Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126507
00 ....-4 Sir Barry Sheene: "I want to control my own destiJy" By Chris Carter It's been three years sInce Barry Sheene last won the World Championship 500cc road racing title. In the 1981 season we shall see if he can recapture the crown that he was forced .. 28 ". to surrender to Kenny Roberts in 1978. The odds are stacked against him. Sheene is now 30 years old, putting together a package that would give him the freedom he was looking for. And instead of signing the contract, as expected, Sheene announced he was leaving. "I I d'" want to cOntro my own esuny, ex lains Bar . PB ry'd h bl ut to an outs. er t e pro ems, both on and off the track might seem a high price to pay to make your own d' . Sh d' eCiSlOns. eene Isagrees. "I knew it was going to be tough. But l"m sensible enough to know that you don't get anything in this life without trying hard. And by that , don't mean trying hard on the track, , mean trying hard to set up your organization and everything else. "I knew it was going to be difficult. I'd hoped it wasn't going to be as tough as it actually turned out. but that doesn't matter. We batded through, and now we are ready for tbe coming season. "The simple truth was that last season Yamaha produced a production racer that was an unknown quantity. and they did it at a time when the 500cc class in the World Championships have never been so competitive," says Barry. What has annoyed Sheene has been the way that some riders have savagely criticized the 500 Yamaha. "If they had any sense and just analyzed the situation a bit they would have realized tbat producing a production racer is a very different thing from turning out a factory racer with about twenty mechanics working on the thing. "If people had cast their minds back to the time that Suzuki first introduced their 500cc production model they would remember that that wasn't exaody the best bike ever, but tbe comptition was only racing against twin-cylinder Yamahas. so it filled the first fourteen places, as it should have. "Yamaha had to face not just the works Suzukis and the works Kawasakis, but also a. production Suzuki that bas been gomg for five years and is a very, very good motor- almost ten years older dian Randy Mamola, for example, and his body b h d f sows . t e wear an ~ear. 0 a professIOnal motorcycle raang hfe. d' h' H' B till ut a~ oes~ t .w~r?: 1m. . e I} sf very It, a ? d Wit t h~ p~omlsef 0 mac lOery rom aC10ry supp lIe Yamaha plus the financial support of major backers like Akai, Texaco and Marlboro, Barry is brimming over witb entbusiasm for the new season. Rumors that he was likely to quit the sport at tbe end of last season, one of the worst in his career left him unmoved. "Retiring? Rubbishl l"m going to race till I'm 35 years old," said Sheene. Barry knew, even before he started racing last season, that it was going to be a long uphill struggle with standard machines. This season. though, works bikes, plus the tuning wizardry of Erv Kanemoto, the Californian who wielded tbe spanners for riders like Gary ixon and Freddie Spencer in recent times, will make him a much more serious threat. Why then did Sheene leave Suzuki at the end of the '79 season? '" suddenly realized I was getting into a rut. Towards the end there was a lot of politics creeping into it, and' decided it was time for a change," said Barry. "Relationships were strained at Suzuki GB and so, thought' would do something completely different" added Sheene. There were two major items of disagreement between Sheene and the Suzuki GB management. The first was on where the bikes should be prepared. Barry wanted them at home, while Suzuki insist«l on them staying at their Beddington Lane headquarters. Second, Sheene wanted to control his racing progra~, and that too did not fall in with Suzuki GB's plans. So while negotiations were being la~ld ~o'"~rt. C?'!t. ~ ~~~tr~~t. ?}1~T}e was •••• W!;. I The second problem has been with the handling on the new Yamabas. Sheene admits that it has been a real headacbe for everyone. But he insists that Yamaba was' aware of the problem, and they have been working hard to put it right. "The production bikes this year will be very much belter, mark my words," said Sheene. "'t was a gamble with the new bike, of course it was a gamble. But it could quite easily have been a winner from the word go, couldn't it?" For Sbeene and his band of loyal mechanics tbe time spent trying to put the 500 into sbape robbed them of an opportunity to make the 750 right. To compound the problem only Ken Fletcher, Sheene's number one mechanic, knew much about the bigger Yamaha, and many of the litde "tricks of the trade" in making the 750 go were not discovered until well into the season. There wasn't exacdy a wall of secrecy from rivals, but who could expect anyone in their right mind rushing over to help Barry Sheene win more easily? By the end of the season, thougb, with more time available to work on the 750, Barry looked more like his old self, and even the problems from his amputated little finger, the legacy from his French Grand Prix spill at the Paul Ricard circuit could not hold him back. Those wins did a great deal to salvage whatever Barry might have lost both in start money potential, and in popularity. The fans bave stuck with him, so much so that he failed by the narrowest of margins to pip sidecar World Champion Jock Taylor in the Motor Cycle News "Man of the Year" popularity poll. Only once, since 1972 has Sheene finished outside the first three. That Paul Ricard crash was a turning point in Sbeene's season. Up until then he had struggled to cope with the handling problems of the machine. "After that crash lost all confidence in the frame. In the race' was with Graeme Crosby on the works Suzuki batding for fifth place. The Suzuki was about 10 miles an hour quicker than mine down the straight, so after about three laps' decided that , wasn't going to be able to pull away from him, so , decided to stay with him. "The handling was deteriorating all the time, though, so I changed my plan again, and went for a finish. What upset me was the fact that my lap times showed that , was lapping about the same time, or even a tough slower on every lap, so 1 wasn't sticking my neck out." The from forks were paltering badly, and they would use the full length of their stroke, as Sheene banked hard over he touched the front brake, and tbe bike went down. "You could perhaps say it was my fault for braking when the forks were on full compression. But a millisecond later they would have been on full extension. It's just the luck of the draw," said Sheene. His little finger was badly damaged and though doctors tried hard to save it, eventually Barry decided to chop part of it off to speed his full recovery. Sheene's performances on the fearsome 650 Suzuki, a machine that has cast off everyone else that rode it, at one time or another, proves that Barry can ride most frisky motorcycles. But the Yamaha standard frame defeated him, and he was quic on to the Harris brothers in England to build him a replacement. '" don't mind a bike that doesn't •••• ~~,!