Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

miles as fast as they run qualifying it may be possible for Freddie to win. Eddie Lawson/Moriwaki Kawasaki/ four-ttroJr.e I've got a lot of respect for Moriwaki and his ability. I know that his engine should be very powerful. The time I saw Moriwaki's machine run at Suzuka last year his motorcycle was by far the fastest motorcycle on the entire racetrack. It was faster than our Yoshirnura bike. It was faster than everything there. His lap times were four seconds a lap faster than the second faster riders. They were totally dominating the race. But they didn't finish. So I can say that at SuzuJr.a, his engines were the quickest that I've ever seen based on a production engine. Now Daytona and the long hard pull is yet to be seen. I've seen Eddie Lawson ride, and he's a very good rider, but I haven't had that much actual competition against him, so all I can say is just by his past results, he's done very well and I'm sure that he will be doing well there. Masaki Tokuno from Japan will be riding- the other Moriwaki bike and he went fast at Suzuka, but crashed. Tokuno will be a new rider and will face the same prob· lems other riders new to Daytona have. AIlIorted foreign riden The French riders on Yamaha, Pons and Sarron and Rougerie always go fast. They have plenty of power and the whole key to Daytona is having a lot of horsepower and knowing bow to get it through the infield. The French riders always seem to have good power, they'll get proper support from Yamaha, so there's a chance that they'll do well. They will be fast at Daytona. But they have yet to do a big upset at Daytona and I think that goes back to preparation for Daytona. It's a very special track; it's hard to [mish. And they always seem to go good for awhile, but they don't cross the finish line much way out there in front. The ex· perience aspect at Daytona is very important, because it's the only race in the world that I've seen that you race it like it is a sprint race or a heat race for 200 miles. You have to ride hard and still be conscious of the engine all the time and you just don't race that way anywhere else 10 the world, and I think that's going to be the downfall of the French team. They're just not used to racing that type of race. You've got to run the wheels off the motorcycle, as far as pushing it into the corners and using the brakes goes, and get on the gas early. But you've got to watch the tach and not over rew, run the engine at maximum performance but not overstrain it. You can't slack off, you can't cruise like in an endurance race. But still the most important thing is to keep that engine alive for 200 miles. It's a contradiction, but that's the way it is. It is very difficult to do for two hours. Boet van Dulmen of Holland can go well. He's good and I'm sure he'lI be going well at Daytona, but I'm not sure what he'll be riding. Ron Haslam of England rides very well. He'll probably be on a Honda from England. I saw him at Suzuka and he was the fastest Honda team rid· er there. The British team seems to be very well organized. MyoId friend Barry Symmons is the team coordinator and he's got a bunch of good mechan· ics and good riders in Haslam and Alex George. So if they get to come I think they'll be doing very well because Barry knows how to talk and find out about how to run Daytona. But if they come with their Honda Formula One engines built under European Formula One rules, they'll probably be a little under-powered. If Barry Sheene brings his new Yamahas, he'll be in there. He's a World Champion. He's a top-notch rider and he always rides well at every track I've ever seen him at. He's had terrible luck at Daytona, and I think that since he wants big start money to race anywhere he probably won't come to Daytona. The Daytona people have refused to pay start money and I think that Barry will stand firm on his ground and not ride. Roberto Pietri from Venezuela will surprise a lot of people this year. He has a good mechanic, Larry Worrell, a guy who knows as much about Daytona as probably any mechanic alive. Larry will be a big aid to Roberto. For the 2oo·miler, Larry is building Roberto a Yamaha TZ750, and Larry has built some fast Yamahas in the past for Steve McLaughIin the year Steve led Daytona before crashing (1975) and Randy Cleek the year he was U.S. road racing champion (1976). So Roberto is going to be up front, a potential top five finisher. I think this will be Roberto's best Daytona ever. Last year I let him follow me, pick up my lines in practice. That doggone guy learns fast, and in the Superbike race he was all over me, running third until his bike's chain came off the sprockets. I'm not going to let him follow me in practice this year. Ron Pierurfeam Hondalfour-ttroke How will I do? Win. Seriously, the hardest thing is to stand back and assess your own chances apart from the constant confidence and determination that you must have to be a racer. If I didn't think I could win, I wouldn't be a racer. None of the guys out there would be_ The guys who don't think they can win aren't racers. Unfor· tunately, only one guy can actually take first place. The strategy I will follow on my Honda will be to finish and try to finish well for Honda. This is their first Daytona outing in 10 years, and everything we have is unproven. So we're just gonna do the best we can. I have yet to knowt he horsepower that we've got. I still don't know if we are going to have enough power to go fast enough to be competitive, although I think we will be competitive. We've got good mechanics so I'm going to run it just like I ran the race last year. Push it as hard as I can and stay within the rpm limits of the engine. With the proper luck, I'm going to be right up in front. The best thing Honda has going for it is