Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

an American reporter, once a skeptic but now convinced of Freddie's skill. "If you want LO win races in the SOO World Championship, put Freddie Spencer on your bike." The japanese nodded, thought it over, smiled. "Ah, so deska," one of them said. "Good idea." Daytona 1981. Honda has a fourstroke for Freddie. He qualifies third fastest, takes the lead on the first lap and pulls away rapidly. He stays in front until the first gas stop in the 200-mile race, when his bike throws a connecting rod. The Superbike race didn't go well for Freddie and Honda, either. At his gas stop, Freddie's Superbike caught fire, and he jumped off as flames soared. When the mechanics put the fire out, Freddie got back on the bike LO finish third behind Cooley and Crosby. Before the pit, he had swapped the lead with the two Suzuki riders a dozen times. joining Freddie on the Honda team that year was Mike Spencer, not related, a Californian and first-year professional. . At Elkhart Lake, Freddie was cruising alone out front, and slowed down. His pit crew didn't tell him Mike started to gain ground. Mike caught Freddie and passed him. Even though he regained the lead quickly, Freddie was privately furious, taking race team manager Ron Murakami into his motorhome and yelling ''I'll have your job for thisl" according to mechanics on the scene. Freddie threw such a fit that Honda's advertisements of the one-two vicLOry included a statement to pacify Freddie, pointing out that he finished 14 seconds ahead of Mike. 1981 was the year Freddie got to ride the NRSOO (Rumors said it was an NR6S0, but that's unproven.) At Laguna Seca, in front of NR design chief Mr. Irimajiri, Freddie beat Kenny Roberts and the Yamaha SOO in a heat race, to the cheers of the large crowd. The bike broke in the main event, but suddenly the idea of entering a fourstroke in Grand Prix races didn't seem so <;:razy, and the japanese smiled. Daytona 1982. Freddie and the incredible FWS I000 Honda V-4 are out in front, Roberts having already seized the Yamaha 500, Mike Baldwin and another FWS shadowing Spencer. Chunks start to fly from the rear tires on both FWS Hondas. Spencer loses several minutes in not one, but two extra pits stops to change rear wheels, yet, at the finish of the race, he is a scant II seconds behind winner Graeme Crosby. It was a good week for Freddie. He won the Superbike race easily. Europe was the next step. Freddie Spencer views his mOLOrcycle as being a tool for him to use to win, hIs mechanics say. He knows he will perform; he expects the mOLOrcycle to perform, too. He concentrates his allention on riding, and if he can go a lillie faster by overrevving the engine between two corners, he does. Some riders pay religious attention LO the tach. Freddie does anything he has LO do LO be competitive, to win. His religious attention is elsewhere. When Freddie comes in off the racetrack, his mind is still going at racetrack speed. He hands the bike over LO his mechanics, maybe signs a few autographs, and walks into his' mOLOrhome. He opens a Dr. Pepper, and turns on his video recorder. On his color television screen flashes a movie, an episode of Dallas, a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game, a prize fight. Outside, Freddie is in a foreign world of road signs he can't read and food he doesn't like. Inside his motor home he knows everything; everything he sees is his. He is safe, back in Louisiana, all without leaving the pits. Freddie sips his Dr. Pepper and watches his television, and about 30 minutes after he enters the mOLOrhome, Erv joins him, sitting, watching television. Suddenly, in the middle of the movie "Caddyshack," Freddie says something about the bike LO Erv. Freddie Spencer lives in the present. He has a prob lerYl:; corrects it, forgets it. It's history. Erv can pull information out of Freddie, and .does so carefully, with skill gained through experience. The japanese engineers from Honda can't understand this, and when they bombard Freddie with questions immediately after a practice session, all they get is blank looks - Freddie can't answer their questions at all, his mechanics say. But back in his motorhome, his little Louisiana, sipping a Dr. Pepper, watching TV, Freddie sits in comfortable surroundings and all the time he's going around the racetrack in his mind, suddenly discovering that maybe the front wheel was pushing in certain corners, and out pops the crucial information for Erv. Sometimes Erv will say something like "I think you're doing this, and I think we should try this. What do you think?" and Freddie will answer after a pause and a few more sips of Dr. Pepper. Sometimes the mechanics will be - working late on the bike, and Freddie will wander inLO the tent about 11:30 p.m., carrying