Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

him taking the checkered flag or go ing hom e in th e a mbu la nce in w hat on ce seem ed like almost equa l quanti ties. This yea r had been d ifferen t. Rainey's factory Yam a ha had tri p ped ov er it s ow n deve lopment program, and hi s hitherto impeccab le team had failed to get the effort back in kilte r - even team bo ss Kenny Roberts now admits th ey were complacen t. Rainey may have won two races ea rly on, then again in Spain, but the truth was he was struggling, and his up-and-down results gave Schwantz the chance to gain an ea rly lead a nd then , for the first time ever, to work on extending it. But Rainey's problems a re only the most obvious part of the story. The other side is more easily overlooked . Look ba ck a t the Schwan tz litany, a nd yo u will find one p a r ticul a r gem - abou t cha ngi ng his approach to raci ng three years ago. It happens to be tru e, and it also happens to have been a hard discipline for a man to whom ad ulation and the often self-sacri ficial qu est for glory has alwa ys been a big part of his normal racing d iet. A sca n of his racing results reproduced herewith shows the change was deeply d ramatic. The win rate tailed off sharply, from five in 1991 to just one in 1992. Rather unexpected ly, and demons trating the blind luc k e le m e n t th a t serves to make racing perpetually unpred ictable, the cras h rate did n't fall away to ma tch, an d wh at might have been a very good 1992 was spoiled by cras hes and troublesome injuries. . From the results alone, it looked like Schwantz was a lesser rider than before. That is grossly un fair, reflecti ng rath er the high state of the competition as well as so me hi ccups in Suzuki 's d evelopment. And this year has been the payoff, when steady safe riding on board a bike of consistently high qua lity has made Kevin the man to beat, as well as allow ing hi m th e cha nce to accept second withou t scu ppering his chances. The bike improvemen t has been crucia l. Th e Su zu ki has n 't exactly bee n trans formed over the past two years, but it has been steered carefully bac k on a - development course that has resulted in the best-rounded of all the rivals to the class-leading Ho nda, and wi th its specially developed Michelin tires poss ibly th e most balan ced and in tegrated GP bike ever. Ke vin is qui te u nequivocal. "T his yea r's bike is the best I've ever ridd en ." . He is equa lly ce rta in just w hy. " It's because my ne w crew chief Stua rt pushed the factory in to a new way of working. He deserves a lot of credit. In the past, when they've finished the season the old bikes are forgotten, and the new one is de veloped on its own. The tim e sched u le meant th a t they would st art design ing next year's bike before this yea r's had been fully race-developed, so a lot of th e things th e tea m might have learned later in the season were basicall y lost. " H e changed th at. H e m ade th em bring the '92 bike to the first tests of the • '93 version, and we did some more work on that before the new one. It meant the development was more continuous, and it's made the bike better." St uart is Stuart Shenton, so n of Kawasa ki's former race team boss Alec Shen ton and a long-servi ng GP wrench who first tasted glory back in the '70s, when he worked for four-time 250/350cc World Champion Kork Ballington. More recen tly he'd worked for HRC, serving a mo ng others Freddie Spencer, before joining the Kent-based Suz uki sq uad at th e beginning of last yea r. Asid e fro m his experience, his biggest contribution to the team has been to introduce a rigorously methodical working practices , a nd his success ha s no t merely helped the factory to build this year's excellent racer b ut also played a big part in ind ucing Schwantz to sign on for another two years as early as July of this year, resisting the usua l big-money blandishments from Cagiva as well as possibilities opened up by the forthcoming reshuffle a t Honda triggered by the withdrawal of Rothmans. Th e RGV-Gamma ha s in any case been de veloped aro und Schwantz's cavalier ridin g s tyle - he raced the old square-fou r RG once or twice as an occasional G P visitor in 1986 (in fact he crashe d it both at Spa and Asse n); bu t the V-four was in its second year when he joined the GP circus full time in 1988, and it has been his bike ever since. It has evolved into a machine with chara cteristically quick reactions, not so much nervous as highly responsive. Suzuk i's inp ut in tum filled out its cha racter, and today's RGV excels in no pa rticular area (with the exception of braking, on the team's sta te-of-the-art AP Racing carbons), but is good enough at everything to be a superb all-rounder. Just wh at is his sty le? From the trackside it's a flickering, dazzling comb ination of athlet ics and brinkmans hip. He seems to be all knees and aggression as he mo ves around, forcing the bike into s ud d en changes of d irection and wil d surges of tail-wagging acceleration. Th is is d eceptive, as is proven by hi s we twea ther perfo rmance - he's a fair bet to do mina te every we t practice session and to w in a ny wet race, other th ing s rema ining equa l. That is the ha llmark of a smooth rider, wh ose control inpu ts are delicate and carefully measured , no matter wh at the bike may be doing beneath him . Like his fellow-American GP superstars, Schwantz cut his teeth on loose surfaces . But it was motocross an d trial s ra ther than tail-out fla t-track ing in hi s years as a schoolboy racer, and his father (and manager) Jim remembers his reaction on discov ering road-racing in 1984. "He could go racing, and not get covered with