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making tons of money. I'm not doing it
for that I'm doing it because I like to race. '
It just happens that I get paid good to do
what I like to do and I'm happy with that
And that's good enough for Scott
_
You just concentrate on what goes on at
the track?
'
It's a good deal. Me and Rob (Muziy) doing the Kawasaki thing has been real '
good forme.
Are you surprised by that?
Yeah, because I rode for Suzuki and I
know how that deal went for me. And I
see all these other racers skipping from
team to team. They don't know what
they're going to .do at the end of the year. I
never felt that way - even when I had oneyear deals. I did one-year contracts all the
way up to this last year. And then Ducati
came along and wanted me to do this and
I taIked to Rumi. You know, there was a
lot of talking going on. But the real deal
would have been Ducati or Kawasaki . We
kept hoping to hear from the 500 people,
but it never happened. I didn't pick up the
phone to call them. I never felt like I
wasn't going to have a job, starting from
1990 right up to last season. I just never
had that season. And then, in the middle
of last year, I got to thinking - I'm 28, I'm
fixin' to be 29 and I really don't know how
much longer I want to do this. I want to
put a good deal together, a multi-year
deal, so that I'm all right when I'm done.
That way I can quit worrying about that I
wasn't worrying about it much anyway,
but I can guarantee you that everyone else
out there is . They're wondering what
they're going to do next year . Because if
they don't perform, they definitely are
going to worry about it Even if they do
(perf~ well), it's never a sure thing. So,
for me, It was a good deal to get this done,
to know what I'm going to do and jus t
concentrate on racing.
Did you and Rob hit it off right away?
The first year (Doug) Chandler was their
guy - he was the main man on the team.
When we went into the season, it wasn't
really that way. He ended up winning
more races and it turned out he was the
guy, and I was the next guy that came up.
And that's why Rob hired me, I think.
When Doug moved out, I'd be the gu y to
take over and it worked out exactly like
that
The question was one more of communication.
He had so much experience working with
other people. I wasn't getting that from
where I was before. When I got with him,
he didn't like me on a lot of things. But I
really didn't learn a lot more until '92 and
'93 when I started going to Japan a lot
and testing. You've got to go test You've
got to change everything as far as a
motorcycle goes to figure out what it does.
You can't just change compression and
rebound and ne ver learn anything. He
helped me a lot, but. I credit a lot of stuff
that I learned too to having the opportunity to test with the Japanese.
How long did it take to get over not winning the championship in 1991?
Not long. I knew in the back of my mind
that I was the champion. I won most of
the races. It just so happened that I didn't
get the number one plate or the bonus
check. I was all right with that. After a
couple of days, I was over it You've just
got to go harder next time; we did, and
we won it I feel that I should have won
the championship in '89 and '91 and '92.
But the best one was to 'come here last
year, the first year here, to come to 50% of
the tracks that I'd never seen before - and
at a lot of them set pole position. I was real
happy with that part of it. Coming into it,
I thought I had these guys covered. '1 can
. handIe these guys: It didn't work out that
way. We dealt with it, and we still came
_ out on top. _ _
..:.
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