Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

·s all, By Paul Carruthers he jester of road racing sLOod at cemer stage at a local comedy club, but he wasn't joking. Intead, Randy Mamola gave a speech. Voice quivering and watery-eyed, the man who loves LO make people laugh was showing another side, a side to his personality that comes to light when he begins to talk about charity - namely Save The Children. We caught up with Mamola the day after his fund raiser at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, California, and started by talking about Save The Children. Why does giving mean so much to Randy Mamola? Since I was 12 years old I've had spon ors, people giving to me. Now I'm in a position that I can give back, and by far it's better to be on the side that is giving. It gives me a lot more pleasure LO see someone's face light up because I can give. I think this year I would love to raise 500,000. I set that goal because when I went to Africa I saw that they needed mOLOrcycles down there to get to rural areas. The region I went to, Somolia, had one doctor and one bicycle - and it was the size of England! One out of every four children dies from crazy things. There're not enough people to give hots, and they can't get the vaccines to the people. My proposal is to put together something with Yamaha, Suzuki, Honda, Kawasaki, Cagiva, whoever wants to get involved, to donate some motorcycles, hire someone to teach these people how to ride, and show them that motorcycles can be used to save people's lives. It's a great opportunity to get everybody involved and I hope we can do it. What was your goal in going to Africa this off-season? I feel there is no use in having omething unless you can share it. It's nothing for me to buy a 100,000 car - but I wanted to go to Africa to see the other side of the world. To see it and live in it. To me, that's reality. I want to give back to the communities and the world from which I've taken. On to racing. You gave Cagiva their first-ever rostrum placing with your third·place finish in Belgium last year. You did so after ~etting a poor start in the rainy conditions - do you feel you cOllld have won if you'd gotten off the line with the leaders? I might have been able LO get Eddie (Lawson - who finished second), but I don't think I would have caught (Wayne)-Gardner. I also don't think Gardner would have won if Christian (Sarron) stayed up. He (Sarron) made a bad mistake - he makes a lot of mistakes because of (lack of) concentration. If I had a different tire situation, I think I could have won that race. I had tears in my eyes when I finished that race. Only because there was so much pressllte on me - I had been working so hard to do something with the situation I. was in. Every time I got in the position where I felt comfortable and was T 24 riding hard, something would go wrong. I was wondering if it was me - am I not telling them the right things? You really 10 e a lot of confidence when you're not accomplishing what you should be accomplishing. Your confidence was definitely at a low point after the countershaft sprocket fell off during practice for Laguna Sea, causing you to be knocked unconscious from the. resulting crash. There was a big shakeup in the Cagiva team after that incident. Was the accident caused by an error on the part of a mechanic? It was a technician. Cagiva, in past years, has had guys that build the frame, guys that build the (airing, guys that build this and guys that build that. They would all be there at the races and none of them would really know what was going on. George (Vukmanovich - Mamola's crew chiRf) wanted to separate.-toot, but they wouldn't listen to him. There were a lot of chiefs and no Indians, but when fingers were being pointed suddenly there would be no chiefs and a lot of Indians. When that happened I said, "Look, I've got no confidence in this." I could have been killed very easily in turn one. Ron Haslam saw my tire smoking because the sprocket was already backing out - it could hav~ locked up there and put me in the wall. I would have been a permanent scorekeeper in that wall. Then they started turning it around, but it didn't happen until Belgium. Have things changed for 1989? This year is much different. When I saw George for the first time in Brazil (dllting testing), he said. "You wouldn't believe the new bike. You wouldn't think the same people made it." It (the new V-follt) is so much better and so much nicer. Last year you battled with Pirelli tires in the infant stages of their development. Does it bother you that you may spend 1989 dealing with , another infant - fuel injection? There's nothing to mess, with, it's easy. You take out a computer chip and put it in. I have a Ducati 851 street bike that's the same - change the computer chip and the thing's jetted. They've done wonders with it (the fuel-injected motor) on the dyno. Weber has done a great job. I guess the hardest thing was actually getting it small enough to get on the motorcycle. Our '89 engine is a lot smaller, it's really tiny. We've got a lot more rpms - the thing runs from 2000 rpm up. George doesn't think we'll have it, though, before Spain or Italy. Back to tires, who made the decision to switch from Pirellis to Miche.lin • you or Cagiva? It was a mutual thing. At one stage the tires would start to work, but the bike would break - I. don't blame Pirelli and I don't blame Cagiva because they were both work.ing really hard. When you have two unknowns it's a big mix·up, an unbalance. If I was on the Honda or the Yamaha, something that was very consistent, I could develop the Pirelli tires. We decided we had to do something else, and the only place I wanted to go was Michelin. I wouldn't go to Dunlop for the qJ.ain reason that I wouldn't want to help any other team out with their Dunlops - a team (Team Lucky Strike Roberts) I think I rode for once. Will you get the good Michelins? It started out that I wouldn't get the grade A tires. Michelin has said they can't afford it, and Cagiva has said they would pay for it. I understand Michelin's stres and their position because they have to supply the whole paddock. just about. I think there are only two 500s on Dunlops, so they (Michelin) have to supply a lot of tires. They can't supply everybody with everything, it's virtually impossiple. Now with our bike being down here (he holds his hand waist high) as opposed to being up here (he holds his hands head high), we couldn't just go'in and say, "Hey, we want those tires." After the test in Brazil I think we surprised them - the bike never broke and I did some very good lap times. I think the tires will be on the way. Will 'you be under more pressure this season because you will be using comparable tires? No. You only have pressure that you put on yourself. My job is to do my job, to try to beat everybody else, but first of all I have to think about myseU and make my motorcycle the best I can. I think I was under more pressure riding for Kenny's (Roberts) team (Team Lucky Strike Roberts). Only because I was always trying to please somebody who's impossible to please. I don't blame Kenny in that aspect, because he's such a professional in what he does, but he wants to be able Lo tell you what you're doing when you're on the bike. It's impossible to do because you're on the bike and he's in the pits. I think that's where he's making his mistake with his team right now. Bow would you do things differently if you were a team owner/manager? If I were to run a team I would let my riders do the work as far as tire testing. If I can't hire the riders to do the tire testing and get thin~s going, then I don't have the trust m them. To me, it's their butts that are on the bike - they're the ones who should be saying, "Hey, this is what's got to be done." It's very easy to say, "This is what you've got to do." I saw it happen to me in 1986. I

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