Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

stable under braking into the corners where the Yamaha was a bit unstable, but it would come good once you bent it off and went through the. corner. It gave you a better feel so they were real close. And as the season progressed how was your machine modified to suit you? I was on them (Suzuki) pretty much the last half of the season trying to get a new chassis, bu t we never really got what we wanted. The biggest thing of course was those new engines. We got the new motor in time for Hockenheim and we all agreed, yeah, it's gonna be good but maybe not here. Hockenheim is pretty much flaf out and you need something that will carry a lot of rpm and pull strong on top. I ended up racing the new engine because our old one we kept having trouble with it breaking and everything else and the new one fel t as good or better. I wen t ahead and raced it and from then on I had no doubt that the new engine was the way to go. It really made the bikes easier to ride and a lot less thinking...you could just get on with your riding more or less like a superb ike. Yeah, four-stroke like, much smoother and better delivery and you cQuld use it a lot better than what you could before. Before, (with the even fire engine) the thing's you'd get on the throttle and the powerband is not abrupt, it's just really, really strong. Regardless of what rpm y-ou were at when you turned it on it was going to hit and hit hard, to where this other firing really softened it up on the bottom. It almost feels like it took something out of it. On our bike it was kind of funny, it gaye us more revs but actually, top end for top end, the old engine felt better. Bu t the new one as long as you had it geared to grab it would pull...good! You're on the edge of winning GPs but have had some bad luck that's prevented you from winning. That must be very frustrating for you. Yeah... yeah, I probably had a good chance at three of them: Assen, Hungary and France. But it just didn't happen. I was frustrated, real frustrated with myself in Assen, but then I was really mad at myself in France when I lost the front again. I guess that is part of racing you just have to .get on with it and look ahead. But yeah, I thought for sure those two races I had a really good chance for doing well. A good part of my crashes were caused by trying to run a tire that would go the distance instead oi something that wouldn't. That's w)1y I was asking Suzuki for a new chassis, or at least a good part of it. All year long we were fighting, not having enough weight on the front end. Through the comer on the Suzuki, you'd just kinda lose touch with what the front end was doing, the feeling goes away. And that's just because you ain't got enough weight on it. You need the front tire loaded, and the limes I did crash it wasn't like I was on the brakes or over-cooked it into a comer. I was already through it, pretty much at the exit and starting to give it some throttle, so I'm really taJcing the load off the front and losing it. I wanted Suzuki to give me a chassis with the motor moved forward enough to get some more weight on it and go from there. No, I don't think I would have shortened it up at all. We had the front end pulled back as far as we could go steering heac;l-wise but we were at the maximum and we needed a new chassis to get more on it. Your machine setup and riding style are supposedly very different form Schwantz's. Did that make things difficult from a development standpoint? To a point yeah, but our settings seemed really similar in the end. We started out pretty drastically different but as the season progressed they got a lot closer, to where at the last couple of races I think if we just fupped the shift patterns on our bikes we could ride each other's, no problem. Kevin rides with a standard shift pattern and I ride with it backwards. And what of a mechanic saying at the final GP that you'd better win that race because you won't have a chance to win on the Cagiva? That was more of just a joke to me. My guys always gave me a bad lime. A lot more was made of it than what actually went on. That wasn't what it was supposed to have meant. Tell us about the new Cagiva. I was real impressed with the chassis the first time I rode it. It's really nice. I was real happy with the '92 chassis and at the second test we had a '93. I kinda wasn't too sure, wasn't sold on it yet but our limes were good on it and the third lime we went to South Africa it was by far much better. It's got a lot of potential. I haven't asked them to change anything too drasticaIly for me, a longer tank and more room, kind of like how the Suzuki was - stretched out for me and Kevin. Those were real comfortable bikes for me. I never really had any conversations with Eddie (Lawson) when I knew I was going to Cagiva, not really. I kind of knew what was going on, you try to watch stuff, try to be a good observer. How have you handled the added fame of being a GP rider? It's different here in America, here you're the same person. Everybody we talk to over here... they just know that I race motorcycles. They don't know what type or anything, just that you're a motorcycle racer. When you're in Europe it's different, but when you're over there you're there to race and you go about your business the way you need to. It's completely opposite over there from here. There you pull into a gas station and you're giving away autographs to the attendants; here they just want your credit card. How has your teammate Matt Mladin been doing in the test sessions? He seems like an okay kid. He's got a lot of ability and he tries really hard. He's a good kid ... to somebody else j:le would be different. You know when you're the new guy coming up you have to really respect the guys that are there, the other riders and I see he does that. But I can see that if I was at his level he might be kind of tough to get along with. But you see that in a lot of people, I think a typical motorcycle racer's attitude is that way. How'd he do? It's so hard to describe because when you first ride those things it's like nothing else you've ever ridden. You're real fascinated with the bike just because it has so much power. You really dOll't understand what you need to do to make it go any faster because it is already as fast or faster than what you'd imagine. That kind of just takes away from what you need to be concentrating on as far as understanding the bike underneath you. And in three days, we got rained out most of it, he was really having a hard time with the new chassis, he just couldn't get to terms with it. It didn't feel good, it didn't do this or do that for .him. And I kept working and working on mine and on the last day we put him on mine. It was like it was a dream for him. That is what is the hardest part about riding a 500, just getting to understand it and know how to let the thing work for you instead of against you. Anyone can go out there and ride the thing, it's just being able to do it and do it comfortably for a race distance. That was the hardest thing that I had my first year was .. .! mean when those things (500s) are right, they're magic. But when they're not right