Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127665
John Kocinski / to make it up somewhere. We're workkn o w h o w to ing on the areas that are good for us do it. On the race track, and (trying to) make up for the areas that are not so good. who do you thi nk yo u have to b eat How did it go at Suzuka? consi ste ntly to win the title? On the first day, I gue ss you could About five people. Toti Lator re: Can I say on e thing? say we had a fairly hard time just trying to get the basic setu p somew here in You ask this question of John like you the ballpark and we ended ,up qualifyknow who he's going to have to beat ing, I think, ninth on the first day . We constantly for the championsh ip. had a meeting and made qu ite a few Before, it was like (Wayne) Rainey and changes to everything, rea lly. And we (Michael) Doohan always fighting came back with a motorcycle that basitogether, or the other guy. But this year cally was quite a bit dif ferent than what is more open. It's like you don't have to beat the same person all the time . Like we had been using. In wh at way? maybe here, now it loo ks like (Luca) . Every way really. Cadalo ra. Maybe in Japan it's going to What were you trying to do? be Doohan or maybe (Alex) Barros or Just get the hand ling better than an y of the other guys. So it's not like what it was. We came back the next it's going to be one guy . It looks like, to day and it was raining and we weren't everybody, n ot to me, to everybody able to improve our time, but we were tha t I talk to, tha t this year is not going to be one guy and then the other ones, bu t mo re guys together. Th at's why he's saying that all of those guys make up the five. Do you know what tracks you don't expect to do as well at and do yo u have a plan for them? We prep ared more this year than we have in th e past and we kn ow where we need to be. And you're prepared not to win a race to win the title? We know where we need to be at for each round. What about Suzuka? It would be great to win in Japan. Why? Th ere mig h t be a lot of Jap anese pe ople wh o would sell th eir Hondas an d Yamahas an d Suzukis and go out and buy a Ca gi va , and that wo uld be grea t. Toti Latorre: It' s always nice to beat your enemy in his own house. JK: Tha t's whe re you're in the pool of sharks by yourself. And always just being on the Cagiva is a real special feeling. There's only one of them out here and the y take care of the whole always second or third qu ickest in the budget. wet. In the wet, I was the most consisHow much of this yea r is looking to tent guy ou t there in both sessions. And th e future? How much of this year is we were fairly confid en t that it wo uld looking to next year? Are you worried be a lit tle bit better in the d r y . O f about th e wa y yo u we re trea ted b y course, on Sunday the warm-up wa s Suzuki and the things that happened? still we t so we couldn't try our stuff in Would you be ab le to get a ride ? the d ry. It was just throw some tires on I can do the wh ole thin g. I can do all it and hope that what we have works. of tha t without any trouble. What we ha d was working a lot better To ti Lator re: I' m go ing to answer tha t what we had on Friday, and then that question because I'm taking care of the clutch went out . It went out from a percent of the bus iness - that involves the second lap on, so, basically, I rode me more. Before now, John wasn' t onl y the whole race with no clutch. taking care of the riding, he was taking Had th is sh own up in testi ng? care of all those things - he was fighting Nope, nev er had that trouble. against those things. You understand In Malaysia, I noticed that Doo han ~ha I' m saying? So to me, those things ..! . w as abl e to stand the bike u p an d wci-enega tiverorurrc so'he-sti1l has-to - '- accelerate on the fa t part of the ti re. figh t aga inst those th ings; he' s got to Ha ve you ever considered that as a fight against his own team... Really, way of getting traction you may have he's got good communication with his to aIte r your ridi ng style ? sponsors so when he wants something, In Malaysia, we were kind of being they just give it to him . My understa ndkept from doing that. And we were trying is that all of them want to give to ing to do that all week but it jus t didn't Jo h n for next year. We ' ve seen th e work ou t. other offers; if they are better, you take What was keep ing you from doing .that? - it, if not, you leave it. But before, it was no t just that - the lies that they would The bike wa s just not working th e tell you, the problems that you would wa y we wanted it to. We knew that have becau se of corruption, the things from the practice. sessions. As yo u that yo u never knew abo ut because know, I never got into the 24s and that they never told yo u. Th is th ing is so was a pretty clear sign tha t. something ea sy com pared to befor e th at we are might not be ri ght - because the lap relieved . Now it's my job to keep it. times we did in Malaysia, and even the It's obvious from wa tch ing you on race times , were really slow . It was disthe track that you're rid ing harde r ap pointing for me . Even though I finthan anyone else . Can you keep that is he d in second place, I was ridi ng up for the whole year? around so slow that it's hard to believe I'm going to ride harder for the rest you