Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126980
to Europe where he finished a remarkable 10th in the 500cc World Championshi p. Last year, Baldwin joined the Team Lucky Strike Roberts effort .' and finished fourth behind team mate Randy Mamola. Ba ldwin scored points in every race but two in 1986, racking up five third place finishes , two fourths and two fifths. H e is determined to get that elusive first GP win and the annoyance of a broken ankle, two broken bones in his ha nds and a few compressed vertebra is not about to stop him. At his Connecticut home, Baldwin reflected on American road racing, h is Yamaha/Dunlop GP eq u ip ment, and gives us so me insight on what it's like to race for Kenny Rob erts - the " King " turned "Boss." You've missed mo st of th e first half of the lfi-race season so far because of your crash in West Germany. T ell us how it happened? It ca ugh t me by surprise. I rode for a ll o f 1986 and I never fell off a 500. I rod e a lot of miles, a lot of different tracks and places and never fell off until Suzuka (the opening round of the 1987 seri es; Baldwin fell while a comfortable second behind eventual winner Mamola). I fell off in th e rain at Suzuka a nd in Belgium just because I hit a slippery spot. But to keep up with him. I caught up with him and I was staying with him and the bike was running great. It was four laps so I'm starting to race to go faster; he's going faster and I thought, "this is great, I'm hooked up with Eddie." Since the bike was richened up and since it ran five or six laps, I wasn't thinking it was going to seize. There's a long straight, th en a slight curve, and you start to lean over to the right, and you roll off the gas, pull in th e clutch and go through a chicane while you 're banked over. I was tucked in, rolled on th e gas and just started to sit up to down shift and th e thing just locked up. Since I was leaned over, I just went sideways immediate ly. I was up in the air looking down at the ground, and I thought, " O h Jesus, it seized - not here." And that was the last I remember. When I came off, I slid to a stop. in th e ch ica ne and they pulled an ambulance in behind to protect me and they pulled a seco nd ambulance out on the track. I'm piecing this together from what o ther riders have told me. Since it was a blind corner, a couple of riders came around a nd couldn't see that there were ambulances parked on the track. One guy was drafting another guy and until he carne out of the draft, he never Interview: road racer Mike Baldwin A Connecticut Yankee joins King Kenny's court . . By John J. Schiavone Photos by Henny Ray Abrams and Sch iavone While practicing for the May 17 West German Grand Prix at the H ocken h eimring, Mike Baldwin was thrown from his Team Lucky Strike R o b erts Yamaha YZR500 and hit by another rid er. Injuries sustained in that accident brought him back home to his comfortable Darien, 20 Connecti cut, dwelling to reco ver. Once hi s broken bones have knit, he's determined to resume racing in sea rch of' hi s unfilled goal - to win a 500cc Grand Prix road rac e. Baldwin 's no stranger to recovering from injuries. A brutal crash at Loudon, New Hampshire's Bryar . Motorsports Park in 1979 left him with a severely damaged ri ght leg. A headline in this publication that November read : Will Mike Baldwin race again? Baldwin spent five long months in the hospital after that Loudon crash and another three months passed before he could even walk. But just four months after he began to walk again , he came within a second of the lap record at southern California's Willow Springs International 'R aceway in a Honda test session. Baldwin's determination was in evidence early in his career. In 1975, while teaching himself to go fast a t club ra ces, he ro de a vari et y of different bik es in 10 classes. That year he rode 62 rac es exploring the limit, and fell off 40 times while going beyond it. The year before th e L oudon traged y, Baldwin won th e AMA Road Racing Ch ampionship. H e also scored a win in the AGV Cup of Nations event held in Irno la, Italy and won a round of the F-750 World Championship in Mosport, Canada. Baldwin raced for th e Honda World Endurance racing team in 1981before winning the AMA Formula One title for Honda in 1982, '83 a nd '84. While winning those championships, much was said about his superior factory equipment. Baldwin comments: "There's no two ways about it , we worked hard for every single one of those races. It was nothing like it is today with Wayne (Rainey) riding Superbikes." The contract with Honda wasn 't renewed in 1985, but Baldwin won • the title again on privateer Honda RS500s. The Yankee a lso co mmuted Mike Baldwin at speed in Spain on the Team Lucky Strike Roberts Yamaha YZR500 before being injured at the West German Grand Prix . to fa11 off in the dry you have to do som ething wrong. You really have to make a mistake. What had happened in Germany was that the day before it had been raining a nd we rode in th e rain a nd I couldn't get m y bikes to run. In th e Spanish GP my bike came up with a problem. I couldn't figure out what the problem was . You 'd get halfway down the straight and it would start to wheeze out. They ch ecked everyth ing, cha nged ever ything in Spain, and couldn't figure out what was wrong. Just before th ey were about to load the bike up, a mechanic noticed that the power valve me chanism wasn't moving. They changed it. So for Germany, we thought it wou ld be alright. They re-jeued the bikes, but the next day a high-pressure front came in. It was clearing up, the track started to dry .bu t the air pressure went way up, which ma de the bikes too lea n si nce th ey lea ned them up the day before the rain. So I went out on the bike and did four breakin laps and after I finished it seized up so lid. I got the clutch in and just coasted into the pits. They richened the o ther bike up quite a bit. I went out and d id about three la ps. I was following Eddi e (Lawson) around and I was pushing saw it. He had no place to go (to avoid the ambulance). He went in between th e two and I was there and he hit me. He hit m y leg and my hand, and smacked m y hand hard enough to pull all th e fingers out of their sock ets. Just a freak accident. When do you thin k you'll be racing again? . The doctor in Germany said seven or eight weeks for a hand injury like that to heal. Sometimes you can reduce that, but you 're a motorcycle racer and need to hold on to the bars. H e knew just what I wanted to do. I'm hoping to be ready to ride at the end of Ju ly, to be ab le to ride a bike in a test session and then if I'm ready to race for France, I'll race there. If not, I'll hopefully be able to ride that weekend. (Ed ito rs note: Baldwin was not ready to compete in the French Grand Prix at LeMans and also missed the British and Swedish rounds in August.) Did finishing fourth in the 500cc World Championship last year ful fill your expectations? My goal at the beginnin~ of the year was to finish in the first four. It seemed, to a lot of people, that it was a very hi~h expectation because the compe tiuon was so strong. To fin ish fourth yo u have to have the abili ty to run with the leaders.