Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

I i GINTERVIEW Eddie Lawson ~ 32 bike National Ch am p io nsh ips to the World Champi onshipfitl es, are you content? " Sure, he ck y ea h . I a m very gra teful, very lucky , v ery fortunate to ha v e accomplished that and to ha ve worked w ith th e people I have, that have put those things together wi th me. I look at it this way, when I first started out racin g I co u ld g o to a nyone o f 10 race tracks and go racing every night. And that went away right behind me , there aren't a who le lot o f tracks left in Ca liforn ia. Then I w ent superbike rac ing and rode that crest as well. We had quite a few dates on the schedule in those days - Carlsbad, Ontario, Sears Point, Laguna, Road Atlanta. You name it, we raced there. We could race every weekend somewhere different and superbike racing kind of went down after that for a time. I've been very lucky, I hit everything at the rig ht time, me t the right peo ple. I never looked a t it thaL.hey, I alone accomplished a ll of this. I had some great he lp, so me great influences. A lot of people helped me get here, a lot of people. . Wh o were t h e biggest infl u en ces on your career? Definitely Shell Thuett (a southern Californ ia dirt track bike tuner who supported both Lawson and Rainey as teenagers). Pete Pis toni helped me out quite a bit in my first year dirt tracking. There a re so many p eople , so many guys. I hate questions like this because I alw ay s forget someone who really did d o me great favors and they don't get mentioned. Kel Ca rruthers, Erv, Steve Johnson, Rob Mu zzy, guys like that. If it wasn' t for Rob we would n' t have won thos e s u perbi ke ch a m pio ns hi ps, wou ldn't have happen ed. I ap p reci a te everythi ng those guys ever d id for me , I couldn't hav e done it without them. The mention of Kel's name brings the obvious question ... Well, we had so me problems, but that doesn't mean that the guy do esn 't know his stu ff. You can ask Erv ab out Kel and Erv will tell you that he ha s a great deal of respect for Kel, So do I as far as setting up and d eveloping a motorcycle, h e' s one of th e v ery b est. H e' s very innovative and the factories realize that and he's so meone they'll want to hang on to. As far as that goes I ha ve a gr eat d eal o f res pect for Kel. We didn't see eye to eye about some things in racing and the running of a team. You've see n a lo t of guys come and go in your career, what's yo ur opinion as to why they didn't make it in the sense of becoming Worl d Champions. Mike Bald w in , Rob McElnea, the Sarro n brothers, Mamola..• You know there's a lot of guys who didn't make the cut, you wonder why. Unlu ck y, bad breaks, injuries or for whatever reason, sponsorship wasn't there. A lot of those guys were clearly talented but things just d idn't go their way. Tragic in some cases, deserved in others. Fred d ie Spencer. I don't know, on top of the world one day and then fell off the next. I don't know, I think Freddie was so qu ick and so fast and he won by such a large margi n that when we finally caught up ... The re we re some circumstances tha t he wasn't able to deal with. It was a bit easier for me , I was always struggling and playing ca tch-up and once we did catch up Freddie was never on the pace after that. Now, I have a lot of respect for what he did . I have a lot of respect for him getting back out the re again and riding superbikes. It is really something to see him riding in the back, from one extreme to the other. Maybe he should have just kept it on an even keel back in 1986 or so. It's hard for me to say, I don't like to analyze th ese guys. I've had enough problems of my own and trying to deal with them. Wayne Gardner. He got away with a lot! His rid ing was so aggressive, so cons isten tly aggressive. Man , I give him a lot of credit for being that kind of rid er and he didn' t stop riding that way once he go t hu rt a few times, he continued. Tha t's bravery. He would go fast and sustain an injury and th en come back and ride even fas te r. Unbelievable really. Even inju re d he rode very aggressive and that takes guts. Yo u re all y don ' t have a p rob le m bouncing back from injuries do yo u? No, not really. In 1990 my ankle took a while because I blew th at apa rt. That year was really a p oor year fo r us beca use I got run into at the first race and that broke my left ankle and then I went to Laguna and shattered my right ankle. Tha t was right in the beginning of the season and everybody was telling me that I s ho u ld be riding, trying to push me back into something I couldn't do. I was on crutches learning how to walk, I had a bone out of my h ip that they used to form what was left of my a nkle with a b unch of screws. I was doing therapy every day wondering if I was ever going to walk aga in