Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Three-time World Champion Freddie Spencer looked relaxed, heahhy and conf'ldent at Honda's February 25 test session in Daytona. Dateline: Dayjona, Februar~ 25 Spencer fastest, says wrist is OK By Henny Ray Abrams . Photo by Daytona International Speedway Photo Department He is the consensus favorite to win the Daytona 200 and, yet, he hasn't finished a race since August of '85. He will, no doubt, sit on the pole position for the 200 with a new qualifying record and set a blistering early pace. Still many . . ' wlll be skeptical al;>out where he'll be at the end. He has won three World Championships and at the tenderageof25 had to prove himself again. He is, of course, Freddie Spencer and in his mind, at least, all doubts were erased at a test session in mid-February at the Surfer's Paradise race track in eastern Australia. "I did 42 laps in a row. That's a Grand Prix. We filled it up and ran it like a GP race. "And it was hot. It was so hot that I gota sunburn on my face through my dark shield. The ground was over 120 (degrees Fahrenheit). When I did those 42 laps I said, 'If I survive this I'll survive anything. It was so hot that after four or five laps the tire stopped working and the race track is so abrasive and bumpy. We did everything we wanted to do. And at the very end we did. the whole race to see h.o~ the new bike would stand up to It;, He paused for a second then added, And of course my wrist. We put it through the test and we never had any trouble." Spencer discovered tendinitis in his right wrist at the 1986 Spanish Grand Prix, the first World Championship round, after having skipped Daytona for other reasons. He tried to allow it to heal by itself before succum bing to surgery after failing to finish in Austria in June. Originally, he had thought that he would be able to return for the last few Grands Prix and did, in fact, practice for an international event in Japan 'in the faU. But he later withdrew from the race and didn't ride again until he tested in California and Daytona in December. Those sessions convinced him he -was race-ready and the'tests in Ausualia confirmed it. "I was doing 1:12.20s in testing and Niall (MacKenzie, Spencer's new teammate) ran 12.60 and 12.70s. Rob McElnea ran something like 13.20 to qualify in the Swann Series race down there. And in the 42-lap test every lap was in the low 13s. I never varied more than two or three-tenths of a second. Testing is the most difficult thing because you're out there all alone. I went out and pushed it hard., but it's not race time. If it was going to flare up, it would have flared up down there. In peopJe's minds you have to prove it to them." Among the skeptical, who must now be convinced, was Spencer's former Rothmans' teammate Wayne Gardner. Testing at Surfer's Paradise the week after Spencer and MacKenzie, Gardner was running in the mid12s before crashing and hurting his ankle. Last year he crashed twice there in three days and destroyed one motorcycle. Gardner and Spencer, along with MacKenzie and Gardner's Rothmans' teammates Yatsushiro Shunji and Roger Burnett will all be on the upda.ted NSR-5oo and Spencer, for one, is encouraged by the testing. "The '87 bike is going to be all. right. Probabl y the main difference is just steering. It just steers lighter. It's pretty much ready. The stuff is really just beefed up. I think we're going to be able to use the 17-inch tires and we've narrowed down the difference to what I liked about the 16 and what I disliked about the 17. Everybody is running 16s and I wanted to run the 17s and Michelin's going to have, some." Spencer added that the engine continues to be a ,single-crank design, but other changes make it more ridable. Recent photos of the machine taken during the Australian test show a change in the placement of the carburetors to a spot in between the V of the cylinders, instead of behind the rear cylinders. The machine Spencer will be riding at Daytona will also be a V-4, but it will be a VFR-750 prepared by HRC in Japan. "It's Bubba's spare," he said after the first of two days of testing the week before Daytona Cycle Week. "It's the bike I rode down here in December that basically just has new parts on it. They shipped it back to HRC and they set it up to my specs: the way I like the bike cambered as far as the trail and things like that. But it'll be Bubba's spare when I get through with it. Wayne has two bikes and Bubba has one because I have his other one. I have a couple of spare engines, but basically just the one bike because I'm just doing one race and any more it'd be too expensive for them to build. My exhaust system is spec HRC and that's why my bike will look and sound different. They use Kerker because they're paid by Kerker. The only thing that I can tell that's different is that it's fresher than the bike I rode down here in December which had more than 1000 miles on it. It missed shifts and everything else and I did 56s and this thing shifts and it doesn't miss and it's got a fresh engine. We all have fresh engines." The first day's test at Daytona International Speedway had Spencer running in the 1:56.1-1:56.2 range. Last year, race winner Eddie Lawson's polesitting time was 1:56.228. Rainey was doing 58s on the first day and Shobert was right around two minutes [Jat.. ..$uzuki's Kevin Schwantz had turned lap times close to 1:57even in testing earlier in the week and his teammate- Satoshi TsujimOlo's times were a second or two slower. Spencer was on Michelins while the others have been using Dunlops. "The track was pretty slick. It wasn'tin too good ofa shape," Spencer said after the day's test. "I really wasn't pushing it that hard through the infield, but the chicane was hurting my times a little bit. It's been raining down here and it's in the 60s and overcast. I ran the same front tire all day and it's not getting a lot of grip. I can go faster. I think I can get under 1:56. I'm not sure. You predict something and you don't reach it so I don't like making predictions." There were, however, a few things he would predict. One is that they would need to make one tire change and the other is that he'd spend almost the entire 200 miles lapping backmarkers. "Traffic: It's always a problem down here, especially since they changed the race track because it makes it a little tougher since you don't have the first infield straightaway to use for passing. Let's put it this way: I was more concerned in '85 when I started the race in front and after four laps I was in the back and had to go through traffic twice. It's always a consideration down here, but it's just a part of racing." The pace, as Spencer sees it, will be 58s" "Because Wayne~s going to go good and I think Kevin Schwantz is going to go good." The pace might have been briskier if World Champion Lawson had shown up, as had~en briefly rumored. """I was hoping that Eddie was going to·be here for the main reason that It would be good racing. With Eddie being here there would be more to it. Sure, this is the Daytona 200, but we'll be racing against each other all year. This is the first race and he's going to be competitive and we're going to be week in and week out and his being here would shed a different light on it. Just like if I had showed up last year. "Who knows who's going to be quick or anything, butI'm looking at it as just gelling back into it. Get a race under my belt. The first race in a long time and the first race that I hope to finish in a real long time." Testing, Spencer says, is one thing, but there's nothing like competition. "These are race situations and the bike is heavier than my 500 and, of course, it's 200 miles and you're putting it through a lot. And running here all week it's day after day and that's when problems show up: It's like in Spain. It was a little every day and by race day it sweUed (his wrist) up and just wouldn't work. And then, after a week or two of rest, I could maybe come back and ride a couple of days. Now I'm riding every day. Australia was the toughest test; I can't describe it. But nobody was there." So it's up to his performance at Daytona to convert those who still harbor doubts that he is, indeed, back. Spencer has never been one to make grandiose predictions about the outcome of any particular race or series and Daytona is no different. Although he, like many racers, says that he's there to win. He has done everything in his power, both physcially and mentally, to get back to the form which was last seen at the Swedish Grand Prix in 1985 when he clinched his second 500cc title and Daytona will mark the first test of the culmination of these efforts. Publicly, he can't be drawn into admitting that he will win. But priv.ately, he has shown the confidence and spirit that were lacking during his disastrous past year and there is little doubt that after speaking with him he knows where he should be at the end of the Daytona 200 on Sunday. Barring mechanical problems, at about 3:30 p.m. on March 8 he will have either answered all the questions which have been asked over the past yea~,.6r created a whole set of new ones. •

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