Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

The rIse and fall 'of B y Brian CatterSon o ~ ~ ...... ...... ~ C'.f >$-< § $-< ..0 Q.) .~ W hen most fans th ink of professional road racing their heads likely fill with visions of brightly-painted tractortrailer trucks, expansive awnin~s, and legions of uniformed mechamcs meticulously fettling state-of-the-art machinery. Between races the wellsalaried riders , clad in lea th ers emblazoned with their sponsors' logos and colors, recline in personalized director's chairs as dazzling umbrella girls serve them liquid refreshment, all the while cheerfully signing autographs for each of their many admirers. While this scene may be more or less commonplace on the Grand Prix circu it, it is far from reality at the National Championship level. In fact, wi th the exception of the few factory and/or aftermarketsupported efforts and a handful of well-heeled privateers, nothing could be further from the truth. In 1989, Team Motor Sport typified a National Championship effort. 'With limited backing from Yamaha Motor Corp., USA, and a fair share of product support, riders Richard Arnaiz and Phil Kress campaigned a trio of Yamahas in the AMA Superbike and AMA /CCS Endurance Challenge Series. And while they may not have set the world on fire, they certainly put Team Motor Sport on the U.S. road racing map. In the end, Arnaiz fell just short of claiming the Superbike title, winning his first National on the way to placing third in the final point standings behind the potent Yoshimura Suzuki pairing of Jamie James and Scott Russell. Kress , meanwhile, wound up 27th - a fair ly impressive outing considering it was his first full season on the National circuit. On the endurance racing scene , the . Team Motor Sport d uo were al ways in the running, and would likely have improved upon their seventh place in points if they hadn't been hampered by a host of equipment problems, including no less than three race-ending tire fai lures. A team In tile making 14 Team Motor Sport was originally ' formed in 1988, just prior to the WERA 24-Hour West at southern California's Willow Springs International Ra ceway. Arnaiz recalls his initial contact with Kress: " Ph il knew me because we both raced Yarnahas, and he called me oneday to ask if I'd like to ride in the 24 hour. Phil told me about Malcolm Hill, whom I'd heard of from Superbik e racing in '86, but I didn't know him personally." • Hill, 33, is an ex-racer and family man and the driving force behind Motor Sport Marketing. He picks up the story: "Phil asked me to participate in a 24-hour team that he'd put together with Rich and (Willow Springs fast guy) Barry Burke. We didn 't rea lly know each other - he just wanted to put together what he felt would be. a very co mpetitive team . That was the first time I'd ridden since retiring in '86. "We'd both seen R ich ride at Laguna Seca that year and no one knew much about him other than he was very fast; he didn't seem to race that much. We asked Rich if we wanted to participate and he said yes." . The fledgling team showed promise at the 24 hour, but mechanical problems forced th eir retirement during the night. From there, th e plan called for Kress, Hill and Arnaiz to again join forces in the following round of the AMAlCCS Endurance Challenge Series at Kress' home track, Sears Point. However, between th e two dates Kress crashed in a Supersport practice session a t MidOhio, breaking som e ribs and putting himself out of action. Nevertheless, Arnaiz and Hill borrowed Kress' FZRIOOO for Sears Point and finished second. The groundwork had been laid for what would ultimately be a National Championship eff ort. Hill continues: "I liked them both a lo t, and we just became friends. Their per sonalities are very different: Rich is sponsor standpoin t, " Hill . remembers. " We didn 't get the (end ura nce) bike until shortly before Daytona. They gave us one bike and parts, and the y supplied us with parts for the Superbikes. They didn't give us any money, other than the cont ingencies we won." Identifying the playel"8 Arnaiz, 27, from Stockton, California, is a journeyman racer with his roots set firmly in dirt track racing. Riding a Harley-Davidson XR750, hi s best National finish as an Expert was fifth at the 1981 DuQuoin Mile. He was Western Regional Junior Dirt Track Champion in 1980, winning every West Coast race including the San Jose Mile and Ascot Gold Cup, which he again won the following year as an Expert. (Left to right) Team M.tor Sport'. M..e .... BIll, PIdI Kre88 aDd TII_ Leek...... eheer OD Rleh..... Araalz at Mid-Old•• very soft-spoken whereas Phil is boisterous and fun. It was sort of oil and water but everyone got along real ' well. "They were both sort of grasping at what they were going to do the next year (1989), and with my family (his wife Kerry and son Hunter Thomas) and the big, fat mortgage, and all that other stuff that comes with age, I just thought it would be better if I stepped back from the riding aspect of racing. So I