and I kept hearing these things that people were saying, that I was on va cation and should be r iding a gain . Th at w a s a tough time for me , heari ng that. That was the toughest time I ever had in a comeback from injury situa tion . I came back and finished third at Assen so that was really satisfying. Earlier than that I broke my neck at Laguna Seca in the early 1980s and I came ba ck, wo n m y first race back. It never really up sets me p s ychologically, I' ve neve r reall y thought about it that wa y. I' ve never really went int o a race thi nki ng I was go ing to get hurt. I'm always th inking about winning and how to get the bike working . I gues s if yo u're th inkin g abou t the chances of ge tt ing h urt it's time to stop racing. What ha s the res ponse been like from yo ur spo ns ors, are they eager to see you back in bike racing? Well, the Bell Helmets thing cam e about because they make a g rea t ca r helmet and w e're kind of tied in w ith them . I hav e a grea t relati onshi p with Dainese. Way back in 1981 or '821 went over and raced the Kawasaki 250 in Europe and Da inese ga ve me a set of leathers the n. And then when I fina lly.went back to Europe in 1983 to ride the 500 I set up a sponsors hi p program with them and rod e w ith Da in ese all th ro ugh out my car eer. Then in 1986 the Japa nese were very heavy into sp ons orsh ip and they came to me and offered to double, triple the money I was getting, jus t an as tronomical fee. I said, 'No: but I took that to Dainese and told them what they had offered. I didn't try to get more money from them I just told them what I had done so they would know, and I told them that I liked their product an d their su p p o rt. Ever since th en, whatever I want, even now, product or anything, it's there. I don't have to worry about it and I know that if! came back they'd be right there for me. When you 're off th e b i k e fo r s o m e time, for ins tance th is past year when you d idn't rid e from the final GP un til a week before Daytona, does th e sense of spe ed impress you? No, n ot rea lly . Well, even in the past, early on, if yo u've been off a bik e and I don't care if yo u're Wayne or Kevin or anyone, if you've been off a while it takes you part of a day or a whole practice session to get your rhythm and timing back. I guess the sense of speed hits you in a way, you're like, 'Wow, I am really flying: Your first lap out you feel that, but a f te r the first practice, it's down to business. The press.. .d o you believe an yt h ing you read? No. I absol utely refuse to open a ma gazine. I'm so rry to tell you that, but it is so bogus these d ays. It' s refreshing to read so me one 's stuff who is new and telling it like it is. I have no problem with cri ticis m or anything el se but when writers out a nd out lie, telling pure bulls hi t, I have a problem with that. If someo ne prints a n interview with me and they have never talked to me before, I ha ve a problem with that. And that was done a lot. It's very frustra tin g. Because people read this stuff and they believe it, they see it in print a n d that 's it. It's the truth, it isn't a lw ays that way I can assure you . I haven't read anything about GP racing re centl y bu t I know tha t if I did it would be so far removed from w hat really happened . How close were you to racing GP s this s eas on? It was never as close as it was rumored . to be, I wasn' t home gathering up my leathers. I did get a call early on fro m Erv saying th at he was trying to put som e th in g toge th e r for Suzuka and that w a s basically the end of it. You could say that he was going to try and find so me other types of sponsorship, th a t w ou ld be true. But I was on my boat ou t on the Colorado River and someo ne came to me and sa id the rumor was that weekend I was actually tes tin g th e bike somewhere, that very d ay. I think for the firs t six or seven GPs I was sup posed to show up at each one of them . Every week it was the rumor tha t I was go ing to be racing the next GP, I was going to be a t the next rac e. I knew nothing about it. Has time s o ftene d yo ur o pi nion of Internatio n al Ra ci n g T e ams Association (IRTA) and the track safety questions fro m last season? I' ll al ways have an opin ion of that, always. It was unfortunate that ther e is a couple of guys in IRTA that were the rid er s' represen tatives way back when, w he n we first started , when we fir st started this whole riders' representative thi ng . They were b ehind us and we gave the m a percentage of our winnings and one particu la r person go t in ther e and foug ht for us. That was when runoff room was rea lly at a minimum so he would fight wit h us to change things . Then they started this IRTA d eal and all of a sudden riders go t left ou t of it and it just left a bad tast e in my mou th, as th