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/127172
old everything. For get all foregone co n cl us io ns. The master of modern mot or cycle road racing, Fast Freddie Sp encer, is co ming back. And this time, after mor e than one false start, it will be different - he means to win. And, I ask you, wh o is th ere among th e cu rre nt top riders who can sto p him? After th ree years tha t turned Fast Freddie into a forgo tten hero, you may be surp rised a t this positi ve stateme nt. I ha dn 't been thinkin g that way whe n I arr ived in Bol ogna, Ita ly, to meet Giacomo Agos tini 's new Yama ha recruit. Fredd ie's was, after all, a very tattered legend. Unbeatable in 1983 and 1985, he has since become mor e of a figure o f fun in a rac ing world gr own too used to a stri ng of mor e or less exotic medica l excuses for on-track failures, and an ever longer series o f noshows. We thought it had all come to a n e n d a nyway , wh en h e a nnounced his retirement at the open in g ro u nd of the 1988 World Championship. By th en h is statu re had been so eroded th at he was a t once forgotten in the hurly-burly of H 6 the Wa yne Gardner- Eddie La wson battle. Now here he was again, having co m p le ted part tw o o f th e offseason's stunning switch- ar ounds. H is old rival Edd ie Lawson had switched from Yamaha to take up Freddie 's old Rothm ans Honda perch , a nd (ho ld th e front page) now Freddie had announced a surp rise comeback, riding Eddie's (and once Kenny's ) red Marlboro Yam aha. Given the fragile Spencer of th e pas t three yea rs, th is new s was received with the greatest scep ticism a nd even ap p re he ns io n , tha t th e legend was now to be furth er tarnished. This wa s surely nothing more than a cyn ica l marriage o f con ven ience . Freddie saved Agostini 's em barrassment, giving him a big-n ame publicrela tions coup after he'd been du mped by La wson; and (so the wh ispers went), the deal also solved Fredd ie's own acute cash -flo w problems after his proposed car raci ng career fizzled out on its feet. At fir st in ,Ital y, Fas t Fredd ie d id more to reinforce than to dispel the genera l mood of cynicism. Starting as he surely doesn ' t mean to go on (ma jor incentive cla uses are said to be built into the contract to di scour- was at his unsto ppable best. Most indeed a ll - o f th e roomfu l o f mainly Ital ian j o urnali st s had arrived in the most negative frame of m ind. By th e en d of a session with a much matured, relaxed and open former champion, th ere was not a sou l among us who did not wish to believe that Fr eddie really could come ba ck - as he said he meant ' to - to dom inate the al ready gl itteri ng class of '89. Spencer's story has become one of racing's cliches: racing at si x, a me teoric rise th rough the U.S. ranks, ',I a sta~burfst ~nto the world scenebwith a pair 0 WIn S over Kenny Ro er ts, R a ndy Ma m ol a , Ba rry Sheen e, Graem e Crosby, . et al at the thenpres tigious Anglo-America n Mat ch Ra ces in 1980. In 1982, he went GP racing, taking th ird overa ll and a first-season win as part of th e fast lea rn ing cu rve aboard the new threecylinder H onda ; in 1983 he defeated R oberts in a classic season-long Honda versu s Yamaha duel. just 21, h e was th e yo u n ges t-e ver 500cc World Ch ampion. 'Eigh ty-four saw a down-turn and some crashe s o n th e unorthodox Mk I NSR H onda fou r-cylinder; o u t of the prob lems he drew stre ng th, a n d re tu rned in 1985 with a audacious two -class challe nge. H e wo n bo th 250 an d 500cc titl es go in g away, th e first ever to ta ke that pa rticu la r double, and by year's end he had th e world at h is feet. ' It apparently gave the 23-year-old vertigo, and from th a t time the maestro's appearances - when he did bo th er to turn u p - have been a parody of his former genius. He was runnin g away wit h the first 1986 G P in Spain, and was ru n ni ng away with it in familiar fashion whe n he su ddenly and dramatically slowed, taking h is n umbed ri gh t hand from the handlebars and shaking it. It was 'the onset of tendinitis, and in spi te of an operation la ter that year, it was effectively th e end of Freddie's G P career. Dogged by wrist p roblem s and o ther o u tbra kes of bad luck over the. next two years, he cr ashed a t Dayt ona a n d R ij eka, nearly knocked a kn ee off while corner-scraping it in Germany, los t ' contact len ses at Brno and Brazil , a nd suffered a still -mys terio us mechanical fai lure after leading the opening la ps in Brita in . By the time he a n nou nced his retirement before the 1988 GP of j apan, th e dominant youth became th e fragile has-been, and the new lions of th e 500cc class went o n without him. age no-shows), Freddie m issed altoget he r the Thursday photo session His top-level return, after a threeyear la yoff, is inevitably hedged at th e Imola ra ce track, missed the about with 'q u estio n s. Dutifully " Welco me ba ck " dinner planned for su ited in vivid red Marlboro colors, that even ing, and was over an hour Freddie was prepared to face" and lat e for Friday's main event, th e press answer a ll questions, brushing the confere nces planned for the launch queries aside with impressive confi- ~ of the team. dence. It wa s a big cha nge from the When he did turn up, he looked unguarded recluse of earlier years, flu shed and a bit puffy. Oh dear. But and di splayed ' a new maturity. Of by the end of a morning of listening to that soft-rolling Deep South course, confidence is the " stock-in accent, and see in g the famili ar trade of the professional hustler as well as th e professional racer. What qui zzi cal h alf-sm il e not quite , masked by h is " I' m-so -sincere" eyes was more impressive was a kind of ) h umil it y that su ggested Freddie had under th eir a n he dra l eyebrows, I learned a lot from th e bad years, and came away sold. Fr eddie had me - if not everyo ne was now mentally as well as physelse - totally con vinced. The red icall y ready to return. face (I surm ised) was o nly su n burn ''I' m com ing back for a number from a H aw ai ian vacation, and the . of re aso n s," he smilingly p uffin ess jus t travel fatigue (fro m an no unced. " Fi rst, being away gave Hawaii to j apan , the U.S. and Ital y). me a stro ng desire to come back. And in place o f cyn icis m came a vivid Then I a lso wanted to change the mem ory, of Fredd ie Spe nce r, bike way I departed from racing - I skittering and slidi ng ben ea th him wanted to deci de to reti re rather than but his head stea dy a nd po ised as he be forced to. And I believed I co u ld , still do some thing in racing. streaked away fro m th e best of th e " Bu t the most important single ' rest to stamp hi s co m plete a u thority on race a fter race. thing is tha t my wri st injury is now com p le tel y healed. Tw o do ctors But th en Fredd ie has that sor t of effect on me, and on a lo t of o thers pronounced me fit some months ago, but I believe that as an athlete you wh o watched him ra cing when he