're racing you don't shut off and wait for a guy to get out of your way 'cause t.hen the other guys are 50 yards ahead of you. The last 10 laps, Mike got within three seconds, and I thought, 'Well if you're ever gonna make a move, do it now.' r.. "I put Wil in a kind of position just where I wanted him. We were coming up on a slower rider. and I passed him at that point where lie couldn't come on the inside of me. He had to go around the guy, and his line's not going around the guy - his line was corning down underneath. So, right away I had one second on him. And that second he was out of my draft. If I race as hard as I can through the'infield without having any kind of advantage on him second·wise. or gap·wise, he can make that up. If I pull him 50 bikelengths, he can make that up in the straight with the draft, So I had to get him out of my draft. Once I got him out of my draft, I pulled a.second a lap. I started going fast, but I felt the lap times ... oh, I dropped him down a second a lap and the fastest lap was about the sixth, seventh from the end again. I had 12 seconds on him at the end of the race. I think once I got about five· six seconds ahead - five·six laps, he sort of gives up. He knew he had second wired, and he knew he wasn't gonna beat me. And his hand was huTting, so he gave up. .. After the race they had this big podium where the FIM president sits, because he's from Spain - he doesn't have any brains. He sits up in this big statue·looking thing where they used to have the bullfights, I guess, in the old tradition. You know, with tbe flags up and the FIM thing and this and that. And all his servants and little ladies parading a!'.2und - and they sit up there and sip their champagne. They have the rostrum where the riders stand up right in front of them - oh, probably 10 feet down so that they can overlook this mess that they've got here. They sit here; they don't get excited. They're the hot set· up. "Well, when it came time to put the wreath on, I said, 'No, I don't want it.' In all, there's probably 100 journalists taking pictures, and I never told no one what was going to happen. But I knew it. "I said, 'No, I don't want that. You can have it.' And the guy don't speak English. And he looks at me pwzled, and he says, 'This is yours.' I said, 'No, this is yours - I just gave it to you.' And he looks up at the President. The President, he don't know what's going on yet either, and this guy - all the people are waiting for me to put on the wreath and they have all these trophies and there's a big gold plaque, I mean, they give super stuff away, and he goes, 'but ... but ... this.' And I went, 'Ob, that? You can have that, too. I don't want it,' "The President looked shocked; he couldn't believe it - he was looking around for someone to give him an answer. So the interpreter, who was so mean to me in the first place, jumped down on the podium - 'Kenny, you must take these trophies.' And I said, 'No, I don't have to take those trophies.' 'You mUst take them,' he said. And I said, 'I must take them? No, I don't; I give them to you. Sell them because you guys need the money!' "They were standing there holding this stuff and they just - their mouths were open, and they didn't really know what to say, and they. got all these press people going, Jeez - what's the matter?' And then the stuff started flying around. "He says, 'You must take the trophies. What is it? The money - the money?' "I said, 'No. I may be number one, but I'm a human, and I like to be treated as one. You don't treat people like crap just because you think that they have to race here. I have to race here. I have to have your points, but I don't have to take your trophies. I don't even want to be reminded of this race!' "I left the podium, and all the press people went with me. There's the President sitting up there with all this stuff; what's he going to do with it? Then they announced that I didn't accept their awards; I refused their awards after they showed me the respect of playing the National Anthem, I refused the awards. So the people automatically said - right off the bat - 'Well, that no good son of a gun.' They're going boo, yelling and screaming ... "You know, if I picked the race that had to be ii, because Spain doesn't draw any people. So there weren't too many people bothered with it. But I felt that I had to do something so the reporters would write it down. This hasn't been done, and everybody gripes about the money sitUation, so they just never write it down. So. I've got 14 journalists in my motorhome, 'cause that's all I could get in, and there was a line outside waiting to get in to find out why .1 didn't take the laurels and the trophies and all that stuff. "It was really funny because they • didn't know what to do and, of course, the press - I don't know - I left Europe after that, but didn't pick up my money, just left Spain. And the press ate it up. They thought that was the greatest thing that ever happened, that somebody finally did something. Apparently, the press couldn't get p,ress passes. They didn't want to give them press passes or photo passes. They had to buy them. And I think the 1,\\hole thing - you know - I

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