Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

at it, is that I could push myself even harder on my off-season, which I ' have. Arid push myself even harder this season, which I plan on doing. And with a close -knit family team. Before I signed with Cagiva , I said that I need ed total support. I mean, if there's anything wrong and I feel it has to be cha nged, you guys have to go get 'it, to make me happy. Whatever I need that's going to have to make this team happy, we've got to do it if we want to win. " OK then. Le t's strike the Italian ' cafe-and-lake set and move everything, everything - lights, camera, people, the works! - all to the, U.S . of A. To Laguna Seca Raceway! It is a test day here on California's Monterey Peninsula and Team Cagiva owns the place, this road race course due April 10 to host the first FIM Grand Prix races in more tha n 20 years in this country. No, the big red Cagiva transporter that you'll see " in Europe isn ' t present, but the smaller trucks and paddock tent are. Along with Randy's and Raymond's bikes, and the crates of spares and precision machinery and gleaming too ls a nd th e who le rossa-hued Cagiva contingency - plus Randy's motorhome and Jim 's silver 1988 560SEC Mercedes office and telep hone booth. And George. George Vukmanovichl Ra ndy's chief tuner. "I'm married. I have two kids. You'd never know it," says George; not here, not at Laguna, but at Cagiva North America in Gardena, a suburb of L.A., a week later, on lunch-break, when he isn't-concentrating on Randy's bike, when he's not involved. Because George Vuk manovich is not a guy you walk up to while he's working on a Grand Prix motorcycle and say to him, "Hey, I'm a journalist and would like some of your time." Not if you ever want to talk to George again, that is . Not that George is unfriendly, because he's deep down one of the warmest, most caring people I' ve ever gotten to know. But he 's go t priori ties. And price. "Six-years-old, " he goes on, talking about his oldest in a room next to the engine shop. "And the other one's going to be one year the 15th of this month. Both boys. The one lived inEurope '84, '85 and '86 , my wife and my lillie boy . And then she got pregnant, that was . another reason to qui t, everything wasn't going right with the Freddie (Spencer) deal, so I say, 'T h is is a good time!' She was pregnant, we carne horne, had the baby, worked at a normal job, and then I figured I had enough of tha t.' I just can't do that. I just can't work 9 to 5." Hell no, George can't. But he can work on race motorcycles from midnight to midnight, and on to noon, and to midnight again if he has to. I reca ll Laguna's testing, and tell George I've never seen anybody take a bike apart and put it back together again as swiftly as he can. "Oh, I'm not no Speedy Gonzales," Vukmanovich, who is first generation Yugoslav, says, laughing quickly and infectiously. ''I'm still learn ing with this th ing because we've been doing a lot of testing and a lo t of stuff, and I've been trying to learn. Learning sometimes you don't learn by doing, but by standing back and watching what's going on. I have to learn all these people. To me it's important to know every person on the team, wha t they're capable of doing and what they're not capable of doing. You don't want to ask the wrong guy to do something that he 's not capable of doing. It's a matter of studying people along with learning a motorcycle. To me that's very, very important. " T hey keep their nose to the No one hangs off more than Randy Mamola. seen here on the Cagiva V588 during a test session at Laguna Seca Raceway. grindstone," George says about Cagiva'speople, people he's corne to have rea l admiration for. "I hope I can just help get them in the right direction a lillie bit to make the bikes really good. I want to see them achieve. I've always been interested in the outside." George, you determine pronto, is for the outsider, for those who have to fight something on the Grand P rix circuit as big as Big Japan itself. "A couple guys have corne and tried, but nobody's corne even close to succeeding. I'd like for somebody to say one day that Cagiva's a threat to win a Grand Prix. Peop le say it out of enthusiasm now, but I want somebody to say th a t, yeah! Cagiva can win this race .j ust like they' say Honda can win this race! That would be nice. And it would be nice to be a part of it, because it's different. "I feel like I've already done two seasons, and I'm going to take these first two races as they corne - and whatever happens, happens. And then stop and sit down and we'll think about where we've got to go. But everybody says, 'Ca giva people, they just want to win a race!' But I feel if you can win one race you can win two, and if you can win two you can win 10, and if you can win 10 you can win them all. You know, it's not impossible. So then you can win a World Championship. It's all relevant, to me. Randy's tops, he wants to wi n races. He's always wanted to be champion. I remember when he firs t carne to Europe and Tun ing chores on the Team Cag iva bikes will be the reponsibility of crew chief George Vukmanovich (left) and Massimo Biagini (right). he finished second a couple years ina-row, and he said that's O K, I'm young and I've got time. Well, he's not so young anymore and I don 't know how much more time he's got. But I know he wants to win . He's got a IIO-percent commitment right now, I mean he 's done everything that you can do. He's got trainers , he's got people to help him in every aspect of help you can have for races , probably more than most people can even dream of. He 's got somebody to help him with any type of problem he has , not only the motorcycle, his physical body, his mind, everything, and that's important." The next scene in th is traveling Cagiva movie I'm splicing is Laguna Seca again, between GP bike test laps - an interior shot of Ra ndy in his motorhorne finishing a poor-boy sandwich. There are people waiting to tal k to him hanging around outside , "so it's good to be inside. Even if you have to share the time with some reporter who's gotta ask Randy what rostrum means. And one of the beautiful parts about Mamola is, he doesn't climb down the reporter's throat for not knowi ng. Randy doesn't even snicker. Or bat an eye. Beca use it never occurs to Mamola to insult anybody. One and all, he looks you right in the eye and flat says it, and explains it. Like when I want to find out more about Ra ndy's physical fitness program that Dea n Miller at Sport Health has him on - a major key to Mamola's riding strength, mental and p hysical. " T hey really tr ied pushing me on the cardio-vascular thing," Randy says, sharing his attention between me and this other guy, the reporter writing on the big yellow pad, "because my p hysical body is probably fairly strong compared to the other racers, compared to 80-percent of them. I've always been fairly strong since I started Grand Prix racing. Eddie Lawson and the other top riders are strong, but they all rely a lot on their cardio-vascular, more so than muscle work. And where we have to go where there's a lot of muscle, I know that Eddie starts to hun. Wayne Gardner's ano ther lillie-bit of a muscular guy, and who forces the bike around like I do. Certain race trac ks you'll get away with it, and other race tracks yo u have to have the muscle. Bu t what Dean Mi ller did, he got me on this program this year, and I've lost about 10 pounds, and I'm stronger. I'm about 70-percent stronger. And, I started running six miles a day, starting out doing , eight-m inute miles. Then I got it down to where· my first mile was a five-m inu te-20, a nd the rest were six-min u te mi les. Anything that's competitive makes it more competitive, so I race against the stopwatch every time. " Nor mall y what happens in the season is that we, the riders, we all live in these types of motorhornes, side -by-side. We watch each others' videos, we have good times.; The beginning of my career I didn't have to do a damn thing. I didn 't have to lift a finger, and I could rely on my youth. Right now I'm 28, but you can feel the age when age starts to tak e over and you have to push yourself to get to that level. Which to me is fine because later on in life I'll appreciate it that I kept with racing and that I kept pushing myself. instead of just slacking off. " A lot of people say that I should get a gym closer to my house. But I enjoy the time it takes me to get in my car and drive an hour - I do a lot of thinking when I'm on my own, about business and about my racing. And while I'm at horne there's friends , .there's television, there's all this to get caught up in.

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