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/127591
9I~!~!~~y~~~O~ ~ racer in 1987 when he rod e Mert's Harl ey and I got to bea t him, pretty good thr ill of t:::1 mine. I go up there and train a lot. It e:7 seems any time I get around Kenny or (f') any of his people, good things happen. 0\ Kenny is th e sa m e as always, always 0\ joking around. It's a honor to be able to r i tra in u p there and ha ve access to the .... garage. He help ed me for a long time r i and he still believes in me, 1 think. H I battled a lot with Wa yne in d irt <:J.) track racing and he is a hell of a motorcycle racer. I mean everything he rides, ~ the guy has de term ination to win . I <:J.) raced with a lot of great riders and I've ... mad e a lot of friends . I love racing, it's - ~ my life. <:J.) I was a factory d irt track ride r when I Cf) was 16 yea rs old. Yama ha was a good . company, they treated me well. A lot of things came easy to me. A lot of my riding is natu ral and it comes very easy to me sometimes, I don't want to so u nd arrogant or overconfident but I've seen people have to. work very hard to get at some of the levels that I've ridden at almost effortlessly. Wh en I look back now and see the possibili ties that were in front of me a t th at tim e, Kenny had big plans fo r m e a t one time, but 1 ju st d idn't feel tha t comfortable road racing. I . wa s so good in dirt tra ck racing and so confident and the first road race I rod e in 1980, I wo n Daytona. But I was alread y d irt tracking a Ha rl ey a n d raci ng lot of d ir t track races so I had experience rid in g a b ig bike, but I wo n Dayto na and tha t ope ned so me do ors for me in road rac ing. The next year in a heat rac e I beat Ed die Lawson and Anton Mang, the World Champion. I thought, 'Damn, I don 't even kn ow what I'm doing!' I knew how to ride a m otorcycl e but.i.Kenny was a big coach to me and h e he lp ed me o u t a lot, tellin g me what to d o and coaching me and I still use some of his techniques that he told me ba ck then, today. I rode real ha rd tha t year (1981) an d the full factory deal came abou t in 1982. I was goi ng to be the onl y rider and it was for.a lot of money, big development program for th e d irt tr ack and I wa s only 19. I d idn't even know w ha t I had. They paid me very good money, I had a good manager but I di dn't see then .. .by the end of that yea r I go t so depressed of riding di rt track that the road race bike became so hard to ride and it came to be that I was cutting myself too thin for everything. I blew it that year because if I could have prog ressed that year I cou ld have done a lo t more with my career. That is all in the past. I had good mechanics, Bud Askland and a lot of good peop le behind me, but it was jus t a bad season. I br ok e my wrist on that Virago and I was supposed to wi n the 250 cha mpionship tha t year and I d id n't, altho ugh I won four races. The whole d eal was pr etty d ep ressing. Yamaha qu it racing after that and w hen tha t year ended I was on my own. I had to start from scratch and that is when I hooked up w ith Eddie Adkins and started w innin g ag ain, wi nning th e miles. That started building my career back up. I've been th r ough tha t li ke tw ice, three times now. It does n't get any easier, it's never easy. Just gotta keep fighting. That is how I got the Grand Prix ride. ..g 26 !:~_:~~C':d rod. I p_ lem and Hank Scott wanted me to ride ' his Honda in the d irt track series. Eddie had been wrenching d irt track bikes for 40 years and he wanted me to ride his Harley bu t I wanted him to build me a Suzuki road racer . So we wen t to Daytona on the Suzuki and did just terrible, it was on ly a stock bike with a pipe and a camshaft and we didn't end up finishing . It wa s real slow. So we parted company. So after Daytona I didn't have a ride. I had nothing. I had Hank's dirt tracker. And then I got a phone call three weeks before Lagu na to ride the works Honda. An d th a t w as a ll because of Doug Chandler's fathe r-in-law Gerry Gri ffith). H e had a lo t of co n fi d en ce a nd he help ed me in my career also . He to ld Erv that if he wanted to hire the best 250 rider in America to win Lagu na to hire Jimmy Filice. Jerry called me and told me that Erv may be calling me about a rid e at Laguna and to s tay near the ph one. ground, no t knowing if I wa s dead or alive. But yo u can' t tum back the clocks. Shit happens, I guess. Another John the n, yo ur form er tea mmate John Kocinski. Any insig h t yo u care to offer on him? I wa s teamed with him when he was real yo u ng . Like I sai d , he was real focused in what he wanted to gain. But he lives in my hometown or has a house there and I really don't get to talk to him that often. I have not seen or tal ked to him in years and he lives probably five minutes away. We were teammates, but we were never tha t close. He was a good kid and he sure fulfilled those goals and , man, I give him a lot of resp ect for that. I don't kno w wha t to say about Joh n. I mea n I ho pe he ge ts things sorted out, w ith Suzuki and all. I d idn't wa n t to step on his toes by going over there and racing . his bike, but like I said I'm looking out for myself at this point. But at tha t point I don't th ink he cared who d id it. He's a great racer, you can never take that away from him . Like I said I It took a wh ile for him to call me, but I was waiting by the phone, and I mean right by the ph one! And it all happened . That was another from nothing to someth in g Fili ce s to ry . I didn 't have a ny money in the bank and