Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ers. Our business is to be successful with GP racing, and because of Wayne's (Rainey) accident very late in the year, it left us without a promising young American rider. All contracts were virtually sewn up for guys that can win Grands Prix, and that put us in a bind. Although we like American riders - ob viously, we've raced a few of them - there weren't any of them around that came close to Wayne, so we were left to try and find somebody who could step in to fill the spot - and it wasn't an American. . The U.S. GP had its loca tion li sted as "TBA" on the IRTA calendar for some time. Are you, or were you, thinking of chariging sites? Unfortunately, GP racing is not" our only task an d sometimes we are a little slow moving in areas such as the new GP promotion. But Laguna will see its GP back again. In your opinion, are there any other race t rack s in Ca lifornia where you coul d holda GP? No. Other tracks in the U.S then? There ar e GP tracks around. The costs associated with GP racing, the money which it takes to bring the -teams and the amount of money it takes to get the who le circus here and run, is far more th an you'd spen d at a CART race . So to just ,come into a race track like Road Atlanta or one of these facilities, even Laguna, is a big problem for us because we have to literally build everything that we ha ve to bring in there. It's not up to GP standards: I don't know that there is a race track in America tha t is. So you litera lly have to tent the place and build hospitality areas and it's just a big, big undertaking. There is not a race track in America tha t I've seen that fits the bill. What thoughts did you come away with after your first year of being a promoter? The U.S. wanted a Grand Prix - the American public said they wanted a GP. I'm not real pleased with the turnout that we got, but I' m not d isappointed eithe r. It's a long-range program - five years . We are probably the only people who could bring it back, and we did that. I was hoping that . the motorcycle industry itself would get more involved, especia lly the factories. The y have not gotten involv ed to the extent that they needed to get involved to make these things happen - magazines, the press, everybody. The motorcycle business in America is very unique. It seems that we all have something else to do, or we all have different axes to grind, and no one is thinking of the sport as a whole. The wa y to get the sport bigger, .the only way to make it bigger, is through television. Other sports have done that second part, made the transition and made the move into being a professional sport. We need todo that. At KR Promotions, our role, as I see it, is to maybe help in areas where our expertise can help, and make this sport more successful, not necessarily KR Promotions more successful. If the spo rt becomes more successful we won 't need KR Promotions. I'd rather run a team and help younger riders and build that up, than put on races. Appar ently, no one was doing that, and we d o need so meone doing that because there are other sports out there that are competing for the same dollar advertisers paying for the commercials on other programs. And if nobody is going to do it, if motorcycle people are going t o stand around, it's going to be gone! - just as you have seen with dirt track and with other forms of racing here in America. It's a point of fact that you could promote a GP in Spain if you wanted to, and make an enormous amount of money. Oh, you're talking...yeah. If I could get a race in Spain, yeah, great, I'd have one. If KR Promotions just wanted to make money that would be great, but that is not why KR Promotions was started. It was started to try and give the motorcycle industry here in America a sh ot in the arm. That's why it was formed. Your son's relationship with racing has com e full-circl e. You trie d to keep Kenny Jr. fro m racing, to become a golfer, an d now he has progres sed to a ri d e on your team. There mus t ha ve been a po int where you sa t him down a nd asked him wha t h e w a n ted to accomp lish, correct? Yeah, there was a point where I asked him how serious this was going to be. You either do it for fun, and enjoy it, or you do it as a profession and you do it seriously. I told him that it didn't matter to me which one of them he did . If you're going to race for money, then you are going to have to take it seriously and do your job. Because you not only work for yourself, you work for the sponsors, the public, for everybody. You 're not just ou t there doin g what you want to do, and if you think that way, you' re probably not going to make it to be a GP racer anyway. So when he first started, that was the rule: If you're going main tained and developed from Japan. But we run a little bit differen t structure. We assist in d evelopment and do it ourselves. It's done with total Yamaha control and supervision. The 250Yamahas in the past ha ve, in my op inion, not been the fastest on the race track. Sometimes (they were) the best all-around motorcycle, but certainl y not the quickest. Kenny's not a small kid - he's not as small as Joh n (Kocinski), for example - so there may be some poin t that we have to evalua te the p erforma nce of (the bik e ) and try to enhance (it), just because of the kid's size alone. Next to Harada, Kenny is a gian t. So, yeah, we proba bly will do some R&D for top speed or acccleration, with Yamaha's cooperation. You will have a lesser role on your GP team now, correct? A lesser role is certainly true, just from the s tandpoi nt of having too many people. We had to give the control to other pe0ple, jus t because running this team has become quite comp lex. At one point last year, we had a race going on in Spain with the 500 team; we had the 500 team testing in Australia; and we had my kid racing a dirt track in America. So there are quite a Ke nny Ro berts confers w it h his son , Kenny Jr~, at t he U.S. GP. to d o it for fun, let's do it for fun. We still have fun riding motorcycles - it's probably the only thing that we d o around here that we have that much fun doing - (but) it 's competitive , too. But that w as set down a long time ago, the rules were you either ride, or you do it for fun. Really, Kenny Jr. has done everything, in my opinion, and he's had other people watching him as welI; Wayne has helped him a lot. He's doing it right - we can' t say that Kenny is doing anything wrong, really. He works out, he handles the press very well, he stays in Europe an d does his job and doesn't complain about" it. Really, he's doing everything righ t, in my opinion. Whether he actually ends up being a World cham pion one day or not, we don 't know. But Kenny's got a factory ride for the Grands Prix this year and I think he'll be successful. Will he be backed closely b y Yamaha, developing the bike like Tetsuya Harada d id las t year, or will it b e Marlb oro Roberts developing in depe nd en tly of Yamaha, like you did with John Kocinski? The relationship between Harada and the factory is very strong, there's no question about that. I' m sure Harada' s bike was few things happening under my control. or under my supervision, you might say. When our team started GP racing, we had six or seven people working for us, now it has grown to probably 40 people. I can't manage all that, so I ha d to give so me duties to some other people. Chuck Aksland will manage the team, and has been mana ging the testing and logistics of the tearn for the past several months. I oversee the total involvement of the team; I'm better at concentrating on the riders and the equipment side of things. I enjoy that more than whether this guy should fly via Tokyo or via Hong Kong. . It's always been th at way. Now that the team is so big it appears that I have stepped back and I'm not so involved . 111 still have a lot of the politics in the sport that I have to deal with; I'm constantly in meetings at races, so I don't have time to spend with the riders. I'm trying to step back from some of that stuff. The sport is going fine, the television (coverage) is just climbing, so maybe I can take a step back. You definitely have a "type-A" personality. How h ave you acclima ted to the change in your role on the team? It's a little too early to say. I speak with Chuck (Aksland) on a daily basis - he ran the team here in America when we ran a 500 in the WERA thing. He knows what he's doing; it's not a question of me overseeing him every day. There are other things that I do in the off-season, especially this off-season, that I haven't done in a long time. I just haven 't ha d the time in the past to do that. With the change over to IRTA, to TWP (Two Wheel Promotions) and to Dorna, it's been quite a transition. It's taken some time out of my sched ule that I didn't have, say, four years ago. So I'm back into the swing of things and this test (an upcoming test in Australia) will be the first test I have been to since the end of last season. I'm just trying to get back into thing s, and it's too early to say if I have taken a step back too far or not (laughs). The AMA will introduce an introductory 12 5 class next year. What are your thoughts on 125ccracing? Oh boy, another class. Great. WelI, listen, 125 racing is a good class in my opinion. The bikes are very inexpensive, they're actually racing motorcycles - I bought one for my son (Kurtis) they're good, close races. It does give the smaller guys and younger guys a place to start. I've never started a rider on a 125 so I don 't know. I think my son will be the first I've ever done that with. Whether it breeds 500 GP riders or not, I have no idea. As far as GP-style racing (is concerned), I think America should take another look at it. We have to be running what the rest of the world is running, in my opinion. America is a big place, but the motorcycle industry is very small, and to separate ourselves from the rest of the world is p robably not what we want to d o. I know the 125 class in Europe and in Spain, in the Ducados Open, is a very successful class. After Wayne Rainey was injured, it was rumored for a time that you consi dered quitting racing altogether. At the time when Wayne was hurt, I considered a lot of things. I think that my involvement in this thing is a little like my racing - if I cease having fun doing this, I won't do it. I'm away from my family almost 70% of the time, constantly traveling, constantly doing something for either th e tea m or the sp o rt or so mething. Maybe more so when Wayne got hurt, but every year I look at that possibility, of whe ther I've d one enough and want to stop, or whatever. I think the main thing at that time, when people were specula ting, (is that) I was more worried about the opti ons that we had wi th Wayne - th e doctors, the hospitals, the operati ons and wha t could be done. I was too busy to dwell on whether or not I would continue racing. . What is the current s it ua ti o n with Rainey? Will he join your team? As I said, Wayne has been a big part of helping Kenny Jr. in his career. We have built this 250 team aro und Wayne, if he wants to step in. Because Wayne is still in rehabilitation, I'm sure that he's not going to know exactly what he wants to do. He's been very involved in the running of the team. We phone him on a daily basis with the results in testing. But right now it's too early for me to tell you that Wayne's going to run a team or even work on a team. Wayne's still working on my team I still have a contract with him - but there are other things that we have to address with Wayne now, and (that) he has to do. It's just not as easy getting up in the mom" ing, like it used to be, and running out to the airplane. So we're not saying anything (about what) Wayne is going to do - at this poin t. All I can Say is he is very much involved with the team and he wants the team to be successful He's one of the guys who ma de it successful and he will continue to make it successful But what role he actually plays right now ~ I couldn't tell you. a

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