Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

,caytona 1973: Jarno Saarinen rode Carruthers' spare TZ350 Carruthers at the Isle of Man in 1970. on a 350 Benelli. after the first four races, then had to withstand the pressure and not squander his advantage. "Eddie had a problem this year in that he won three out of the first four races. Then at Italy he had a little trouble with tires, and in the next few races we had a lot of trouble with tires. The tires were really good on fast corners, but we had a traction problem on slow corners, and most of the circuits in the second half of the season had lots of second- and thirdgear corners. So Eddie found himself in the fortunate, or unfortunate, position of not having to win races," Carruthers said. "Ideally you should win, because that's the only way to make sure. But _ what happened was he would have little tire problem; or you'd have a race like the Dutch Grand Prix, where Eddie said he could have beaten Randy (Mamola), if Randy had been on his own. Randy is good enough that you can't just pull up, pass him and disappear; you have to race him for a few laps and wear him down. Eddie started to do that, then they got balked in traffic and Raymond Roche arrived on the scene. Eddie was frightened of getting knocked down or something. So he thought, 'Hey. it isn't worth the risk,' and finished third. "In France Eddie's bike wasn't running too well, but he knew he had tobeat Randy for second place. On the last lap he did a really good job by pulling out and beating Randy. "I know, all being well, Eddie can run with Freddie Spencer. Like at the German Grand Prix he was going well until someone ran him off the track. After that he thought, 'Well, Carruthers leads Fisher and Castro at Road Atlanta. 1972. I'm in second position and I won't catch Freddie without doing something stupid. "His problem was that everybody was saying he should be up there racing for the lead. But he realized that if he was up there racing for the lead and he had a small problem and fell on his bum, everybody would say how stupid Lawson was for going harder than he had to go! "By Silverstone we had some new tires.and stuff, and we thought from there everything would come together for him. See, everyone else had nothing to lose, they could go wide open. But Eddie was in the position where he'd like .to have won, so unless everything really clicked together he was_ better off just going at a safe pace," Carruthers said. Road-race history books may well describe the 1984500 championship as a series that was decided by falls. Lawson having none, Honda's Spencer three, one through equi pment failure and two at non-championship .events. Was Carruthers surprised at Honda not sending Spencer out on the triple during official practice at the Dutch Grand Prix, and allowing him to race Laguna Seca after missing one grand prix through an injury sustained at the Trans-Atlantic Match Races? - -"Well, they were a bit foolish not to run the three at Assen if they had problems with the four. If you've got no problems there's no point in running with the three. But if they had a problem, which they seemed to have, they were crazy not to run it. "As for the other thing, it's hard to say about international races, because you can get hurt at any time. You can get hurt in practice for a grand prix or in testing. Unfortunately, the couple of intern'iltional races the guys do pay them a lot of money, so It's hard to say to them that they can't ride. In Eddie's case, he had decided back at Daytona time that he wasn't going to ride at Laguna Seca, mainly because he didn't feel they were going to pay him enough money. It wasn'tthat he was told he couldn't ride, that didn't really come into it. "Eddie rode at the Match Races, and he went fast, but he was steady. He scored seconds, third and fourths all weekend, and he ended up secon<;l hi$h~~t !~dividual p~ir,t. ,s!=OI;er, Maybe he dIdn't do anythmg won- derful, but he didn't fall on his bum and he earned good money," said Kel in typically no-nonsense fashion. Casual observers of the AgostiniMarlboro Yamaha Team sometimes remark that the team looks unwieldy. . There are the Agostini brothers, Giacomo and Felice, and their entourage, Carruthers and the mechanics, the 1apanese engineers, Lawson and Ferrari (who even the best of the paddock's amateur psychologists can't fathom). Kenny Roberts' 250cc team, otherwise known as "the B-team," parks next to them. Carruthers concedes that it could appear that way to an outsider. "It is a little bit much, unless you break it down into areas, because what's happened is the core of the team is the same as it has always been. The engineering side is still under the control of the Japanese engirIeer and myself. Agostini and all the other people you see around have nothing at all to do with the bikes. The bit that really matters in terms of race results is the same as it was for the last fi ve or six years, except that the mechanics and riders have changed. Carruthers at Longford. Tasmania in 1965. after winning the 500 race. 19

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