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/127369
Fisher said. " A lo t oftimes I'd test from 8 to 5, like a normal working job. AI\ da y I'd be ridi ng, maybe going four to six laps at a ti me, co ming in and givin g evaluations.. , tested like th at for months. I was ridi ng so much , with relati vely no days off because I was trying to race o n the weekends as well, , was pretty burned o ut doing th ings that way." Fish er could've done the sam e thing for Kawasak i again th is year, but he wa nted to race more than anything. So he approached KTM. 'H thought that it was a bike I could win on. I could definitely make it work for supercross.l , He didn't like that fir st race and sta yed aw ay from com pe ti tio n for several years. Then Fisher decided he wanted a two-stroke when Kaw asak i came out wi th the KX80 in 1979. Although his fir st race o n tha t machine wasn 't successfu l either, it sparked a determ ination to race again the next weekend. Fisher wo n that race, then progressed from th e Novi ce to th e Expert class in o ne year. Fisher was immediately cast into th e shadow of Ron Lech ien and. several ot her hot local Mini Experts. As soon as he was big eno ugh , he mov ed up to a 125. saki was o n ly for testing, " says Fisher. " Racing came o ut of my own bu dget. " T esting is someth ing Fish er has al ways enjoyed, but he likes to race even mo re. Holding down two jobs a t the same tim e didn't help his resu lts last year. . " R iding like that bums you out," '" knew Kurt N ico ll [rom test ing in japan with Kawasak i," sa id Fish er. Ni col\, a GP co mpetitor from En glan d, had also switc hed from Kawasak i to KTM. '" ta lked with h im quite a bit and th ou ght I'd like to go o u t and ride a KTM. T hey (KT M) seem ed prett y thril\ed that' was inte rested, a nd after riding I thought that it was a bike I cou ld win o n. I cou ld defini tely make it work for supercross. "I ap proached KTM and told them I was interesied in helping them , told them that I wanted to race and was will in g to do the necessar y testing. They came up wi th a proposal that was basicall y just what I wanted." Fish er brought hi s desir e for race testing to KTM , and tog ether they hav e been working hard to win races. With o n ly a few peo p le working out of KT M's San Diego office, th ey accomplish a lot. " T hey' l\ make something. if it 's necessary to get the bik e to work," says Fish er. Fi sher 's recent su cce ss has a lso brought more help directl y from th e KTM factory in Mattighoffen , Austria. Although KTM Austria co ncen tra tes more o n the European GPs, they sent a representative to San Diego for th e supercross. " He was real happy," said Fish er. "They are sending so me speci al things we've been wa nting . They've built some pretty trick stuff, and things are starti ng to tri ckle in more and more." But Fisher knows that it tak es mor e than a great bike to win . H e's got some tough co m peti tio n to overcome as wel\ . At Daytona, jeff Stanton will be going after an unprecedented third stra ig h t Dayto na SX victory , and Stanton 's H o n da teammate jeanMichel Bayle will want to add a victory o f hi s o wn to ex ten d h is Camel Supercross Series points lead . Fish er knows wh er e h e mu st improve. " Rig ht now o ne of the things that limi ts me is my conditioning," Fisher sai d. ''I'm still doing a lot of testing, and if I spe nd o n ly a half hour at a time doing that, not much testing is goi ng to get done in a da y. No w whe n I test, at th e end of the .da y I'll put together a 35-mi nute rnoto, or may be add a few laps to every test sessio n to build up mor e end urance. " I 'rn in real\y good shape otherwise , excep t when I'm riding with th e g uys in the top of th e pack. Then I feel I ten se up a lot. " So what separates Fisher from those to p guys he's inching towards? "T hey're going as fast as possible every lap on th e track," Fisher says. " It's hard to go fast th e fir st lap, do it perfect lap right away. Those gu ys are doing perfect laps for 20 laps, making very, very few mistakes, if an y. They're so used to that speed that they can ride it much easier than I can. "T hey' re getting good starts, too. T hat's real important since you rarely see anybody come up from out of the top 10. You have to be in the top three at th e start." "Before, I wasn't very confident in a supercross, but this year I feel real confident.' , Fisher will no doubt be looking for a good start and 12 mistake-free laps (Daytona 's course is longer than the stadiu m tracks and therefore has fewer laps) to ach ieve his goa' of a top-three fin ish at D aytona. A lot of people are a lready asking him wh en the first win wi l\ come. " If and wh en I break into the top three," says Fisher, " 1'1\ answer that questi on. " or Fisher's goal is a top-three fin ish among top riders ' ike Damon Bradshaw (11). "They'll make something if it's necessary to get the bike to work." Aft er spe n di ng so me tim e as a Honda su ppo rt rider, Fishe r even tual\y landed a job wi th Kawasak i as a research a n d devel opm ent r ider. Throughout hi s four-year stay with Kawasak i, Fisher cont inued to race many supercross and Nati onal events '" in addition 10 hi s full- time job of testing. Kawasaki su pported his ra cin g at first , but poor results in 1989 left Fisher on hi s own in '90. . "What money I mad e from Kawa - 19