Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

More on how Kevin Schwantz got his ride; and what Eddie Lawson, Wes Cooley and Randy Renfrow think of 16-inch front wheels nine, listened to the exhaust note as Schwantz rode the track, and declared that Schwantz was already as fast, if not faster, than Graeme Crosby. The problem Rolo[£ - along with Scott Gray and Russ Paulk and Richard Scoular - has with trying to get a factory ride, or a Yoshimura ride, is that the people making the decisions regarding riders don't want 28 or 24 or 29 or 25 year-old, respectively, riders. What they want is a new Wayne Rainey or Eddie Lawson or Freddie Spencer, but at as early an age as they can find them. What they want is an 18-year-old dirt tracker who can haul ass on pavement and grow into a championship-caliber rider, getting faster and faster year-by-year. For as long as I've been writing about motorcycles, you'd think I'd be used to taking heal over my stronger editorial state- 12 ments. But despite 12 years experience in catching flak, I've never gotten used to the outpouring of pure hatred and contempt that an occasional editorial can trigger in some people. Which brings us to Earl Rolo[£, jr., 1983 AFM #1, former dirt-tracker, aspiring Superbike road racing star, and, at 28, manager of one of his family's two San Diego-area motorcycle shops, Roloff's Yamaha. Roloff took exceptionally strong - almost violent - issue with two of my recent editorials, one dealing with the circumstances of my crashing a new Kawasaki Ninja 600R at the press introduction held at Firebird Raceway in Phoenix, the other proclaiming the Superbike stardom-tobe of 20-year-old Texan Kevin Schwantz. Among other things, Rolo[£ bel ieves that I am dead slow, too slow to be eval uating motorcycles; that I am living in a fantasy world by thinking I can ride a motorcycle and then tell people how it works; that he, not Kevin Schwantz, deserves to race the Yoshimura Suzuki in 1985 and that he was screwed out of the deal because he cruised around at conservative I :33s at Willow during his tryout; and that Schwantz can't possibly be as good as I said he was. Roloff also hopes to return to SUPerbike racing in 1985 and put himself in a position where he can get a factory ride in 1986, which is when many people think big-time factory teams from Yamaha and Kawasaki and Suzuki through Yoshimura - will wade into Superbike racing to challenge Honda's current domination. To begin with, it isn't all my fault that Schwantz, and not Roloff, got the coveted ride. All I did was do what I could to get Schwantz a tryout on the bike; he's the one 'who turned the I :30s while staying so loose and smooth and relaxed on the bike that he appeared to be cruising at a much more sedate pace. And it was Suehiro Wantanabe of Yoshimura R&D of America who timed Schwantz between turns three and six, watched his lines, timed him through turns eight and they tuck in easier, and the bike falls over faster." tl •• Randy Renfrow And the next best thing to an 18year-old dirt tracker who can haul ass on pavement is a 20-year-old dirt tracker who can haul ass on pavement, and that's Kevin Schwantz. As for his future capabilities, I'd bet money o,n the kid; I get phone calls and letters aJl the time from people who claim to have the next great rider in their family or on their bike or among their friends. Some of the callers, like the guy who was certain his kid could be World Champion because he had used his RD400 to pass Roberto Pietri ina practice session at Sears Point, don't have the slightest clue of what they're talking about (I never did find out if Roberto was breaking in an engine or scuffing tires at the time, but I never heard of the kid afterwards, so it's a fair bet there were mitigating circumstances). Others who call actually know good riders; and I've been known to keep an eye on up-and-coming riders and even established club racers to see what I can see. But I don't get real excited about riders very often; I've been watching races long enough to be able to tell when somebody is very, ver.y good; and I'm standing by my opinion that Kevin Schwantz has got the raw talent to make it and make it big. Besides that, Watanabe is no fool; he sees in Schwantz the same things I see, and that's why he signed Kevin Schwantz and not Earl Rolo[£, jr. As far as Mr. Roloff's opinion 'that I'm dead slow, the thing that seems to have set him off in that regard was my statement that notching back the throttle while leaned over near the limits of cornering clearance can cause a motorcycle with a 16-inch front wheel to load the front end and push, crashing the rider. The Roloff family's other shop is Seaweed Kawasaki and they're looking forward to selling Ninja 600Rs;, due to an unfortunate coincidence, the motorcycle I was riding when I finally figured out this tendency of l6-inch front wheels was in fact a Ninja 600R. Roloff complains that people are already wondering if 600Rs will crash them in corners, and he figures there's no way I know what I'm talking