Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Eddie Lawson/Gregg HansfordFactory Kawasaki Eddie has really proven himself on the fou r -strokes. And th e Kawasak is I sa w at Suzu ka last yea r wer e rea l quick. I think that this yea r they'll probably have , a littl e more hor sepower , T he y're definitel y set up real nice . Hansford , howeve r, I think is going to be like a Dav id Emde deterrent to Eddi e. because Hansford for some reason does 't get along with the four strokes, He's used to rid ing the Triples and the 250s··two·st rokes--so long that he has difficulty, I think it kind of showed at Daytona, that he cou ldn't really ride th e superbike as fast as he is capable of or as fast as he cou ld go on a 250 or 350 . Also, whe n I saw him a t Daytona he had lost out on that Grand Prix Yamaha deal and from what it sounded like from him, it didn't seem like Kawasaki was putting as much int o racing as he would like them to . So I don't know how thrilled Hansford will be to be in Japan to ride this event, He may not particularly want to ride it. And maybe , Kawasaki isn't really do ing as much for him as he'd like , They haven't given him a 500 this year as far as I know . Lawson's never been to the track . Being fair to him , I think that he'll qu alify in the top seven or eig ht. It's going to be hard to tell . I don't know who 's going to be goi ng that fast. Like last yea r the Kawasaki was ridden by .Wad a and Kiyohara. and the y wer e Z'going real fast. I think th ey qu al ified in front of us but th ey alwa ys throw it away or something like that , so for qualifying posit ions, I don't know who's goi ng to be o n top, or how that will rela te to the race. T he re will probably be a boul lO peo ple all wit hin two or th ree seconds of ea ch other . Bu t in t he long TUn , th e r ace , I don 't kno w. I think that a better team for Kawasaki would have been Aldana and Lawson. They both work together on the superbikes here. Ald ana's been th rough all that a bout knowing what to do to the suspension a nd set -up, I know that a couple of rimes , like at Elkhart and at Loudon , Aldana's come in after changing something and he's said, " Hey, Eddie, try this ." And Eddi e's tried it and gone out and gone Ia second a lap faster. Then Eddie would come in and sa y, "Yea h, you' re right , that works good." You know, it was something that Eddie didn't really know whether it would be better and maybe was afraid to tell them to change it, but Da vid said it woul d work , a nd it d id work for Edd ie. So I think tha t Kawasaki wou ld ha ve had a better chance if Da vid and Eddie were riding together. Da vid could set up the motorcycle for .both of them, Plus they have both been rid ing the Kawasakis all yea r and they're used to the charac te ristics of the motorcycle as fa r as th e engi ne and stuff like that . But for som e reason t hey picked Hansford . and then Lawson. I don't know what the deal is. Ron Pierce/Freddie Spe ncerA merican Honda RS1000 I th ink that Spencer will proba bly be the fastest Honda qualifier. He J rides the wheels off any motorcycle I've 8 seen him get on . But I think that he's going to run into the same problem , that I had with Ron, where Ron's maybe three or four seco nds a lap ~ slower. No matter how t hey're doing. ~ what Freddie makes up fo r Ro n might II have a tendency to lose a little bit . In other words , if they're -ru nning five seconds in front of second place, and Ron gets on the motorcycle, and if Crosby and I have more compatible times and we're in second place, then we're going to be able to make up the distance and pass them . Then it will be up to Freddie, which puts more 1980 .~ :HONDA~ A.M.E. 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