Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Figured that if I could go out on the [lTst day of practice and match my best 250 time from the year before, that would be good. As it worked out, I went out on the first day and easily matched my best 250 time, which made me really feel confident. I was going a lot faster than some of the people I had raced against as a Novice the year before, people who had just gotten 750s, so I really felt confident. Ok, You went to Daytona and qualified 42nd out of 80 starters, You are a woman on the cutting edge of equal opportunity or equal rights, But at the same time, if you weren't a woman and you were qualifying 42nd at Daytona and crashing at Suzuka, you couldn't get your foot in the door at any place to talk about sponsorship, and we wouldn't he doing this interview right now, How do you reconcile the concept of "equal rights" and sponsorship/publicity due to gender? When I first got my novice license and staned doing professional races, I always wanted to be on equal ground. I never did anything to generate publicity. I never went to a potential sponsor and said 'Hey, look, I was the first woman to do this, first woman to do that.' I was just strictly on equal ground. And you're right. My career has been pretty mediocre, in the whole scheme of things, judged as if I were a man. But on the other hand, I like to think that I have a message. It isn't that what I am doing is important, although there is no other woman having the degree of success at roadracing that I have. But I think that it is important that I get the message across to other women that you can do anything you want to do if you want it badly enough. That's all I have. I don't have any special ability to ride a motorcycle. I don't have anything different, I'm just like every other woman in a lot of respects. The only difference is that in roadracing I'm very determined and I realized a long time ago that if I really wanted something bad enough that I could have it. I really want to do well in road racing. Of course, if I want to do well I have to have some money behind me so I can buy equipment, so, unfortunately, I have to play up the woman angle. But now we know that a woman racer can be in the field. Now I want to excel as a racer. I've got a lot of work ahead of me, but I approache my career just like I approach a race or practice for a race. I'll just take one step at a time and work my finishing positions down to where I can be considered a good road racer. What set you off? What made you make the decision to aggressively pursue publicity and sponsorship, changing from being just another "guy" out there who could attract publicity and sponsors by going really fast? There I was, really working hard, putting every penny I had into racing. I was preparing all my machines myself. I was driving all night to the races. And here comes this other woman... You mean Carter Alsop? I was afraid we were going to get into this. Yes. Carter Alsop. She has zilch ability. At most tracks, she's like 20,30 seconds a lap slower than I am. She's getting sponsorship, she's getting money, she's getting a really easy ride. It really frustrated me because I'd be out there racing and I'd come into the pits, and she'd be doing an· interview. Stuff like that really got to me. In away, she was right, because it helps racing. It helps me. It's going to advance my career, and it's going to help racing in general. A woman racer gets more general publicity. Racing stories get into Cycle News and Cycle World, but they don't get into the People magazines. A lot of the people who read Cycle World will go to the races, or know about road racing. But not all the people who read the general interest publications know about road racing. I re!ilized that it was important to get the publicity, and I've since been in People magazine. It's cute and nice t6 sponsor a woman racer, at least for about the first week. Then she's got to go fast, at least be competitive, make the field. That's where I differ from one woman racer who has really gone out for the publicity, and has made promises she couldn't keep. Tagging along 20 seconds behind the field isn't good enough. It's important to have a woman in racing, but just the fact that she goes out on the track means nothing. You've got to be competitive. To a lot of people it probably looks like I get a lot of sponsorship and that it just lands on my lap. One thing that I'd like to say to a lot of racers is that I spend five days a week on the telephone, drumming up sponsorship. My phone bill is $700-$800 a month. I spend about $200 a month on press releases, and retyping biographies, sending them to newspapers, magazines. It may 100k ... 1 have gotten some sponsorships, and a lot of it is because I'm a woman racer. But a lot of it is because I let people know I'm here, and that I can give them promotional value for their money. You have to approach them in a very businesslike way. You're trying to promote the sport as much as yourself, trying to get people to realize that this is a sport, it isn't dare devils risking their lives for trophies. It's .a sport. A very calculated, exciting spectator sport, if you know what is going on out there. I don't have one sponsorship that didn't take a lot of hound-dogging those people to come up with the first dime. You really have to sell yourself. If you can't do that, you have to find somebody who will. Because if you don't believe in what you're doing, don't expect a sponsor to. You say you want to excel as a racer and that you're approaching it systematically, This is a tw~part question, First, you are lSI now, How long will your career he? Second, how long is it going 'to take you to get really, really fast? Every year that'I get older, it is going to be harder for me to keep myself in shape. It's a struggle to keep yourself in good shape. Racing takes a lot of physical stamina. But I think that, certainly, 10 years from now, I could still race motorcycles as hard