about. I just screwed up and crashed and blamed the bike, he says, or else the bike was set up wrong for the racetrack; and in any case I don't know what I'm writing about because I'm too slow to know. As far as I can remember, Rolo[£ and I have been on the racetrack together twice, several years ago; once he and his new GPz750 barely beat me and my GPz550 in a stock race at Willow Springs, but, as he tells it, he had a good excuse. The second time, Roloff and his prepared-to-the-teeth GPz550 blew me and my neglected GPz550 away in another stock race at Willow Springs, and as I tell it, I had a good excuse, or excuses, mainly including the fact that my bike was way too slow because [was behind on my cheating and also because I was going through a terrible slump in my riding at the time. Be that as it may, the fact remains that Roloff hasn't ridden a Ninja 600R or raced anything with a 16inch front wheel; and the fact remains that the fleet of 600Rs flown in for the press intro were prepped and set-up at the track by the best technicians Kawasaki Motors Corp. has, under the supervision of the japanese engineers who actually designed the motorcycle. without any indication it can luck in on you and go away." tl • •• because the thing's gonna follow the road differently than a 17 or an 18. "I just go by feeling. A 17 seems to be a nice compromise I think. The 18's too big, and the 16's too small. But the 16s definitely sell motorcycles. I think it's a good selling point. People like it, and it looks trick. "I personally prefer a 17." - Two-time U.S. SuperbikeChampion, AMA Formula One RS500 pilot Wes Cooley: "The 16-inch front wheel has a couple of advantages - it changes direction easier without as much pressure on the bars, and it has a better footprint patch when you're on the brakes. But I think the stability of an 18-inch is much greater from entering a comer through the apex. When you're cornering with a 16inch you can get in there and without any indication it can tuck in on you and go away. I think that with a 16inch front wheel you have to ride the rear wheel all the time, use the throttle. it's not as stable " Eddie Lawson "It took me a long time to get used to riding with the 16-inch front wheel. I couldn't let the front end load up as much because it would just go away. There's not as much input through the bars with a l6-inch front wheel "I really noticed it at Sears Point when I got off the Superbike onto the RS. The 16 was easier to control as far as changing direction but the stability is much greater in the corners with a 18-inch front whee!." -AMA 1983 Formula Two Champion and 1984 Formula One RS5OOpilOl, six-time WERA National Champion Randy Renfrow: "With a. 16-inch front wheel, when they start to slide out, they tuck in easier, and the bike falls over faster. You can't really slide the front wheel and then tum in the bars and let it slide and still keep it on your line like you can with some mid-sized production bikes (without 16-inch front wheels). When the weight transfers to the front and it starts to slide it's harder to recover. I never fell down before this year and this year I fell down three times, lost the front end each time." Wes Cooley It's no surprise that r figure I do know what I'm talking about and that I think [ can ride plenty fast enough to find out what a streetbike is going to do on a racetrack. But since Rolof[~an'ta<;;ce.E.ttha~as being true, I'm now going to quote some" guys who Roloff at his best can't call slow; he'll have to come up with some new arguments to convince them he's right: - 500cc World Champion Eddie Lawson: "There's only one advantage to a 16 - basicaJly getting back and forth easier. The only disadvantage I can see with a 16 is that it's not as stable in high-speed corners. A 16, if you have a corner that's really high speed and bumpy, it seems to fall into the pavement a little more, so it won't make it as stable. "Raymond Roche told me that he kept telling Honda and Michelin to make a 17 all year because he didn't like the feeling of the smaller wheel. He didn't care for it. "The biggest thing was we were using Dunlop 16sand Dunlop couldn't get a 16 that would work. We never had a profile and a compound that would work. You have to have a real good tire on it to make it work. In fairness, I hasten to say that I think a 16-inch front wheel is just dandy on the street, and that I've had lots of fun on my own Ninja 900. It's also true that lots of guys race Superbikes and Formula One bikes Hondas - with 16-inch front wheels and do just fine. But what I'm saying is that riding racetrack-fast on any motorcycle with a 16-inch front wheel req uires a differem technique than riding a motorcycle with an 18-inch from wheel; that a 16-incher has differem handling characteristics than an 18-incher; and that if you notch back the throttle on a 16-incher midcorner, you're asking for trouble. In short, you could say that the key to success with a 16-inch from wheel is No Roloff. •

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