could even be se co nd in a race. of th e ye ar . When yo u lose ground Even in '93 the lap times were embarcoming out .of the comers, you've got ' rasstngly slow. You kn ow , w e' re out th ere to go fast and we could n ' t; we just couldn't get th ings working the way we wanted to and that's what we had to deal with. You coul d n't get it set up to come out of the com ers? It w asn 't actually holding the line we wanted it to hold. We tried ju st abo u t everything we knew of at th e time. But you kn ow our testing this ' win ter has been pretty sha llow, really, we didn't do a whole lot. We definitely need to do some more testing to get to know more about what we have. Are the re any more tests planned? I'm trying to. Why wasn't there more testing? You'll ha ve to ask Ago (Agosti ni) that. If you d o get more te sting, w hat will you concentrate on ? Even the testing we h ad - we got rain ed out in Malaysia for a day. We never got the full amount of testin g when we were there. We only wen t to Eastern Creek for tw o days, and the thing is, we're the onl y one out there running the '94 bike. The Cagi va team is running ' 94 stu ff. Ever yo ne else is running '91, '92 stuff. You pretty much know those bikes from head to toe. With the '94 bikes, it takes time to figure (thi n gs ) o u t w hen yo u ge t into these situations. Tha t' s the importance of the whole thing: When you get in to trou ble, how fast can you get ou t? What I forgot to ask you last time we' spoke was wh y you took th e Suzuki 250 ride las t year? I don't think that's ever been explained. Toti La to rre: Wh y? Be cau s e he d idn 't listen to me. Is that true, John? Yep. . What didn't you listen to? Some very, very professional advice . Toti Lato rre: I just couldn't un derstand how this manager da red to offer him that ride when we knew tha t Cagi. va was pushing Gary (Howard) so hard to get John. They eve n ph on ed me at my house to try to convince John to take that Cagiva. And Gary kept pushing John ove r the limit to tak e th at Suz uki because , I don ' t know , he wo u ld tell him m an y th ings that I didn' t agree with. And that 's what hap pened . Joh n listened to him one more ti me and he screwed h i m . Now it shows that if he wou ld have taken the Cagiva from the first minute, it would have been better. I heard John ask him (Howard) wh y he shouldn't take the Cagiva . Gary (Howard) told him that it wa s not a good rid e for h im. Now it shows it was. When did you realize it wa sn' t a good idea, John? . Toti Latorre: Excuse me, I want to add one th in g. I don 't kno w ho w a manager who works for the rider dares to offer a 250cc ride to a guy who fin ished third in the championship in the 500cc class. Was it because there was a promise of a SOOcc Suzuk i ride somewhere down the road ? . Toti Latorre: No thing tha t I know in the pap ers. What do you mean in the papers? Nothing in the contract? Toti Latorre: No, not that I know ,' But was it ever sa id to you that if things went we ll you might end up on the SOO? Toti Latorre: Well. if things go well who kno ws what can happen? That's kind of rid iculous. But was that the reason you took it, John, because you thought you might end up on the 500 at some point? No. When d id you think th at things weren't going right or that you didn't make the right decision? In testing. Before the season started? Yeah . The team didn't listen. I was in that same situation where it was like you were talking to yourse lf. The thing is, the whole deal was a scanda l - just a one hundred perce nt scan dal. Were you worr ied about yo ur career after you left the team? Were you worried that you would n't be able to find a ride? No, because Toti was taking care of it. . Had yo u tal k ed to Ca glva abou t finishing out the seaso n wh ile you we re still with the Suzuki team ? N o, I never talked to the m, but I think Toti might hav e had a conversation with them. You apologized after the inciden t in Holland (where Kocinski failed to appear on the podium after finishi ng second in the 2S0cc race in the Lucky Strike-sponsored Dutch TIl. No, that's not true. There was a press release with your name on it. You read that wrong. Toti Latorre: We apologized to the sp ons or, that's a ll. The th ing is th at spons or d idn't pa y us the mone y that th ey owe u s, so we mayb e h ave to retire tha t apology. You know what I'm sayin g? We apologized because we d idn' t feel tha t Lucky Strike Suzuki (should get) the blame on the thin g that wa s going on , you know . We apo logized to (Lucky Strike's) Bert Kremer; we didn't feel that he knew what was going on there . JK: The thing is, Bert Kremer was the guy who came in th is (last ) year, and we felt Bert was a fairly genuine indivi d u al. We thought ab out what was going on and he was in the process of learning. And we specified, specifically, in that press release that we were apologizin g to Bert Kremer, and , at that tim e, m y s p onsor Luck y St ri ke because Bert was with Lucky Strike. On e thi ng Kenny Ro ber ts mentioned to me was that th e Cagiva team wa s the best for y ou b eca u se they did n't ha ve a sp onsor and you didn' t have to be distracted from racing. Do you agree with tha t? No. You think you can serve a sponsor and still do the job on the track? I th in k I can do the job as good as anybod y out there. CN