Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

9INTERVIEW 500eeWorld Chame_on K _in_Schw _lz i _ _ev _ _an _ .... ... By Henny Ray Abrams he voice at the other en d of the long-distance phone line sounded tired, an d for good reason. Kevin Schwantz w as in Australia doing too many things at once, testing for the defense of the 500cc World Championship, testing a stock car he was scheduled to race at the Thunderdome, rush ing back and forth between Melbourne and Phillip Island, and doing pre-race publicity for the Australian Grand Prix . But th ere was progress on all fro nts. The Suzuki test showed the factory had done their ho mew or k, and he'd found the limits of his Pontiac Grand Prix stock car after backing it into the wall on the nearly-onemile oval. Between the end of November and the firs t Grand Prix in April, Schwa n tz w ill be going mostly non-s top - testing, train ing, and doing publicity. He's awar e of just ho w heavy the front end will be ca r r ying the number on e plate. After finally realizing his goal of winning the 500cc title, he doesn't want to be the only American 500cc World Champion to w in just one championship. The team garnered newfound, and w ell-d es erved , respect for its assault on the 1993 title and it brings the same determination to keepin g it. It was in the middle of the week that we caugh t up with Schwantz. He' d ju st ret urn ed fro m Melbo urne, where he'd crashe d the stock car, and was back at Phill ip Islan d fo r two days of testing, before returning to the Thunderdo me for practice on Saturday, be fo re racing on Sunday . Th en there was more motorcycle testing . How is your test schedule going? Toda y wa s press day. I go t here Satu rday, lunc h time. I drove the car a little Saturday and drove it most of the da y Sunday . Tested here Monday, Tuesda y, then went do wn there toda y to d rive it (the car) again. An d promptly tried to . destroy it this afternoon. I jus t backed it in to the wall. It's at the Thund erdom e, an d that's an almost-a-mile banked oval. I managed to go in and clip th e apron with the inside left front. And when I did it kind of spun the back end, and then I compensated to try to correct it an d save it, but it went further up the wall. And then I realized I'd better jus t go ahead and spin the car and pull it down and when I did, it spun, bu t it was going way too fas t at the wa ll. It's a legitimate NASCAR, a Pontiac Grand Prix. There's a guy here in Australia w h o I met through some friends of mine. He's got a couple of cars. Well, he used to have a couple of cars - he's got one and a half now . He asked me to come down and d rive it and I said I'd love to and this race came up and it happened to be T 32 about the same time we were down here testing . (Wayne) Gardner's driving in it as well, so I got to listen to his shi t all day today. There are going to be abou t anoth er 20 regu lar Australian NASCAR drivers. It should be fun. Whe n do you start testing the new bike? We started testing it Monday, Tuesday, worse - testing suspension, testing tires, testing everything. What's the aim in trying to make it bet.ter than last year's bike? The biggest problem we had with last year's bike was the suspension. The biggest problem we had was its just moving a little bit, getting the back end into the comer, not going in and settling real then Thursd ay, Friday. Monday was the first test for me. We've got both of them here. It's not really a '94. It's just a few pa rts that they ' re going to use on the '94; a few chang es. This year I think the engine's a little bit different; I think the chassis is pretty much the same. I'm not sure. Stuart (Shenton) h as n o t been telling me what is changed. We've been running through it and he just wants opinions on what feels better, what feels quick. That's the main thing. The other thing we think we can improve on is the power characteristic of the engine to try to help the tires a little bit more; to try to not w o rk the tires as much. They've changed some stuff as far as carburetion and engine characteristic goes. It's gotten easier to ride, for sure. In any particular part of the comer? Mainly it 's all the way through. The power delivery's lot smoother and the a wh ole thing seems to j a package and give it a When is your next test? It's either here at Phillip Island or back at Eastern Cree k on January 6. Th ree days at Eastern Cr eek an d two days here. Is this about when you got started testing last year? Act ually, last yea r we tested in Spain in Jerez the last weekend in September for three days . Just basically a tire test to sort some tires out. I think we tested in Novem ber and December as well. We have, after the New Year rolls over, two days here, th ree d ays in Eastern Creek, three days in Malaysia, two in Ba rce lona , tw o in Jerez, and then I think we come back here for the IRTA test. Then there's a Suzuka te st in th ere, too. Pr obably another 10-15 days. How much of off-season di d you have before yo u started training again? I got most of the month of November. I had to go to Japan for Sugo after I had surgery on my hand. That was October the fifth when I had the surgery, so I needed about three or four weeks even before I could start doing anything again. How did the surgery go? It's great. The hand's not giving me any trouble at all None at all. I've done abou t 70-80 laps the past few days, maybe 10-12 laps back-toback, and the hand's not even a problem at all. It's been since the last week in September since I've ridden - almost two months. It took me a little while the first day to get back on it and figure out how to ride, but we got down to some good times and yesterday we went even quicker - a lot faster than we went testing here. We did middle to high 34 s when we raced here in '91, and I did a 35.2. Is the track any different? It's gotten a lot rougher; just from use, I guess. What else did you do to get ready for the season? Not much. I'm really not ready for the season as far as fitness goes. I'm testing fit, but I'm not racing fit. I have a lot more to do to prepare for the season when I get back home motocross riding, mountain bike riding. I haven't been doing much of anything. Got back on the 10th of No vember and started doing so me lig h t weights and some mountain bike riding - not a whole lot of anything. Have you found a lot of your time' s been spent doing media work since winning the championship? Yeah, qu ite a bit more. It seems that every couple days there's a journalist stopping by the house and so on and so forth, and as soon as I get .done testing at Phillip Island on the 10th, I go to Europe and I'm in Europe until the 20th. I get home on the 21st of December and

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