those things are a nightmare. Did Suzuki have a fuel-injected bike in development and what has become of the fuel-injected Cagiva project? The Suzuki was always carbureted and the Cagiva too. They all have the same Mikuni carburetors on them. They had a Cagiva fuel-injected bike there (at the factory) but it was bigger and heavier than what the carburetors were and it really didn't do nothing be.tter. I never rode it, Eddie rode it last year. I seen the actual fuel injection and all of the drawings on it and it wasn't bad but it just didn't do anything that much better than what they already had. . Randy Mamola and Eddie Lawson received Ferraris from Cagiva's owners, the Castiliglionis, for their effort and results. Do you think you'll get one and would an American muscle car loving guy like you even want one? No ... I don't think that is something that was built into their contracts, I think that was just something that Claudio gives you if you do something good or he's really happy with what you're doing. I wouldn't be bothered by one ... I could park it right along next to my Chevelle. Freddie Spencer sponsored you when you first made the move from dirt track racing to road racing. Now he's going to make another GP comeback, what are your thoughts on that? The last couple races of the season I think the Yamaha definitely had the engine over everything else, even the Hondas. These were of course shorter tracks that you needed a lot of acceleration and the Yamaha by far had the acceleration. It laid down on top end but the last couple tracks were just kind of short and you'd accelerate from comer to comer. It was to their advantage but they definitely had a good torquey engine. They've always struggled on chassis, that's just something that is always going to be that way. I think Freddie is going to have his hardest time just working with that team, from what I've observed last year with Miguel (DuHamel) and (Niall) Mackenzie. They really had a hard lime, both of them ...Miguel did a good job this season for a first-year effort. It's kind of crazy, him getting pushed out but I think it is just the way that team is, that team is really...funny. Miguel did real good for his first year. What do you expect when you go over there for the first time? I was kind of fortunate to get hooked up with Suzuki my second year. Any of those guys, even Cagiva when they hired Mladin, they hired him for three years knowing good and well that his first year is a write-off. You have to ride around and get experience and learn the bike. You don't need to prove anything. Freddie's comeback is probably good for the sport, we need as many good riders as we can get in there. I thought last year was good - they had a pretty good field. Freddie in there is going to for sure help it out. I hope he can do good, I'm sure he'll put a lot of effort in it. I think if he's fit enough and can go the distance, he'll be in there. He's pretty hard on the tires and I just don't know if he can do the speeds for the duration of the race. That's going to be the hardest thing for him. There have been comparisons made between Eddie Lawson and yourself, some have gone as far as to call you the next Lawson. What do you think of that? I don't know, I think Ed has been one of the best as far as having the abiljty to sort bikes out and I think he did a really good job for Cagiva. He got the bike really close, I think what hurt them the most last year was just the tires. Even his first year on the thing it wasn't bad, it lacked speed but the thing would go through a comer. Like I've said I think the biggest downfall was the tires. I guess he just got tired -of it and decided to hang it up. Eddie picked a good time to get out of it. I think he is fully capable of running up front, no problem. I admire him, instead of staying in there and staying in there, and slowly working himself down, he got out of it. And got out of it when he was stilI one of the best guys. I'm surprised that Gardner went ahead and stepped out. I figured he would be the type that would stay in there and stay in there and stay in there, but he got out of it as well. Is there a distinct difference in how things are done on an Italian team in comparison as to how they are done on a Japanese team? . Not really. All of the teams over there work pretty much the same way, you have your engineers and the mechanics. And when you first meet them all the engineers have the questions, wanting you to compare their bike to the bike you rode previously to kinda get ideas. From there you start working with the guys and I'm really happy with the engineers I got at Cagiva. They all speak really good English and all of my mechanics speak English except for one and that's not really a problem. It wasn't as bad as I was kinda expecting it 10 be (at Cagiva). The guys are a lot younger than what I expected them to be. I thought the Japanese put forth a really strong effort and worked hard but these Italian guys are really impressive. The facilities, the race shop and stuff are really nice. I think there's 23 guys, not including the race mechanics, that do nothing but work on the 500s. Right now they're in the process of moving into a new building, a brand new one that will almost triple in size from the old one. They have two dynos and all sorts of different departments; they have a chassis department where they do nothing but fabricate the chassis and swing-arms; the engineering stuff. would be the neatest stuff. They do all of the pistons and the cylinders and the cylinders are the trickest because they cast them all right there. They send them out to have them chromed too. It's a really neat place because they can make everything right there. Any of those shops aren't what you think they'd be because they've been around so long so they are in older buildings. All the dynos are well used because that's all they do is hammer those things trying to get more power. Suzuki's was pretty nice, they had just moved into a new race shop there in Hamrnarnatsu. It wasn't too bad but they definitely didn't have the employees and the staff that the Cagiva has got on the 500 project. As a native Californian and someone who loved racing here in the U.S. you must be pleased with the addition of Laguna Seca to the GP schedule. I think Kenny (Roberts) has been working on this deal for a good part of this past season. I really admire Kenny. He is one of the few guys that...he's got a good job and a good position and he runs a good team, but I think I look up at him the most as far as he puts back a lot into the sport as well. We could have never raced here in America again. But he wants to have a race here and not so much just to have a race in America but he feels we need to race in America, not just over in Europe and ... we race all these other places, Brazil and South Africa, which are no better than here in America. But he does all of the things that he does for the good of the sport. What are your goals for the 1993 season? I think if everything goes right we can finish right up there with the rest of them, top three. That and, certainly, winning my first GP. (l' 25

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