Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

first began racing . As you age, you lose the just-hold-it-wide-open type th eory you had when you were younger. Then, you 're just always on the gas, at no matter what cost. You really don't fathom that you can hurt you rse lf qu ite badly with that attitude. You 're not e ven thinking about it. Now, there has been a lot of proof that you can hurt yourself because you've done it. So you have to have a completely dif feren t outlook and you start doing things differently - you start to concen trate on making the bike work better for you. Every little adv antage you get out of the machinery means that you will have to take fewer chances on the racetrack, so you begin to wo rk hard on that s tuff. I think you start working at that a lot ha rde r the olde r you get. Let's discuss the immediate improvements you noticed upon riding the Yamaha YZF750SP as opposed to the owm, I definitely felt that wh en I was rid ing the OW - just because of the handling characteristics of the bike and the wa y tha t the frame geometry wa s - it just se emed to really lik e the faster racet r acks. Now, with th e newer bike, I think that we ought to go faster on the s horter courses as well, and it hasn't hurt it on the big tracks. We have a much better over all package now than before. With the OW, yo u u sed to r eally ha ve to late brake it into the comer and w ork on getting it slowed way down to make it tum. Otherw ise it would seem to want to push the fron t end, so yo u had to really w ork hard at getting it turned. With the new bike, you seem to be able to carry more speed into the corner an d get it tu rned at a later apex an d pick up the throttle. It transfers the w eight better to th e rear, which ju st gives you better bite coming off the corners . Whether it is easier on tires or not, that is kind of hard to say . I wouldn't really say that it is easier on tires, but I would say that the bike is much faster. The bike works really well and I can do qu icker laps with much less effort compared to the OWOL In our engine program it is really hard to say. Ji m Leonard, and those guys at Vance & Hines, are alwa ys w o r kin g on the engine program and are always creeping up on new d iscoveries. I could tell you things now that wouldn't mean anything at Daytona becau se those boys will have far surpassed those things in just a few weeks. I think it is the same at most of the other teams as well - they are making improvements almost every race. I can tell you that the chassis seems to be able to handle a more ab rupt power delivery, it seem s to ma ke th e bike much easie r to ride. You're not consta ntly worrying abo u t wheelspin like you were with the OW. What have your foray s in to au to racing been like and where do you expect to go with that? That was something that I started, and I got a sponso r and figured that I'd try a couple of races. We did that with the main objective being that I didn't want to jeo pardize what I have worked so hard for in motorcycle road racing. I mean, unless there was just a super great deal coming my way, I'll be focused 1()()'Yo on motorcycle racing until I decide to d o otherwise. I just wanted basically to get in there and feel it out and see wha t was involved; get a feel for ' the w hole d eal. I had played with a Wins ton All-Pro Series short track car. I've d one that on and off for the last couple of years. I drove it probably six times . Basically, there ar e no great differences in bike racing as compared to racing a car. Some motorcycles want to do some things a little differently than others, and it is up to the rider to find w hat th e bike likes best in order to go his quickest. That's the same thing you are doing with the race car. You're trying to find out how it reacts to certain situa tions, then you try to pu t it all together to go the fastest. The who le thing is, on a motorcycle there is no realfixed bias the rider can make up for d ifferences in his style and his weight and things like tha t. In a race car, if it's not right you can onl y do so much wit h it. If the car isn't righ t, it really doesn't matter how good you are, it's only going to go aroun d there so quick. I think the set-up on a race car is tremendously critical. Of course, once you get in the ballpark, it mayor may not be as critical as with a motorcycle. Bu t when you come from moto rcycle road racing, and you absolute ly know nothing about ovaltrack race cars, just getting the car in the ball park is the tough part. As far as a ca r is concern ed, th e re are so many th ings that can be a little off, and one thin g affects all four comers of the race car. I'd hat e to go to cars and start out at the bottom after atta inin g as mu ch as I have in motorcycle racing. It must have been incredibly difficult to sit and watch Eddie Lawson win the Daytona 200 on your motorcycle last year. I w a n ted Yamaha to do well. If they don't do well then I ha ve no chance of ever doing well, because they need to win races to keep getting support for the whole race team. As far as that goes, I was ha ppy to see them d o well. But it was a lit tle tough for me to watch a motorcycle that I, basically, had been riding fo r t w o years, and th at Jim Leonard and Dale Rathwell and myself had been working really hard togethe r to make it as good as it was; it p roved it in the tire test down there at Daytona. It was as close as it ever had been as far as circulating with the Kawasaki - I mean' in the infield and everywhere else. The n, when it showed up there with about