mud . Th at w as pretty new to · h im. " Schwantz cites the trials rid ing as a central pillar. " In terms of throttle control and learn ing to make changes positively but smoothly, there's noth ing like trials. You need to be in the right gear all the time, and to use momen tum as well as every bit of adhesion. That's how you must ride a GP bike in the rain too." It is of course necessar y these days to be the master of using wheelspin to stee r the bike, butthings have moved on since the days when it was possible to id entify two clearly differen t sty les of riding: the "Hailwooders," takin g classic sweeping lines w ith a high mid-corner speed and lean angles, the n feed ing the power in gradually on the exit; and the "flat-track, e rs" who almos t s top, turn th e b ike quick ly then pick it up and comp lete the comer with a su rge of full-power wheelspinning slide that yields the all-impo rtant higher exit speed. "Tires have got that much better over the past few years that you don't need to do tha t so mu ch. I'm still sp inn ing an d sliding th e rear, but now yo u need to have higher entry and mid -corner speed as we ll because the tires have more sidegrip and they last better throu gh the race. The heav y wheelspin s tyle really came abo u t becau se there was no choice; the mo to rs had mor e power than the tires could handle, especially after a few laps when the tires got hot. That still happens, but not nearly so much as before." A mod ern GP.racer need s to be able to use all the usual tricks: using we ight on one or other footrest to help con trol the degree of slide and to sup plemen t ha nd leba r inp uts, shifting bod y weight forwards and backwards to adjust the balance of tracti on s, caressing the rear b rake to tighten a wayw ard corn er line or modulate wh eelspin. Kevin believes his s tat ure an d long legs are an added asset - he is tall for a GP racer, although ligh tly built: London' s Sunday Times color magazine recently and rather unexpec ted ly dubbed him "the Texas stick insect." . "My legs stick ou t, which means I can get my knee down real ear ly. Tha t's useful as a way to measu re your lean angle, bu t also to save a front-wheel slid e if you can take the weigh t of the bike. Being tall mea ns I ha ve more effect on th e bik e shifting my upper bod y around: you'll see me use my weight a lot." The downsid e co mes in a stra igh t line. "I have real troubl e tucking behind th e sc re e n, which costs top s p ee d. Sometimes I try and tuck my feet awa y by p utting them on the pip es behind the footrest. In Germany this year a seal had gone and there was oil there, and my foo t kept sli p p ing off on the long straights." Natura l a bili ty is what makes Schwantz so fast , a nd so ex ci ting to watch. Determination is what makes him want to do it - a desire to w in so fierce that he' s had to make a conscious effort to tame it. This is the third and most vital part, and the m ost sign ificant change to a rider who coul d be counted on to keep on charging even when already well in control, or on the other hand hope lessly beaten. This was the rider who wo uld win races and set lap records - but reliably lose championships. There is something very Texan about this cavalier approach. Man from the Big Country Bucking the Od ds . And Kevin is very Texan , w ith a twang to his accent a nd a colorful cowboy turn o f phrase tha t matches quick wits and a strea k of dev il me nt. But w he n w inn ing is so im po rta n t, th e cu m ulative di sappointment of losing mu st even tual ly trigger a reaction. The old Schwan tz was a spectacula r crea ture, b u t it was an a nimal tha t had to be tamed. "I knew [ had to change my tactics if I wanted to win titles. I've never been the kind of g uy w ho ca n fo llow a nother ride r and cou nt up the points, but I had to stop having those cras hes that came from trying too hard . I made a conscious decision that in the future [ wou ld only do as mu ch as the bike was capable of doing. If it was good enough to w in and [ was in the right position to make it possible, then I'd put everything into it. But if the bike was off, or I was off, or stuck in a bad position, then I'd concentrate on getting the bes t finish I could rather than risk everything on trying to achieve the impossible." . In just this way he had no w co me closer than eve r in his life to the title. Now, ironically eno ug h, th e situ ation had changed, and for the rest of the season Kevin must bring the old Schwan tz ou t of the family cupboard. The inciden t that changed everything saw Schwan tz "pretty shaken up " after the first-lap Donington crash. He went back to the rnotorhome, took a shower, then went to Dr. Costa's Clinica Mobile to let him take a look at his sore should er. At that stage, Rainey was in the lead o f th e depleted race, w ith teammate Luca Cadalora dutifully followin g in his wheel track s. It seem ed certa in they would hold that order to the flag, which w ould g ive Rain ey 25 points and the World Championsh ip lead. "I was lying on my back, but I could kind of see the TV monit or reflected over my hea d . But it was only w he n Cos ta and all the Italians we nt crazy that I realized Ca dalora had gone past to w in. That mad e me feel a little better. "We could sit bac k and blam e Mick for the accident, and it's a sh ame that we'v e lost the cushion that came from all the hard work earlier in the seaso n. But o ne th ing is ok a y by me - ther e' s no more mathematics. Now we have to get focused and go out there and beat him for the last four races. I saw his teammate beat him today, and I think [ can do that. " CN 35

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