Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

~ ~~ndy Mamola 8 GWlng JOO% • • • and more . ~ By Henny Ray Abrams "I've always been a Suzuki rider," Team Lucky Strike Roberts' Randy Mamola was saying during a break in qIJalifying at the Spanish GP.· "You mention Suzuki, you thought of me. You mention Honda, you think of Freddie Spencer. You think of Wayne Gardner more now because of 16 Wayne, but you still think of Freddie Spencer. Always. Right now when you think of Yamaha you think of Eddie Lawson. But by the end of this year ... I'll change that in a hurry."' Preuy brassy stuff coming from a guy who finished sixth in the World· Championship Road Race Series last year and who's campaigning his third different brand of motorcycle in four years. While Lawson, second in last year's title chase, is back on Yamahas for the fourth year. The question is: Can Mamola back up the statement? Kenny Roberts thinks so. He chose Mamola to team up with American Formula One Road Race Champion Mike Baldwin on the Lucky Strike Team. This was after Rothmans had upped its offer to keep Mamola on Hondas. " "During the last Grand Prix (of 1985), Rothmans said they already wanted him to remain on the team," said jim Doyle, Mamola's manager. "They wanted him to sign on the spot with a lot more money. So everyone thought that Wayne Gardner was going to be their favorite son, but they wanted Randy to sign before they even negotiated or talked to Wayne." "The thing that switched my mind," Mamola explained, "had nothing to do with money. It had to do with machinery. And I didn't want to leave a bad taste in Honda's mouth by saying no and rejecting it. "Rothmans wanted me to stay because I promoted it. At Laguna Seca people couldn't believe it. I just stood out there and handed out my own stickers, You never get in to talk to Freddie. And, see my performance wasn't all that great, but the other side of it held up. They knew I still had the talent to win races, but I had a bad season and that was it. They wanted me because of promotion. I'd stand in Freddie's place all the time. I didn't mind doing it, but I didn't want to take the place of Freddie. Now on this team, I don't mind doing it because I don't have to worry about other riders filling in. And the thing that I really like about this is the same as with HB Suzuki: It was a new team. Any time there's something new it', a lot more spectacular and there's a lot mote of something for everybody on the outside of the team to focus on and get good publicity. " Publicity and promotion is all good and well, but if the results don't hold up on the track no one wants to know you. To that end, Mamola embarked on a rigid off-season diet and exercise program with the help of trainer Dean Miller. "That's been our main focus; getting in shape, a lot bener shape. I rented a house down near Kenny for three months. I rode shorr-trackers, 1000c, 225 Yamahas and 600 Yamahas. I trained on all of those different types of tracks. Rough tracks, cushion tracks, dirt tracks." The riding, exercise, and diet plan was formulated wtih a computer by Miller. "Right now there are six athletes that use his place. A football player, a baseball player, me and a couple of other sports. I'm on a heavy fruit and carbohydrate diet. As soon as I get hungry I eat fruit. I'm eating the fruit constantly and I get to dinner and my level of glucose is very high so that's your energy. I get to night time and eat some pasta and that pasta turns into the energy for the eight-hour sleep period so by morning I'm ready again." The exercise plan, like the diet, consists of a heavy day and a light day. "My first program I'd run 25 minutes at a certain pace and ride a stationary bicycle and I'd do my weights and play racquetball and sometimes ride up to six hours a day. On the average, I rode two hours a day. And the !!!!OO calories of my heavy day was a lot of food. It was almost way too much because it was a lot of vegetables to get that many calories. And my light day. (1900 calories) consisted of a 22 minute run. ow my workout is this. Monday, when I came over here is rest. Tuesday is 200 sit-ups; then push-ups, bardips, trunk rota- • tions, toe touches, running in place - knees as high as possible - 500 times and burpees. And I get a break on Wednesday and then the same thing on Thursday." The program is designed for maximum performance on race day. "When I got off the bike and walked back and checked my heart rate it was 100 and on the bike it was 120. David Bailey said his heart rate is about 145 when he's riding. When he wants to exert himself it goes up to 165 or so. The question is whether it can last that long. His can because lie's trained that way. So what Dean wants me to do is try to keep that heart rate up at that pace because my 'heart rate is going to be high anyway from work· ing out. You want to keep it up like 145-150-160. While you're working out you don't want to rest in between because you want to keep that heart rate up. It seems like it's bad for your heart, but it's not if you're in shape. The heavy workout takes about an hour, then my run." At jarama, all the training almost went for naught when -Mamola crashed twice in practice, injuring his ankle. No mauer what shape he's in, how he feels on the motorcycle is of paramount importance. In Spain, Mamola said that he never felt comfortable with the front end or braking on the Honda he rode last year. "Riding on the edge is a terrible feeling. With this thing I know I can go in deeper and get the bike set up a liule bit bener and I can come out faster. With the Honda I used to use my whole hand to brake. With the Yamaha I just use my two fingers. And I can.go in deeper. I used to shut off at the 200-yard marker on the front straight here with the Honda and really be looking. I'm shutting off with the Yamaha past the 200 marker and I'm letting up on it so now I can go in deeper. In every corner I can. It's justthat