five or six mph on the field, that made it just killer. It was kind of hard to sit there and watch. As a rider you work with the ·tea m and you work hard to have that happen, to have the ideal situation, because that's what it takes to win races . You can ride 'em as good as you want to, but you have to have a machine and a team with everything working together at the same time to win races. You work ha rd to do that and all of a su dden, someone else reaps all the benefits it's kinda hard to watch. You have to remember, that wasn't the last time and yo u'll ge t your cha nce. I'll ge t another chan ce. I'm not su re what (Lawson) did w ith the bike last year as far as a set-up; I spoke to Dale, our sus pension man, a little bit. I think they brought the bike there a little bit differen t than what we ran it there for the tire tes t. I think, from what I u nderstood, he ba sica lly went back to exactly, or real close to, w here we were at the Dayt ona ti re test. The bike circulated d own there in the low, low 5Is. Th a t was with a moto r that wasn't as fast as the one Edd ie ran, plu s, Eddie being as ex p erience d as h e is probably didn 't hurt (laughs). How do you feel abou t Yamaha bringing him in to defend that win? I feel good about it; he'll be just like anyone else. I'll be trying to beat him. We have a lot of experience at Dayt ona, too, and we'll give it our best shot and see what happens. I don't have any negative feelings about Ed die co m ing a t all. I think it's great for the whole show. If I could manage to win the race with him being there, it would be that much better. The Va n ce & H ines people will no doubt be working 20 hours a day, six days a week until Daytona. Those guys, the y're unbelievabl e. One of the big th in g s is ge tti ng all of the righ t pieces to go to work. 'Tha t's probably one of th e most fru str ating things, getting eve rything there to go to work wi th. Then all of a sudden you hav e it all come in and you're thrashing! Those guys wo n't sleep much from no w until Daytona , and they certainly won' t sleep much once we get there. Depending on how th ings go, Jim (Leonard) and the . boys are very organized and have everything in order, but if it comes down to having to work all night, that's what's done. What were your experiences with former Vance & Hines crew chief and current M uzzy Kawasaki team manager Steve Jo hnson like? And what of Byron Hines? In my opinion, I felt like Steve was a good organizer. I didn't have to deal with him on a day in and day out basis, and perhaps if you were in that kind of a si tu a tion, you'd see some things I didn't. I got along fairly well with Steve an d I felt he was a good organizer. Dale Rathwell is a really good guy a nd he brings a real technical side of the suspension tuning to the team; he is constantly ma king the riders think abo u t our riding and making us explain more in-depth once we are off the bike. I have w ork ed w ith Byron seve ra l times in the past. He has mad e it to several races and I think he contnb utes a lot at the shop. Because of his drag racing schedule, we haven't been aro und each other a whole lot. I can say this: every time I have been aro und him he has been a pleasure to work wi th and to be around. He really has his heart in racing. Regarding him working a lit tle more closely with the race team this year, as I said - when you get olde r you'll take all the horsepower you can get! You are r u mo re d to' be somewhat superstitious, is tha t tru e? Well, I have a few little things, but I wouldn't say that I'm really superstitious. I'm not too bad about it. I don't like brand new leathers - I wouldn't go the route of having new leathers every weekend like some international riders do. The first time you fall do wn and you get up and the leathers are skinned in a few places, yo u ca n say, 'Well, that's over with: It's a fairly big relief. Then you go on about your business . Your opinion on Doug Polen and the perceived advantage of the Ducati Vtwin in Superbike racing last season has not been printed. What did you think of Doug's performance? I felt we could beat him. And if you think I'm going to sit here and have you w rite that I said we had no chance of beating Polen la st year and have him read that - you' re wro ng. I would never give Doug that. Anyway, I try . to keep from complaining too much, you know, at least to the press anyway. The MTV special featuring yourself, Edwards and Larry Schwarzbach has aired quite a bit in the past year. What was it like to make? I wo uld say that MTV thing made me qui te a bit more recognizable than probably anything else I've done. I've had just an incredible amount of response from fans and others about it. I think it was a really good thing and I think it did the whole sport of superbike racing a lot of justice. I was really happy with it once I saw it because that was the first time I had been involved in somethin g like that. When yo u're doing it , yo u don't know w hat it's gonna look like once you're finish ed. But I thought they really did a good job with it. You have been teamed with a variety of riders in your seasons of AMA racing. How much information do you feel comfortable sharing with a teammate? I would say that I had more trouble with it at first than I do now . In today's time I am basically concentrating on what I need to have to go fast for myself. If they can benefit from it, tha t' s fine . I would guess that I am getting a little less touchy about it as times goes on. Cl'

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