as I do now. As far as I know, I may not want to race motorcycles 10 years from now, but I think it can be done. How many years would it take me to go really fast? One good thing is that I've really thrown myself off the deep end this year. I went from novice last. year, ran the Daytona 200 this year, entered a World Championship endurance race. It has put a lot of pressure on me. I've done a lot of crashing this year. I'm trying a lot harder. I'm improving at an incredible rate. I think, give me two more seasons of AMA Nationals, and I'll be in a winner's circle. I'm not saying it's going to happen overnight. Maybe in three years I'll be running internationals in Europe and finishing in the top five. Maybe in four years, I'll be running World Championship Grands Prix. To watch some racers, you'd think that to he able to ride a motorcycle fast, you have tp have a constant supply of sex. Has that caused you any problems? I just think that they like having a good time. When the time comes to enjoy yourself, they really just sort of let it all hang out. And I feel that way, too. I just do it a little differently. I know how it feels, you know. Especially after a race. Pressure is off, guys just want to really let it all go. I think you'd lose your mind if you didn't, if you raced. Especially if you raced every weekend. You get that pressure every wee.kend, and there's got to be sometime during the week when you just sort of blow off steam. I think that's very important. As I say, I do it too. Just a little. (laughs). I don't screw around. I think that there are a lot of racers who would like to have the reputation that they screw around. The thing is that when you come to a race, you're there to race motorcycles. Before a race when you're trying to get the bike set up, there are all sorts of problems. I very rarely worry about getting intimate. There's just too much else to think about. I've got too much else on my mind. You have to be single-minded about racing. Something that I found really strange is that the race in Japan was the first race I'd been to without my husband, Tom. And I'm mature, I like to think that I'm a fairly intelligent woman. But I went to the race and I got the impression that there I was, and everybody thought that I was available. That I was up for grabs. They didn't seem to think that I could make a rational decision, that I had a mind of my own. That made for difficult situations. Let's say that 10 guys, racers, walked into a bar in Japan and I walked in with them. We all sat down. We had a couple of beers. Why couldn't it just be that? Why couldn't I be an equal? Why couldn't I just sit there and have a good time and talk to people without having people think 'Who's going to get her, who's going to take her home?' First of all, we usually talked about racing because that was all that was in our heads at the time anyway. We're all so much into racing. I am a woman, I have feelings, I'm attracted to men. Certainly there is that element. There is always going to he that element. But still, I still think that I should be able to go to a bar and sit down and not have people say, 'Who's going to get her tonight?' Moving to another type of relationship with men in racing, have you ever been racing a guy who goes absolutely crazy trying to stay ahead of you, when he realizes who he is racing? About 90% of the time, yes. Last year I had a lot of crashes and a lot of my crashes were caused by berserkos going by me and then pitching it away, taking me with them. Racing is a real competitive thing, but being passed by a woman is even worse. It's just different guys, different people I'm passing as I get better and better, and the same thing keeps happening. Hopefully the people that I pass from now on will be a little more professional than to do something like that. Do you' ever worry about getting hurt? No. It's funny. I've never cared much about ... I've never been really big on physical appearance. I always felt that there were more important things. The first thing my mother said when she heard about my crash at Daytona was 'Oh my God, you're not going to have a fmgernail on your little finger!' What am I going to do without a fingernail? People survive just fine. It's just that racing is so important to me that it's a small price to pay. A couple of years ago, I'd crash and I'd get hurt, and it would take a couple of races to get back in the pace. But this year I rode races on tracks I didn't know three days after I had an operation on my. hand and I had like 20 'stitches in my fingers. I was still out there racing and going as fast as I could. It's one of those situations where you turn it off. When I get hurt, I don't sit in the hospital thinking, 'Oh my God, that was a horrible thing and I went into that corner and I couldn've lost my hand, I couldn've gotten killed.' I just turn it off. I forget that it's even there. You can tum off pain. You're racing and your legs ache and you can't shift your weight one more time on this motorcycle. -You can sit there and think, 'Boy, am I tired. Boy, would I like that nice big glass of water that's sitting in the pits.' Or you could sort of block that out of your mind, and think about cornering and think about your racing. You just do the same thing with an injury. You just block it out of your mind. Start thinking about when you are going to race again. Why do you crash so much? I try hard. It's funny, it goes in waves. I'll go through a period of time where I'll try really hard and then I'll go faster. Then all of a sudden I'll get to· a point where my ability hasn't quite caught up with my wanting to do it, my competitive spirit. But my crash at Suzuka had nothing to do with trying too hard. This was just a misjudgement. I hit a certain part of the course that I hadn't hit before and I didn't realize that there were some bumps there. Where do you go from here? To the next race. ........ 00 0') ........ 21

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