a Dr. Pepper, and say "Oh yeah, the rear end is sliding. Why is that, Erv?" Whenever his schedule allows, Freddie goes home. Some observers cynically suggested that Freddie's biggest reason for boycotting Nogaro in 1982 was that it meant he could fly home. Freddie frustrates and infuriates the japanese from Honda, but nobody can argue with his results. The japanese rented a racetrack the week before a Grand Prix in 1982, but Freddie didn't bother LO turn up until the morning of official practice. In his first I I laps on that circuit, he set the fastest time. Freddie believes that he is better than anybody in the world when it comes to racing motdrcycles. But it may be that he must feel that way LO be able to race the way he does. To ride like Freddie may demand that mental attitude. Anyone who watched Freddie effortlessly take three seconds off Franco Uncini's best rap times in 1982 - on a slower, heavier bike - must be impressed. Freddie came from nothing, and now is very rich. He wears it well. Freddie looks at his accomplishments as "doing his job." If he sets fastest practice time, then he's satisfied that he did his job. He doesn't make man y excuses, and doesn't complai n much. Once a mechanic watched Freddie during practice. In one top-gear corner Freddie got into such a terrible slide that he almost fell off the back of the motorcycle. Freddieca01e into the pits, and the mechanic asked him how the bike was working. "Oh, fine," was Freddie's reply. He did, however, come back into the tent later, Dr. Pepper in hand, and tell Erv that the rear end slid once or twice in practice. "Maybe the tfre is too soft," said Freddie. On the racetrack, Freddie Spencer lives in the present. He'll lose the front end, the front wheel sliding sideways on the track, and he'll save it, and instantly is hack in the groove, on the gas, going as fast as ever. He has a problem, corrects it, forgets it. It's history - that was the last corner, and now he is totally absorbed in meeting the challenge of the next corner. Freddie has said that he believes that a guardian angel rides on his shoulder and protects him from harm. His most serious injury to date has been an arm broken in a high school basketball game. His collision with Uncini at Germany in 1982 did not shake his religious theory of noninjury, because the crash was caused br cirCUJUlilaflCe!i. beyond his control. His pit crew didn't correctly signal him that Mamola and Uncini were gaining. Freddie thought he had a five-second cushion when he had 2.Sseconds, and then he thought he had a 2.5-second cushion when he had none. He was knocked out. When he recovered consciousness in the hospital, the first words he said to Erv were "Where did those guys come from?" He injured his left ankle - tore ligaments - in a crash at the 1984 South African Grand Prix, but that was because his NSR500's composite rear wheel broke - hardly his fault. The closest Freddie has come recently to throwing himself on the ground was his crash at the Match Races. Observers said Freddie was pushing both wheels and steering inLO the slide every single lap, a display that prompted Sheene LO declare Spencer the world's best rider ever. Unfortunately, one lap the bike didn't respond just as it should, and Spencer fell, and broke toes in his right foot. Erv KanemoLO is 40 years old. He keeps Freddie's spirits up, leads the crew in constantly joining with Freddie, encouraging him, keeping him happy. Walk into Lucchinelli's (1982) pits after a practice and there would be gloom over Lucky's lap times compared LO Freddie's. But in Freddie's pits there was never gloom, just Freddie and his confidence and his joking mechanics, keeping everything happy. If there is a problem, it is confronted and dealt with, then for.gotten. Erv may be 50% of Freddie's success.. Erv always has an answer when Freddie doesn't know what LOdo, and Freddie always asks his opinion. Erv ha~ those answers because he spends 24 hours a day thinking about racing and racehikes, and Erv Kanemoto is a very smart man. And Freddie Spencer is a very good rider. He could be World Champion a dozen times, if nothing crazy happens, ifhis Honda can do it. Freddie Spencer will do his part. He'll set the fast time and win and then retire into his motorhome for a Dr. Pepper and some basketall tapes. It's easy LO imagine him after winning the 1983 Championship: sitting in his motorhome when Erv comes in and sits with him, and between baskets and rebounds Freddie turns LO him suddenly, and says something like "Well, we're World Champions now. What do you think about that, Erv?" And Erv tells Freddie what he needs to know to win another championship, and another, and another... Whether 1984 will be his second remains to be: see/\. _• • 21:- ~

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