started Motor Sport Marketing." Armed with a sponsorship proposal , Hill secured a meeting with then-Yamaha racing director Kenny Clark, who referred him to Larry Griffiths, Yamaha's assistant division manager of engineering. Arnaiz and Kress already owned FZR750R superbikes, and the plan was to augmen t their superbike efforts with an endurance team. Yamaha was asked to provide a 1989 O, FZRIOO with a parts budget for that and the superbikes. Business proposals are nothing new to Hill : "In one way or another I've been in volved in promoting, packaging and positioning product since I've been out of college. It's something I'm comfortable doing," he says. I!1 Jan uary of '89, Team Motor Sport got approval from Griffiths. "The ball was late in getting rolling, and that hurt us from a Arnaiz first tried his han d at road racing as a teenager. "In 1979, whe n my Yamaha TZ250 was new, I rode Daytona. I won my heat and got second in the Novice race, and then I didn 't ride it again until the next year at Laguna Seca." Laguna Seca gave Arnaiz his ' first road race notoriety, as he teamed with Bud Aksland, a noted two stroke tuner who's worked with the likes of Kenny Roberts and, most recently, John Kocinski. But Arnaiz downplays the arrangement: "That was just a one-race thing. Bud built my engine. It was actually a year old at th e time, but once Bud got a hold of it, it was faster than anything else. I won that race (Novice Lightweight) pretty easily. That was the only road race I rode all year ; I didn 't road race again until 1986, and that was on a superbike." . Daytona '88 saw Arnaiz garner his first serious attention. Riding an FZR750R tu ned by his father, Gene, he'd crashed in his heat race and was forced to start the 200 from the rear of the grid. Arnaiz ro de wildly, passing throngs of riders on his way up to 12th place before his race ended with a broken chain. His progress was made all the mo re obvious by his bright orange hel met, a trademark in his early days. " T he bo ttom line is that p rior to the 1989 seas o n, Rich had o nly competed in about 10 road races," says Hill, who likens Arnaiz's abilities to those of fellow dirt trackerturned-road racer Doug Chandler. "Basically, Rich is still learning to road race." Compared to Arnaiz,. Kress, 24, from Concord, California, is a road racing veteran. His first shot at National glory (1988) was cut short by the aforementioned crash, but he 'd managed to m a ke enough mo ney AFM club raci ng beforehand that he was ranked second in the nation to Cam Roos in total Yamaha contingency earnings. In 1989, Kress made an impression on the National scene, particularly in endurance . 'racing where he proved a worthy team ma te to Arnaiz. The seereeard That Team Motor Sport was not a big-bucks effort is best illustra ted by. a story told by two-time AMA 250cc Grand Prix Champi on John Kocinski. It seems that Kocinski was walking through the p its one day when he spotted Arnaiz kneeling down in the dirt working on his own bike. The vision so reminded Kocinski of the stories he 'd heard about two-time Grand National Champion Dick Mann that he nicknamed Arnaiz "Bugsy." " We didn't come across as the megadollar superbike team because we weren 't ,' Hill ' says, matter-offactly. To compare Motor Sport's bikes to those of the Yoshimura Suzuki and Muzzy Kawasaki efforts is to compare apples to oranges.. Sure, Arnaiz' FZR was one of the quickest Yarnahas on the Superbike circuit, but the way the ru les stood in 1989, he was forced to campaign an o utdated design. Here was a bi ke which Arnaiz had purchased in 1987 tryi ng to run with the lat est '89s fro m Suzu ki and Kawasaki (though th ese were a lso no t the rea l McCoy, when you consider the GS XR-R s and ZX Rs of the World Superb i ke circ uit). . As a result, Arnaiz rode harder and crashed more freq uently than many of h is peers. And he did so at inopportune times, like while leadingthe Daytona 200; while leading his Mid -O hio hea t race; and on a borrowed bike during the H eartland Par k Topeka endurance race. Arnaiz did manage .to win once, although it came at the expense of the Yosh Boys , who eliminated themselves in a last-lap collision not the way you'd choose to win your first National, but when you're a privateer you'll take it any way you can get it. "Winning the National at Road America would have to be my proudest accomplishment," Arnaiz says. "I've had a lo t of 'littler' ones, but I'd have to say that the happiest was finall y winning a National. Lea ding Daytona was pretty good, bu t after crashin g and n ot winning that . . . let's just say it was' my biggest disa ppoin trnent. " Kress' proudest moment in 1989 was his 10th- pl ace finish at the final Su perbike Nati o n al in Topeka , Kansas. H is low point was the second ro und of the end urance raci ng series at Road Atlan ta, where spilled fuel caused him to crash, breaki ng His wrist. " We were doi ng really good o n the endurance bike," Kress recollects ,

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