Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

.. C 'l l-4 Q,) ..c e Q,) ;> o Z ThC! man bC!hinci thC! Hing~ liczl Carruthczr) By. Don Cox Kel Carruthers has had a variety of job titles over the past seven years, ranging from president of a racing corporation to chief technician. There have been different signatories on his paychecks, the latest being A h M lbo IG' tear ro tacomo gosrini combine. But throughout those years 18 the stocky, 46-year-old, Australianborn, California-domicile ex-racer and former 250cc World Champion' has been doing "basically the same job." Carruthers and an engineer from the japanese factory form the core of Yamaha's 500cc world championship road racing team. It was Carruthers who formed a team to take Kenny Roberts to Europe in 1978. The results include first in 1978,1979 and 1980, third in 1981, fourth in 1982 after Roberts missed the last part of the season through injury, and second by two points in 1983. This year Yamaha's Eddie Lawson brought racing's most prestigious crown back to the factory - its fifth 500 title. Agostini won the first in 1975. It would not be correct to say Carruthers is the "man behind Eddie Lawson." They have worked together for the last two seasons;' the Carruthers-Robens partnership dates from 1973, when Kel was appointed manageroftheYamaha America road· race squad. What Carruthers is is the man responsible for putting two competitive Yamahas on the grid for 500cc Grands Prix. And that, as he'll tell ----_.- - -_ you, is a lot of work. ·"There's just so much work you can do on a factory 500 these days. I would say we have the best 500, in terms of the amount of maintenance needed - the life of all the parts is pretty fantastic. But you never stop working on those motorcycles. There are so many things to look at and so many things you can change," he said. "We have one mechanic per bike (two bikes per rider), and I wiU help whichever mechanic needs the most assistance. If one guy finishes his bike early, he will get in and help some of the others, because there are so many things, just in gearboxcombinations and shock absorber settings. What often happens is you run out of time before you finish making all the adjustments you could try. "Then there's (the subject of) tires, which is a whole new game. When I raced you had three different sorts of tires: you had worn ones, new ones that you bought, and new ones you got for free. The new ones you gOl free were the good ones. They were exactly the same as the ones you bought, but getting them free made them better!" Kel jokes. "Now, with Dunlop, we probably have anything up to three possible rear race tires at any given circuit. And we could also have three or four others to test. There might only be two onhree exampJes Qhhese tires-. ju t enough so that if you have time to test one and per chance it's really good, you have another one for the race. "So that's another factor - you're always tire testing, both for Dunlop japan and the English factory in Birmingham. Basically, we use an English front and a japanese rear at all the circuits. That's the normal combination, the baseline we operate from," Carruthers explained. After II years working with Kenny Roberts and two years with Eddie Lawson, Kel had some illuminating comments on the rider Imechanic relationship. "Eddie is a fair bit different. He is easier to work with than Kenny. Not that being easier to work with is necessarily good, although easier to work with means you don't do as much work, if you want to look at it that wayl The problem is, maybe you don't find out as many things," Carruthers said. "Kenny is probably the worst person in the world to work with on a motorcycle, because he keeps wanting to change every damn thing! He is really good when you change something, because he'll try it and come back in 'and say whether it's better. But then he'll say we should change this, that and something else. And 90% of the time you'll change it and it's worse. But the other 10% of the time you'll find something that he likes a bit better. "In other words, Kenny is never happy. He will drive you crazy, because he'll say it's perfect, then want things changed. You can work that way, so long as you can alwavs Ira t. r" i ; ~ back to the point where it was right. "In the end Kenny would probably end up with a better motorcycle than Eddie - maybe and maybe not, because sometimes the more you change things the more confused you become. Things can getdifficult with Kenny's way if you lose something along the way by trying too many things. "Eddie will come back in after trying something and say, 'that's really good, I don't think there is anything we can do to make it better, I've just got to get out there and ride the thing.' "The point is, they're both doing it the way they think it should be done," said Kel. One of the better kept secrets of the 1984 season was Yamaha had reedvalve induction engines from the very first grand prix in South Africa. Perhaps journalists were too involved in getting a look under the fairing of Honda's V-4. When the news was broken some writers described the engine as the result of a suggestion by Kenny Roberts, for an engine with a more usable powerband. Carruthers said the new engine wasn't initiated by KR, that Yamaha engineers do all the engine designing. "Kenny doesn't have anything to do with design, per se. He might have said, 'Hey, let's try a reed-valve.' But you can bet the japanese had either already tried a reed-valve or had one in the design stages. "There are a lot of things tbe factory engineers would ask Kenny about, and he would suggest that maybe they should try placi ng the engine further forward, lower or further back, just from the feel he would get riding it. But that would be the amount of his input inLo what they build in a motorcycle," Kel said. Why did they build a reed-valve engine? "They were looking for easier starting and more mid-range power. Topend power i not as important as it used to be with a 500, because now they've all got so much power that a lillIe bi t more or less aL the top end doesn't make that much difference. It's better if you can make more power in the bottom and middle range. "One of Lhe main problems with th'e 500s now is to make them easier to ride - LhaL's probably as important as anything else. It's easy to get more power, and it's easy to make them easy to ride. BUL iL's very difficulL to keep Lhe power you want and make the bike easier to ride. That's the main thing you look for Lhese days. "Eddie used the reed-valve engine all through the season, from South Africa. Virginio (Ferrari) uses one or the other - it doesn't seem to bother him that much," said Carruthers. When it came to the racing, Lawson's 1984 was quite unlike Roberts' swansong grand prix year in 1983. Kenny started from behind in the 1983 points table, then raced it out meeting by meeting with Honda's Freddie Spencer. Lawson began with a scoring spree that put him 30 points ahead of the defending champion Ontario, 1973: Roberts 11) leads Don Castro 111), Carruthers 173), Gary Fisher 121).

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