Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

When he started riding for them, the first time, when they pulled me off the Kawasaki at Sears Point, I was a little perturbed. But it was the best thing in the end because the bike handled better after Steve rode it. That's when the SuzuIU deal came through. At the time I hadn't won any races. In fact, I wasn't doing particularly well at all. I think Fugio, mo~ so than Pops, wanted to put a win under their belts, so they hired Steve to ride the Suzuki. But, they didn't get it finished and Steve conned them into pulling the Kawasaki from me. Which was fine. I just told Fugio, "okay, now he's your problem." It worked out. The situation didn't last too long; and Steve did help develop the bike. He helped develop the SuzuIU too. You've ridden both the Kawuaki aDd the Suzuki. Which do you prefer? The SuzulU, most definitely. First of all, it was a better designed motorcycle, chassis wise, to begin with. Kawasa1li's had the Z- I a lot longer than Suzuki's had the GS; it was just that their initial effort was a much more sanitary job. There was never a problem with the KawasalU's horsepower. It was just the handling. I haven't ridden a new one, like the one Spencer rode at Sears PoilU. It's good! But one of those bikes is the one I rode at Daytona in '78. That was the first time I can say the motorcycle handled extremely well. When Yoshimura dropped Steve they asked me if I'd want to ride the SuzulU. I took it out to Ontario, did some pop tops on it, and I've ridden it ever since. That was in April of '78. Do you thiDk you'll stick with puttiDg your best efforts· iDto the Superbike class rather than the GP clull? ld like to put my best efforts intp both classes. But I have a better ride with the Superbike class. If I come in and something's wrong, I can tell someone and sometting can usually be done about it. Whereas with my Yamaha, I just work on it at home. Jeff Cowan, my mechanic for four years, helps me a lot. But we don't have the time, facilities, or the money. to get along like, say Kel Carruthers or Irv (Kanemoto) do on that motorcycle. I might have more of an interest in the 750cc class if I had Irv tune for me or someone who was a little bit more proficient at knowing what to do with a TZ750. Is Yoshimura interested in doing some work on a GP bike for you at alI? We'll have to see what the AMA does next year. If they go to a Formula One type class ... hopefully they won't screw up and make it a 750cc limit. If they do that, I think they're going to kill the whole thing. If they cut Superbikes back to 750cc's, everybody's going to have to junk it. You can't run the same motorcycle; you can't just take the engine out and put another engine in. It's a whole differ~nt ball game. Yoshimura's probably got $15,000 tied up in each one of those bikes. If they go to a 1000cc four·stroke, then I think Pops is going to run one in the GP class. That's why Suzuki built those frames. So you thiDk a lOOOcc GP class is the way togo? I'd say it's the best thing they could do, right now, for American road racing. If they wanted to go (0 an international type scale, they'd have to go to 500cc. But I think that's financially out of the picture, A 500cc costs about $18,000 from Suzuki. I don't know if Yamaha would even want to sell any of them. Yet, if someone wanted to buy a 500cc and run it unrestricted, like Kenny did at Sears Point, they could. 75Occ's are restricted but there's still a lot of them floating around. I've got two of them. What am I gonna do with them if they lUll the 750cc class? .They're just going to sit therel It's al~ady dead in Europe. But go to a 1000cc unrestricted four-stroke - that would be competitive. How about ..fety? Safety, I believe, is all in a person's wrist. To a point. If they start going 200 mph, that's a little bit unsafe. But, if they aren't going to go any faster than they are right now ... they haven't gone over ISO mph for the last four years. They've restricted them back a little bit, but I think my 750 now is damned near as fast as it was unrestricted, So, I'd like to see the lOOOcc un~rieted GP class. It would bring a lot of the factories back into road racing and that's the name of the game. How many riden does Yoshimura have UDder their wiDg? Ron Pierce, myself and David Erode was supposed to be on the team. I think at Laguna Seca he will be. But what happened was that we went to France (for the 24 Hours at Le Mans) and we used the same motor that we use here. They took a lot of parts off the Production bikes. Well, when we got over to France, everything blew up, got all mixed around. Basically everything was a hodge-podge diaster. All the parts were stuck over there until just recently. Fugio finally got them out of U.S. Customs the day before we left for Sears Point. That was one of the reasons they didn't have a bike together for David up there. How maDY bikes do you and R.OD have to ride? Just one apiece. There is a third frame. That was the one David rode at Daytona. What's the difference between the Suzuki GS 1000 Superbike you race and any other GS lOOO? A whole bunch! First of all, the motors are - well. stock cases. and that's about it, really. AI1 the cranks have ·been re-worked; we have special ends on them