I have to get my mind focused way ahead so I can shorten the brake markers out. But being a new bike I have to learn everything so quickly. I'm being force-fed to learn this thing. "You know, I'm still having nightmares about the Honda front end when riding this bike. I'm still trying to get over that last hurdle of pushing the front end. What I mean by pushing it is not taking it ea y on the front. With this I can push it in, scrub off speed, then gas it out. So I'm making up time, my corner speed's better and I feel comfortable." The handling was significantly different than the Honda three-cylinder that Mamola had ridden for the past two years, but what of the power? "It's so close to riding the three as far as where the power is. Everybody had a good time riding the three-cylinder because you could always tell where the power was. It's always there. You can tell the Honda four-cylinder is not like that. You can't hear it down low. So it's harder to get used to. And when that thing takes off you can see it. Ours, when you gas it the power is always there." After seven GPa, MlImobIis aecond in the World Championship. And there are few better people to learn about racing in general and especially Yamahas from than Roberts. "He's the best one to tell you what the bike does. As far as what he's doing now, he knows my talent, he wants to sharpen my talent and he knows the bike. So what I do is, I come in and I sit in the motorhome and he says, 'What does it feel like' and I'll tell him. h'll burn his ass if he says to do this and I say 'OK' and go out and don't do it because he's just crying to help. I went around the race track with him and he explained his thoughts. He's telling me a little bit more than what he had told me when he was racing, but, again, I was rid· ing different bikes than he was then. The difference is day and night. The bike is that much beuer." Mamola had ridden the bike briefly in japan and raced it in Malaysia against mostly second-line talent, excludmg Baldwin. So Roberts was pleased with the early results. "What we're doing here is unbelievable with the amount of time he's had on that bike," Roberts said of Mamola. "The first race, which is a lot of pressure on him, is tougher because this has never been his track. I'd rather be at Kyalami. Randy would have been better to go to a bigger track where ... you're on the wrong line here you're screwed. Which is what happened yesterday and with all that pressure that had been building on him and Mike to come to a circuit like this, he's doing good," RobertS said. He was doing especially good coming orr a season where he constantly complained about not having the top equipment thal Honda had to offer and saying that he couldn't win a race. He did win a race, the Dutch TT at Assen in the rain but ended up sixth overall, his worst finish since the 1982 season. "Last year was my least fun year. I was a talented enough rider not to be put on a secondary team, I felt. And that's hard to keep your momentum up. My racing showed that I'm still a good rider during the season, but my enthusiasm went out the door. I had the talent, but inside it's hard to keep that push. In '82 I finished sixth. In '8!! I finished third. I came back because I knew I was a talented enough rider.. I beat Eddie on sheer ability because his bike was definitely better than mine." (In Lawson's defense, 198!! was his first year on the push-start 500cc grand prix machinery and he was mostly ignored by a team preoccupied with the Spencer-Roberts duel that went down to the last race at Imola.) "And so I knew I was able. I had the best Suzuki bike that Suzuki could give. I didn't have the best bike that Honda could give me," said Mamola. The reason for that was Spencer. In 1982 and'S!!' he admitted that he wanted to be the number one rider on the Honda team with exclusive equipment. In 1984, after being spit off the first Honda four·cylinder a couple of times, he finished fourth in the championship. Last year, he won. But this year Honda has changed their thinking and have given Wayne Gardner equipment identical to Spencer's. Spencer and Lawson appear to be the main contenders for the title this year. But Gardner, by virtue of hIS win in Spain has thrown his helmet in the ring and Baldwin's third in Spain and in Germany was an encour· aging sign for the Lucky Strike T earn. So where does Mamola fit in this scheme of things. "I'm not going to say that I feel that I'm going to win the World Championship. All I can do is go out there and try 100%. Sometimes more than that. And then my results will show. I'm not saying I'll leave here the points leader because I know that's a tough task, but I don't think anyone else can say that right now either. I want to get the maximum I can out of here and feel comfortable. I'll feel happy if I get in the top four. (Mamola finished fourth.) And I know m;t I can do better than that. But I'll feel comfortable in that position because people can only expect me to try as much as I can. That's all I'm going to do is try the best I can because otherwise I've failed myself." In his "Pipeline" column in the May 1986 issue of Cycle magazine, England's jim Greening said that in 1986 Mamola "may even exceed his reputation as best rider never to take a World Championship." "It's pretty accurate," 'Mamola agreed. "I've finished second three times (tieing Mike Hailwood's record) and third once. If I quit racing today I wouldn't be depressed because r never got the number one because I feel I'm one of tl;1e best riders in the world. You know, I'm in that category. It's nice to achieve number one, but Freddie can't go out and say he's the best rider that ever walked the planet Earth just beca use he has the n urn ber one plate. He's one of the best so I already know I'm one of those. So it's a good title." But it's one that in 1986 Mamola would like to remove. •

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