Honda ended up giving me a wh ole program for America an d a cou ple of RS's. It was unbelievable. My g rand father and I we re ve ry close, he moved just a block away from where I lived to be closer to me and he died of cancer just before Daytona that yea r and that played a big part in what happened. John Ashmead dro ve the van tha t fateful ni gh t of the accid en t. What are your feelings toward s h im now ? John is a good gu y, he has a good heart. He do esn't like to ma ke waves or hu rt anyone. I really have nothing bad to say abou t John . It was an accident, he d idn 't d o it on purpose, a little bit of stupi dness on h is par t - not thin king things throu gh . There was some things that he was not tru thful with me when I asked him a t first an d tha t bo thered me. We tal k, we' re friend s. Wh en he was out there I was just tryi ng to help him with his career and let him train with me and I thin k it helped, we did the sa me thing the year befor e and he wo n Daytona. I kno w it must have affec ted him a g re a t deal seein g me ly ing o n th e knew him w hen he wa s rea l1y yo ung and it seems like I'm read in g abo ut a guy I no longer know. John has always gi ve n me res pect and talked to me very well. He was never really cocky with me and I liked the guy. But I haven't known him for a few years and I d on't rea l1y have an y ins ight on the mod em Joh n Kocinski. When he was yo ung he was great an d really fast. Why is it tha t so me d ir t track racers can't make a good transition into road racing wh ile others fit right in? I think it boils down to one thing, they didn't get sta rted early enough. They try to go out there at a later poi nt in the ir career and ride too hard and d on't concentrate on gelling the basics d own. Road racin g is a little differen t than d irt tracking. It' s easy to use so me of the techniques yo u use wh ile road racing when you d irt track. You ha ve so me tha t you can use going from dirt tracking to road racing, but yo u have to get on a differen t level. You can start sliding the bike around and pu sh ing the front and d rifting the bike, an d at that level the dirt tr ack ex perience h elps yo u because you're used to the throttl e control. But until you can get to the point where yo u ca n sli de the bike, it 's not that much of an advantage. Ricky Graham is a hell of a mo tor- cycle racer . I'v e tra il bike ridden with h im in the m ount a in s a n d he is s o go od riding in th e mountain s, so talented, so na tura l. I th ink if he wo ul d have galien started earlier and had so mebody help him like I did with Kenny. Kenny helped me a lot when I was coming up, cut a lot of comers for me . I think it cou ld be accomplished with Ricky. But to try and start road racing at that late o f an age and to get real fast withou t someone hel p ing yo u get around the comers, it is difficult. It takes time, a lot of track time. You are the class of th e fiel d in domestic 250 racing. What is you r op in ion of the other riders? Chris (D'Alu isio) is a good rider and a consist ent rid er, but man y of the guys don't ride in the race where they qu alify, lap tim e-wi se. And if they do the y don't go beyond that, sometimes you' ll push them and they'll do that but I always try to qualify a little slower than I'm going to race at. I don't do that on purpose but wh en the race star ts it's a different game to me. Practice is pra ctice. In practice I'm careful, so during the race I get a little more serious , a li llie more aggressive, I attack the comers a little harder. The o t her guys take their lime an d don' t go as hard th e fi rs t fe w laps. They' re m ore techni ca l, rather than letting the bike wigg le or move around. I ride p retty smooth but a t th e sa me time I'm p retty agg ressive and it ta kes th em a few la ps to get a g gressive . Some tim es you'll see that in qualifying, where I can qu alify at a good time - rea l quick. But for th e most pa rt all the 250 r id e rs a re good here. Rich O liver is one o f th e riders wh o ca n ri de hard right off the line, I d on' t kn ow if that comes fro m co nfi dence or tra ck lime , b ut he is one of the guys w ho can pu sh it hard fr om the beg innin g and tha t helps. Colin (Edwards) las t year, too. Colin is a good rider, a hard charge r r ight fro m th e s ta r t. I don't kn ow w hat it co uld ha ve been like if Coli n an d I had been on equal equi pmen t last year, I do n' t want to take anyth in g awa y fro m h is champ ionsh ip becaus e h e deserved it . He won, I didn 't. It is ha rd to say wha t wou ld ha ve happened if he had been back this year, but I think he is going to progress into a hell of a racer. Are you go ing to en courage your son Justin to race? Whatever he wan ts to do. Right now he's doing excellen t in school. He's in first grade an d I just go t a letter from the state and he has one of the highest SAT scores in his g ra d e level. H e ' s ve ry advan ced , much more than I ever was. Righ t now he has interest when he gets to the races but w hen he gets home the interest leve l d ro p s off. He ' s ha d a motorcycle since he was two years old, he'd rid e it with his diaper on and training wh ee ls . But he ha s never r eall y pushed me to go riding and I don't ever push him . He likes to ride with me bu t -no t m uch more tha n that. It' s no big deal , I d idn 't start until I was nine yea rs old so there is plen ty of lime. If the time comes and he decides he wants to race 111 back him 150 percen t. It's been good to me, I can't say any thi ng bad about motorcycle racing. cr