Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

has aspirations to do things in Europe or anywhere else they should do some 250 racing. Its a real race bike and we need race bikes at the races, you know? People come to the races to see real race bikes. Superbikes probably don't fall into the street bike category anymore, at least not here. In America the superbikes are almost works superbikes bu t Supersport bikes, I mean they're neat and all, but if you look at a 250 GP bike well then, you can't go to a motorcycle shop and see one of them. It's a special bike, n ot everybody can- buy one of those bikes, so I think that is unique in its own. It is something that draws people out to the races and if the AMA did awa y with that, to me they're doing away with something that has been around for a lon g time . It is the only real racing bike they have left here. The superbikes are on their own .level bu t the other bikes are productio n bikes, you can see them anywhere. I don't know what the plan is or if because I'm winning all the races they are goi ng to discontinue the class b ut I sure hope they don't. You were offered the Suzuk i 250 G P ri d e a ft e r John Kocinski was fire d, rig ht? That is another one of my friend's doings. They're ov er there and they a jus t talking to everybody for me. He doesn't care about the politics, he just wants to help me. John was h a vin g problems and John Kocinski is one of the best racers in the world in my opinion. I was his teammate in 1986 and he had goa ls then and he has accomplished his goa ls. He had his mind se t and he knew w hat he wa nted and I have a lot of respec t fo r John. I would have loved to have go ne over there and ridden his motorcycles, the Suzukis. The deal jus t didn't pan out and ended u p falling through. I never ta lked to them m y s e lf but there were people talking to them for me. It would have been good but it jus t didn't happen . I would have gone if the d eal w en t to ge ther the w a y I wa n te d it t o . W ha t would have happened to the team ov er here wou ld h av e been up to Wayn e bu t if tha t d eal wo uld have come about I have no idea what he would ha ve done w ith the te am h ere . H e m ay ha ve fou nd a new rider or he may have jus t stopped the team, I have no idea. We talked before about m e doin-g it and if I had to miss.a race and Wayne asked me if I cared if I did miss one or two . Like I said, Wayne is a pretty good friend to me. But it didn't happen and my job now is to win the AMA 250 championship for him over here. How much contact h ave you h ad with Erv Kanemoto recently? I tal ked to Erv las t year a lot about my bike w hen I was ridi ng the Ho nda. He wasn't very familiar with the RS model Honda so h e couldn't help me too much. Erv is ...you can't say enough about Erv as a person. He's a good man, very nice and easy to talk to and I really haven't kn ow n Erv that long. Everyone thought Erv and I were these two old friends but that wasn't itat illl!We grew up in the same town, bu t I never really knew him. I knew of him and he knew of me a little bit, I think. But we knew each other through other people and I got to work with him that one tim e (a winning ride in the 1988 U .S. G rand Prix) and in Japan one other time but it was q uite a thrill to have him as a mechanic and coach. He can ins till a lot of confidence. That w a s one o f m y biggest dreams to work w it h Erv for Honda and that d ay in April of 1988 was o ne of the happiest of my life. I would have liked to ha ve done more with him but with my accident.. .I d on't know if it would have happened or not. I approached him in 1989 abou t d ctlng or I could go over there and ride midpack, so I d on't think he would ever pick me up because he wants more of a rider who is proven over there. I really only go t to work wi th Erv that o ne time . We worked toge the r again in Fuji but both times he was also work ing with N iall Macke nzie a nd spent most of his time with Niall or his bikes. He was mostly talki ng to me as a coach. The way he told me w hat would go on in the race, preparing me for the race because I had never seen any of -these guys rid e and didn't know what . they would do at the Grand Prix in 1988. something la ter in my career with him and it never panned out because of my accident, it really set me back a lot of years. I still talk to him, I talked to him last fall when I was still going to be riding a Honda in 1993, just before Bubba called me and we spoke about the new bikes and what was happening. He's always full of information, he and George (Vukmanovich) are both great people, they're friends of mine I feel. Erv is a really good businessman and what I think he needs is for things to be very solid, very for sure when he does things. With me; it's a coin toss . I could go over there and really whip their butts He took care of things. I would tal k to him about suspension and it wo uld be fixed . I would mention so me thing about the gearing and it would be fixed . I won that race at Laguna but he had a heck of a lo t of involvement in me doing that. I didn't do it on my own, the whole team should share in the credit, beca use Erv really didn't work on my bike directly, he did some stuff but he was more involved with Niall's stuff. I had one of Kanemoto's mechanics who worked with me and a couple of other guys. I di dn't know Erv, not really, and I was p retty nervous walking into the garage that Wednesday before the GP . I walked into the garage and they all just re ki nd of looked at me and somebo dy yelled, "Hey, Erv, here's your rider: and he looked at me and kind of giggled a litt le bit. He thought I was a li tt le short. With Erv it was kind of weird, there was so much confidence in him that it would give me confidence. Erv told me that if I got a two-second lead in the race I would win it an d I said okay. So when I saw the sig n that said I had plus two seconds in the race I totally relaxed and it was like a cakewalk. Instead of getting uptight and panicky and wearing the tire out, I rode smoother than I did the first few laps. You know, it was like once I got two seconds it was like Erv said I'd win so I did . He instills that kind of confidence in a perso n. Let's backtrack. How did yo u ge t started in racing? My dad was a hillclimber and I w ent to a lot of hillclimbs when I was young. There was a man named Joe Simas and he had a motorcycle shop and he raced a little bit and he was a friend of my dad 's, they worked together. They talked him into buyi ng me a min ibike and racing it in 1972 and abou t th ree or four months later they had the same guy come ou t an d watch me ride on a little short track - it was the Monterey short track on the fairgrounds there and I finis h ed dead last. Real bad. Real slow. But I liked it and I had another friend that helped me in my career, Scott Pearson the di rt trac k racer, we grew up toget her in the same town but I was six or seven yea rs younger than he was but we'd go riding together. He'd take m e and s how me th in gs, b e ro ug h on me, bu mp into me a nd it help ed me a lot and probabl y ma de me progress a lot faster than w ha t I was at that time. He was al ready a Novice d irt track er and I was racing min ibik es. I prog res sed to ri d ing a 65 0 Yamaha in IT races a t 14 and I was eve n sma ller than I am . now so I go t on big bikes real ea rly. That help ed me a lot too . Edd ie Lawson and Wayne w ere in fr on t o f m e cl as sw ise in d irt track ra cing , Bubba too. So I came up with tho se guys but I never really ra ced aga in s t Eddie too much. I raced aga inst him in road racing bu t in di rt track we didn't do to o m uch together. I beat Bubba a few times and one of my many big thrills is when I was a Junior (class) dirt tracker and ra ci n g for Yamaha at that tim e , Yama ha 500s. It was at Texas, Devils Bowl, and the bi ke I rode was bu ilt by Mert Law will an d it was fast - I used to win the races by straightaways. Anyway, w e ha d a trop hy das h a t Devils Bowl and it was for a $250 purse and I had one of the fas test lap times and I was a Ju nior! Bubba and Mike Kidd and some other guys were there a nd they pu t me in the trophy dash because my lap times were pretty good. It was a p retty slippe ry groove and Mike Kidd on his unrestricted Harley and Bubba as a rookie Expert on hi s Harley were the fast guys and I beat them. I really smile when I rememb er that race. 25

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