ey went fr om on e ex treme to the other. So then my last year an incident happen ed that was really a bad deal. I hate to ge t into this but it just left such a bad taste in my mouth that I feel like I h a ve to ge t il off m y ch est. Wayne Ra in ey s ta rted a riders' organization and he felt that he needed to take responsibility, which is great. I thought it would be a great thing. In Hungary he asked me if I would go in there and beat on IRTA's table. We had a meeting with IRTA, Wayne a couple of other rid ers and I, and I ended up doing all of the talking and all of the yelling and screaming and told them what we were go ing to do and tha t they need ed to listen and that we needed to change things. After that meeting Wayne came ou t and sa id, 'Thanks a lot; palled me on th e back and said that they really appre ciated it . I sa id, 'No problem, Wayne: because, see, for me it d id n' t matter, I was leaving. I wa nted to see th e sport get better and I wanted it to change, a nd it need s to change. Well, then we go to Brazil. The championship w as b eing decided but the race track was just unbelievably bad. If you fell off in one corner, it was pretty scary, you hit a wall. They put up an air bag but it wouldn't matter because eve n if you hit the air bag, you were de ad. I was pretty upset about it and SO were a few other riders, w e w ere no t happy about the track. And Wayne Ra iney came up to me :ln d pointed h is fin ger at me a nd said, 'If you don 't like it, yo u do n't have to ride here: After that I sai d, 'You're right, you ' re abs olu tely right, Wayne: and I hav en 't s pok en to these guys since. Do you feel a riders' organization will eve r b e clean enough while b e ing influ enti al enough to work? It could, it co u ld easily, but it never will. If all the riders s tuck together it would be the easiest thing in the world, except that will never happen . Somebody will have two points up on somebody else and the sponsor will come to the rider and say, 'You know, if yo u don' t ride then we don't kn ow if we can help you again: There is a lot of pressure from sponsors and team managers and everything else. But if all the riders stuck together on this and said, 'Loo k, we are not going to run on this track until you fix this: or whatever the situation may be, it wo uld be very easy bu t now I know it will never happen, I'm convinced of it. Push starts took for ever to get fixed . I was on a motorcycle that would not start, it would simply not start. Kenn y and I would be sitting on the grid and we would go back three rows and tell the guys which side to go around us on or we would have go lien killed. A g uy w o uld go by you on a three-cylinder Honda at 80 or 90 miles per hour in second gea r! We 'd s till be stand ing on th e si d e of our b ikes ! It blew my mind that in that da y and age to have a push start, it absolutely blew my mind. It took a long lime to get rid of push s t a r ts, to o . The reason th ey would not change it ov er wa s because the three-cyl inders s tar te d in stantly. Randy Mamola and Ron Haslam would not vo te for clutch s tarts becau se the y got good starts on their three-cylinder Hondas . So th is is why a riders' organization will never work. Wh at is your opinion of air bags? " They're great as long as you ha ve plenty of run-off room as well. There is no subs titu te for run-off room in bike racing. If yo u d on' t hit anything, more than likely yo u co u ld break a bon e bouncing across the track or folding the fro n t end in, bu t if y ou strike s omething, you're in trouble. You d on 't have to be a ro cket scien tis t to fig u re this stu ff out. And in a lot o f p la ces it wouldn't cost ve ry much to pu ll up Armco and put it back further, but for whatever amounts of money, they will not do that. It's very unfortunate, but IRTA doesn 't care any more because they're getting to race there and they're getting paid and there is a lot 'of money involved and changing hands . It 's unfortunate for racing. There is a much greater amount of politics involved now. Sure, granted the riders and teams are all getling money, but I think it all comes a t a higher risk, a higher price. If you do retu rn to the G Ps will you become a member of IRTA? Well, yo u have to. To get you r pass and your credentials and what not you have to. They now control the prize mo ney and give it to the teams; it does not go to the riders anymore. The team decides how they split that up. I know now not to be a pa rt of the riders' organization beca use it will never work because you have rid ers who are more interested in championships and points than anything else, safety or anything. If I went back I wouldn't do anything to circumvent IRTA membership, I'd just hide in the motorhome, race and leave. 0'1

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