Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

...... ..... ... 0.. ~ Reigning 500cc World Champion Freddie Spencer (left) and tuner Erv Kanemoto are the ones to beat for this year's title. However, the new 500cc V-four Spencer is riding for Team Honda could be his undoing if mechanical problems crop up_ If he has no problems, Spencer should easily add another championship title to his tally. By Alan Cathcart Photos by Henny Ray Abrams . As the curtain rIses on the 1984 World Championship Road Race Series, two distinct trc ds are evident in the international road racing world. On the one hand, the prospect for the 250cc class and new 80cc division have . . seasoned G P watchers rubbIng their hands together in antici - 22 pation: even qualifying for the grid in a 250cc GP this year will be a feat in itself, so fiery and frenzied is the competition amongst no less than 14 different factory teams, plus a)1 outstanding selection of top class privateers. And the FIM's controversial move to revitalize the tiddl.er class by increasing the capacity limit from 50cc to !:lOcc (s ti II maxim urn one cy Iil)der, six gears, though) has paid off by allracting not only twO of the most famous names in competition history, Zundapp and Derbi, back to road racing, Qut a host of new designs from smaller teams eage~ to acquire fame if not fortune with an often under-estimated type of machine. But in contrast to this rosy picture, the Sidecar class seems likely to sink even deeper in its own morass of technical confusion and ever-spirall- ingcosts: the 125s,while providing exclllOg, flOger-blllOg raclOg when the works Garelhs choose not to clear off into the middle distance and make a race of it instead, sees 95% of the grid mounted on production MBAs, thus hardly making [or much technical or inter-marque interest; and the 500cc class, after giving us some of the most exciting racing in the history of the World Championship Series during the past two seasons, seems set, if not for an irretrievable decline, at least for one or twO years of domination by one com bi nation of man and ma€hine which will take much of the zest out of the blue ribbon class. At least, that's how it looks now, but there's only one sure thing in motorcy.cle sport, and that's that nothing else is. If 1984 seems set to be a Freddie Spencer/Honda benefit, the picture may (but only that) look very different at mid-season, especially since Freddie has apparently agreed to depend on the unproven new Y-4 500 to defend his crown.' With not only his twO official teammates, Ron Haslam and Takazumi Katayama, mounted on the well-tried NS500 triples, but a 'host of Honda.mounted privateers as well, it only needs a run of small problems with the new bike for that crown to start slipping. Then what? Will we see the firstever Japanese World Champion in the 500cc class? Or will team orders be introduced, and Freddie perhaps mounted on a triple for a while? Soni ng ou t a new design in the hea t of GP racing is always fraught· with imponderables, the more so when YOUl: cohorts are mounted on a bike some would say is not as obsolete as the introduction of the fuel-tanku nder-the-engi ne, exna usts-on-top Y-4 would seem to indicate. Hmmmvery interesting - but full of marks to Spencer for agreeing to ride the new . bike from the beginning and not farm the development job out to a teammate while he racked up some solid points. Two main off-season events are the principal factors in the apparent decline of the excitement I.evel in the 500cc class this season: Kenny Roberts' retirement from the GP scene as a rider, and Suzuki's temporary (so they say) withdrawal from factory involvement in racing. KR's months of silence before announcing his decision not onl}: . added a will he, won't he spice to the wimer months, but also delayed the, final shu££le of riders and teams far beyond the normal deadline for s'!ch realignments. Kenny will be sorelyl missed by fan and foe alike, the more so after his epic struggle with_ Spencer down to the wire last season, which only served to in-' crease the anti-climactic feel to this year's series. Heir presumptive Eddie Lawson surprised many last year with his fast and controlled riding in a consistent first GP season on the Y-4 Yamaha, and more to the point has not been made the fall-guy for team manager Giacomo Agostini's error in permitting him to finish in front of Roberts' . in Yugosl.avia last year, effectively allowing Spencer to win the title rather more easily than he should have. But Fast Eddie is generally reckoned not (yet?) to be the equal of Fast Freddie, and without the talents of ace wrench Nobby Clark, plus the unsettling introduction of new Ital· ian teammate YirginioFerrari, not to mention the fact that the Yamaha seems to be more di fficu It to get the best from than the NS500 Honda, Lawson looks set to be lucky if he can, hold off Katayama for the runner-up slot at season's end. We may never know the real rea. sons why a Randy Mamola made suddenly unemployed by Suzuki's withdrawal hasn't ended up where 90% of the road racing world thought he would - on his friend King Kenny's old bike. Instead, he'll be riding. a private Honda, albeit with factory support, in various non-title events, but at this stage there's been no cate-

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