Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

...-4 co 0') ...-4 Reflections of the past, .recalling the present, predicting the future. By Tom Mueller Half of your life. That's a long time to be devoted to anything, a long time to pursue a goal. For Mark Barnett, that's how long it took to realize his goal of being a National Champion. He started at ten and made it by 20 with no frills , and no che:'lP th~dls along the way. Just him, hiS dad, and a 24 van, covering countless miles of pavement, first in Illinois and then on to the Nationals when Mark 'was 16 and garnered his pro license. The fashionably race garbed and fast Barnett of today doesn't reflect the past. In the. beginning there were last place rides and all.night drives so his f?ther ,odd be b.lck! work on Mo~~ay~an~ financial probiemsso famJ1l~r to pnvat~ers. . PersJStence paId off. Suzuki Race Team Manager Mark Blackwell put Barnett on a factory bike in 1977, and also put him on a rigorous training schedule that was the key to putting Mark on top of the 125 Nationals this year. Though Barnett was now strapping himself into an airplane seat instead of his father's van and taking home a hefty factory .salary, his attitude and lifestyle didn't change. Train anrl. win. put non·essential, aside. The future looks good for Barnett. He's an odds-on favorite for a second 125 title next season. He's feeling good about motocross in general and may go to Europe next year to match the best in the world. But for Barnett, winning isn't the final goal. Being able to retire at a fairly early age and enjoy life as it comes is. Mark made one point perfectly clear: If the money goes out of MX so will he. Racing is great, winning is better, and getting the proper reward is the best. Right now the good life for Barnett is living with his grandma on a farm in Alabama. He builds his own tracks, rides most of the day, and yet finds time to tend to 25 cows. The night before the final TransUSA round at Atlanta Barnett and mechanic/friend Jeff Clark came to visit us and do this feature. Things went differently than expected; we had a good time talking about racing, with few of the formalities of the usual factory rider interview. Barnett is one of the exceptions to the factory rider image and hype of recent years. No games, no double talk, no arrogance. Just Mark Barnett. the straight talkin' new 125cc National Champion. "I wanted to see .if I wanted to race," said Barnett of his first throughts of trying some MX competition. "It sounded son of dangerous. We rode in the fields and raced around the house." Barnett staned his career on a lOOcc bike after a friend who raced took him to give it a try. His flJ'St results were less than encouraging. "I was coming in last place every time. I thought I was fast, but I was in last." A while later Mark got into mini racing. A scaled down machine was the answer and he staned winning regularly. Then, as now, his father was there to offer encouragement, but never push or belittle Mark's efforts. "I like to have my dad around when I race. He really helps me to relax. He's like my manager. He'd never yell at me. I could tell by his look how I did." Mark's dad is a pipe fitter, ~d was used to driving long hours on Sunday nights. "It took him a lot of coffee and cigarettes along the way." Times weren't easy at first. Barnett recalled one of his first Nationals in Texas where the closest he could get to a shower was having someone at the track pour a cardboard box full of water over him before jumping in the van to head for Chicago. All that counted was being at the races. Getting there or going home didn't really matter. When Mark's career was in its infancy there was for a time a conflict of interests: MotocrOll versus hockey. Barnett was good at the ice sport and let it take up molt of his time with the exception of summer, when he raced. After a few seasons motocrou won out for two reasons--it's a one man spon, and you can climb to the top more quickly. "Hockey is a team game. Someone ends up screwing up aDd you end up losing. If I would have stuck with hockey I'd still be playing with some farm team somewhere_" By 1975 Barnett knew he wanted to be a factory rider. He ran the Amateur Nationals that year and came home the I 25cc Champion. The following year Mark picked up his pro license and entered a few Nationals. One of his first races as a pro was Hangtown, with his mother chauffeuring him t9 the California site. Moto-Fox put Barnett on the Trans-AMA circuit in '77, and it was at the Unadilla round of that series that pan of the battle was over. Mark Blackwell, racing manager of Team Suzuki set up a deal with Barnett for the following year_Everything looked right; Mark was on a Suzuki at the time and wanted to stay on one, and he liked Blackwell's attitude. Thanks to Blackwell, Barnett came to realize what a strong conditioning program could do for him. "Blackwell staned me on training. At fmt I couldn't keep up with him when we ran, but I wouldn't give up. I worked my ass off, and then I did something with it. I can go harder, I can hang onto the bike longer. ,. What would it be like to train like Barnett? "When I was in Indiana a while ago we ran sand hills for three hours one day when it was 90 degrees. It always puts a load on your legs. You have to set a pate, pecause if you don't you'll die." Barnett intensified his training program when he met Leon Woleck., a friend who helped him reach his limits. "I finally knew how hard I could train when I met Leon." Granted, a factory ride and proper training made Barnett a threat on the National scene, but things were still far from easy. Physical setbacks took their toll then, and they are still taking their toll now. Barnett was looking strong in 1978 until he got to Atlanta International Raceway for the

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