because we run a different lUnd of ignition (CDI). The heads have al1 been flowed by Pops; he's done a lot of lightning of valves from the springs, cam changes, oil coolers ... the frames, as far as that goes. We lay down the shocks, things have been reinforced here and there. Kayaba has spent a lot of time with us as far as building dampeners, springs and things like that for front forks and rear shock suspension. The brakes are all off RG 500's. The wheels are all magnesium, they have Campagnolo wheels on the rear, with the dampening so we won't have any more sprockets bust off like we did last year at Sears Point. It says SuzuIU on it. It has a stock tank, a fairly stock seat, stock fenders, a~d that's pretty much al1 there is to it. There is somewhat of an identification through the people in the crowd because the motorcycle, at a glance, does look fairly stock. It's just the fact that there are more different brands running in that class and that's what keeps it going and growing. It could be a Ducati, a Kawasa1li or a SuzuIU anything else winning in that class. Do you have a lot of tire problema due to the honcpower? The Yoshimura bike puts out a lot of horsepower, I think at Loudon, the kind of horsepower we were developing was not beneficial. It was just too much. But we've learned from that. We use stock Goodyears. There's probably only a couple of people that get the trick Goodyears - Kenny (Roberts) and SlUp (Aksland). We haven't been running rim locks either. We don't even run screws in the side. Maybe that's why 1 caught the flat in my heat race at Sears Point. How's Pierce as a teammate? He's good. The only problem Ron and 1 have is that Ron has been at it a long time and his style has been "set." And his style doesn't always operate with mine very well. When we went to Suzuka with Baldwin - Baldwin and I get along real well. We have the same type of basic style as far as the 0' suspension setup. We were real1y agreeable on that and everything -else - but Ron has a different philosophy about how the motorcycle should handle than 1 do. He's also different on his gearing. So, we both have to give and talte a little in those areas. But that's when we're both riding the same bike, As far as a teammate, when w~'re at the Superbike races, it's everybody for himself in a way, I would never put him down trying to get into the lead, .but be's not going to sit and wait for me to catch up either. To say we use any kind of strategy as a team would be false. We don't. It's all win! That's the only thing. The Japanese don't want anything to do with second or third, It's win. That's all. In other words, Ron's second and my third place finish at Sears Point wasn't anything as far as Pops and Fugio were concerned. That's just the way it is. Do you ~t boDus mODey from aDYbody wheD you wiD? Suzuki pays contingency money. Yoshimura doesn't, They might run a win ad, just for publicity, which helps out in the end. Are you on contact with Yoshimura? Yea, a race to race contract. Do you have any other me&DI of IUpport -like a job? Wel1, I did have a job for a while, but I quit this year. It just got too hectic to try to race and work. I've got a lot of s,tarts in Europe for the 750, and then there's the American stuff. I used to do a little machining, just to keep things alive, but this year I've mainly been worlUng on my physical shape and keeping the 750 up to what I want it to be, It'd be neat if I could find someone who'd want to help me out with the 750. I like that class, but there are bigger people behind me in the Superbike class. I think Suzuki is interested in going endurance racing next year, so that's something more I'd like to lean towards. Do you have any IpODIOn at all iD the GP class? Kal-Gard, Arai Helmets, Nippondenso, Bel-Rey Oils, they all help me out and it all adds up. Tell us about Suzuka siDce that's where you're hqded right DOW. Yoshimura won it last year. '1 guess this year you're going to have to win it again, right? Right. Suzuka is Honda's track. They own it. Since they were the endurance champions last year, and they probably will be again this year, they were really upset when a SuzuIU won on their home track. What they were basically doing was bringing their good old home boys back home to show the people at home what they were made of. And it didn't happen. So SuzuIU is really pumped to win this one. They've built a new frame - it's more like a GP racer. It's got all the anti-dive suspension on it like the RG's do and it's extremely light. They've really put a big effon into it. But, SO has Honda. They've contracted four teams just to ride against our. one. It's going to be a big road to hoe. How many teams are going to be involved in total at Suzuka? I think they had 80 starters last year. You can have up to three riders per team. We only have two, but·six and eight hour races are just long sprint races. In a 24-hour, race you have a different strategy. In a six-eight hour event it's usual1y just go as fast as you can, all the time. There's no room for mistaltes. In a 24-hour race you can break a chain, push the thing halfway around the course, and still win it. That was evident at Le Ma.. and what (Ccnatintud to page J6) 17

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