Part 2
World Chammoo:
The Fast Freddie Story
By John Ulrich
It was a difficult year for the
Honda team, with many problems making power and keeping the engines together. It was
McLaughlin's first and last year as
manager. One of the things that led
to his downfall at Honda was a
remark he made to a reporter, which
was then published in a magazine
and read by Japanese executives at
Honda.
"Sure," said McLaughlin, "we're
down five horsepower. But it doesn't
matter. We've got Freddie."
Despite Freddie's enthusiasm and
Cooley were out there in practice and
here came this kid going 10 mph faster, obviously out of control. 1 was
standing in the chicane with Udo
(Geitl, now Honda's racing manager,
then a mechanic). Spencer came in so
fast there was no way he could make
it. Udo sort of nudged me like (as ifto
say) he's crashed, we can go now...and
Freddie just went flick-flick-flick and
he was through the chicane and gone.
We couldn't believe it.
"He's into development now. But
he never fails to astound me, every
year we're at Daytona.
"The first time I met him 1thought
simple approach, he cost the team
races.
"That first year (1980) he was totally
worthless as a development rider,"
said one of his former mechanics.
"He'd say 'I like it' or 'I don't like it.'
1 didn't know what he wanted.
. "All he wanted was a lot of power
so he could slide it.
"He gave away three races to Eddie
(Lawson) in 1981 because he burned
up the tires. We'd te.ll him to go out
and warm up the tire and his idea of
warming up the tire was setting a
new lap record.
"One time at Daytona, Pierce and
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'What a wimp... you're gonna get
sand kicked in your face or some·
thing.' He was so skinny, so pale.
"Now he's muscular. Of course
just riding the 500s does that to you,
but he trains, playing basketball,
golf, going to a gym to work out."
One thing McLaughlin did in 1980
was take Freddie to the Suzuka Eight
. Hour. It was there that the highest·
ranking Japanese at Honda and at
Honda RSC were exposed to young
Mr. Spencer, catching a glimpse of
his capabilities. At lunch one day
during the week, two top officials of
Honda RSC sat across the table from