the team that Steve McLaughlin - the road race team manager - has Yoshimura Superbike and Formula 1 By Pat Eagan To anyone who follows AMA Road Racing, no introduction Is needed for the "Pops" Yoshimura team. Am and second plac:ea in the 1979 AMA Superblke Production Championship and winners of many Superblke races In the Iaat several years has thoroughly established Yoshimura as a team to be reckoned with. Looking for a rapeat of the Impraaaive 1·2·3 finishing order of Iaat year's Daytona Superbike race, "Pops" has hired Dave Aldana and New Zealander Graeme Crosby to go along with last year's champ, W.. Cooley. All threa WIll ride In both the Superblke race and in the Formula 1 race .. wen. Specifications for both the Formula 1 and Superbike engines are the same from the Keihin CR carba to the special "factory" clutches. In between are the cylnder heads ported to Pops' apec:s by Fujio Yoshimura or Suehlro Watanabe. Cam timing is set at 56° .2&0,2&0 • 56° and the cams operate on special buckets which have the shims underneath. Many engine parts, such as the high compression platona, are manufactured by Pops' son-in-law, Shohei Keto. Tranamiaaiona ara special cioae-ratio units available only through Yoshimura R&D. Counterahaft aprockBta ara offset 15mm to give clearance between the chain and rear tire. The Superblke chaaaia are falrty straightforward GS1000s with KYB "Superforks" anCl. some brand new alumlnum-bodled KYB shock absorbers. The KYBs will hold a variety of wheel combinations to the pavement One Interesting sat is the "solid" ones manufactured by Hugh Mitchell. For the first time a WM5 rim width will be tried on the front and WM10 in tha back. It Is not known whater the "solld" wheels will be used because wind effects might be III. Other possibilities for wheals ara the Italian Campagnolo or the English Dyrnags. Brake components for both Formula 1 and Superblke are supplied by Suzuki In Japan. Rotors are standerd RGSOO floating models and are squeezed by special Suzuki calipers which look like RGSOO. Most of the design of all components was done at the Suzuki factory In Japan by Pops Yoshimura and Shohel Keto Including the frame, gas tank and fiberglas on the Formula 1 bik... Fujlo YoshImura expects that most. if not all, of the "peclal items will be available this year through Yoshimura R&D. put together. We've got Udo Geitl and Todd Schuster, the men who built the BMW Superbikes that stomped every· body in 1976. We've gotJyo Bito, who was my mechanic for Yoshimura in 1979. We have Mike Velasco, who wrenched on Yoshimura bikes much of 1979. We have Dave Langford, who worked with Velasco in Mike's tuning business, Racing Speed Center. We have Mike Crompton from Canada. We know the abilities of these guys. They're great mechanics, and Honda is paying them salaries they can survive on. I read a letter from Carol Carpen· ter of Team Yoshimura saying that Honda had bought out the talent and if money could buy Daytona then Honda should win everything. It made me really sad to read something stupid like that because Honda isn't paying the mechanics an astronomical wage. They're being paid above minimum wage. They're being paid wages that a man can survive on. Honda is paying mechanics what they deserve, and if a mechanic leaves Yoshimura for the Honda money that just means that Yoshimura wasn't paying them what they deserved. Honda is paying the riders what they deserve. All the riders and mechanics are paid well and they are working hard. They're working as a team. But we got a late start. The problem we have is time. The problem we face is horsepower. Will we have enough horsepower in time for Daytona? I don't know. I do know that Yoshimura has the power. We proved that when riding for the Yoshimura team last year. The work for Team Honda is not over yet. I'm just not sure that we're fully prepared for Daytona. Daytona will take a tremendous amount of horsepower, and the race will show if Honda has done their homework. We know.by past history - the 24-hour races, for example that Honda engines are dependable. But they haven't had to run the kind of horsepower necessary to win Daytona. We don't know if we've upped the power output enough. We hope so. But it is trial and error because Honda is new to Daytona, basically. They haven't raced there in 10 yean. We're trying to guess what we will need, and we're trying to second guess what we have. It's a guessing game. We won't really know until we get on the speed· way at Daytona and test, to see what kind of top speeds we really have. I just can't give a good answer until we're there at Daytona. Time will tell. o 00 0') Steve McLaughlin/Team Honda/ four-stroJr.e Steve will ride another Honda GP machine, and I'm sure he'll be going really well if the machine is fast enough. He's been off the GP bikes for awhile and he hasn't raced them real competitively in the last several years. So I think that Steve's best showing will be in the Superbike race. Still, he'll go fast on the Formula One machine, but realistically he doesn't have the miles in that class lately compared to the other riders so he will have to play catch up in the GP race. It is important to add that Honda assures me that if Steve and I don't have the power we need to win Daytona, that by the end of the 1980 season we are going to have the power. We are just going to do as well as we can at Dayt~na. We have a good chance already with the engines we've seen so far. But we'll be working on our bikes all year long and improving them. This is the first time Honda has raced Daytona in 10 years, so the odds are against us more than any other team of riders. But Honda has given us tremendous backing and hopefully we can overcome the handicaps that we've started out with for Daytona. 17

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