Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

~ Il,) ..0 E Il,) u Il,) o By Tom Mueller Johnny O'Mara will see the biggest turning point in his motocross career in 1987. After a six-year affiliation with Team Honda, O'Mara will make a switch to Suzuki for the coming season. It's not a situation O'Mara takes lightly. The 24-year-old from Simi Valley, California, won the 1983 125cc National Championship, the 1984 Supercross Championship, and has been on the World Championship Motocross and Tro~hee des Nations team on four occaSIOns. Pushing towards perfection is O'Mara's game plan in everything he does, and that's his goal for Team Suzuki. O'Mara feels strongly that he can stop Honda's stranglehold on the winner's circle. To O'Mara, it's more than racing; it's something he needs to prove to himself and to everyone who witnessed his less than spectacular '86 season. "The way I see it there are only two guys who can beat (Rick) Johnson and (David) Bailey, and that's me and (Jeff) Ward," said O'Mara. ''I'm ready to come back on a Suzuki and let those guys know, the show must go on." We took time to visit O'Mara at his southern California home, to ask him some questions over the course of a day. Johnny, it's big news that you're leaving Honda and riding for Suzuki next year. What chain of events led you to make the change? Suzuki approached me last June at the Mammoth Mountain MX. They heard through the grapevine that my contract with Honda was up at the end of '86 and Pat Alexander (Suzuki MX coordinator) wanted to talk. I told them that I'd like to get with Al Baker (O'Mara's business manager) and talk some numbers sometime, but that was about it. About halfway through the 500cc Nationals I was getting vibes from Honda that things were going downhill for me. I won a moto but then I crashed a few times, and the team started to look like Rick and David. I wasn't getting any backing pulling through the rut I was in, and that hurt my performance even more. I was losing motivation. After that I started hearing things. People were asking me if I was going to get a new contract with Honda. I started to think about my job and put two and two together. I was on the bottom of the totem pole and the Japanese expected more from me. I don't like third and fourth any more than Honda did, and I had many sleepless nights because of the whole situation. In Italy (at the Motocross des Nations) you were making comments to Dave Arnold and Roger DeCoster about where you stood with Honda for '87. Dave and Roger told me they were trying to keep the budget to where they could give me a contract, but they also told me that they only had so much money to work with. I just felt they should have been a little more straight-forward with me earlier in the year. The last straw for me was then they told me I wouldn' Lbe going to Japan to test in October. That's when I knew that I wasn't going to be on the team. By then, I had already made a play

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