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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127693
By Dean Adams Photos by Henny Ray Abrams hough he's too modest to come right out and say it, Jimmy Filice knows he could run at the front of an AMA U.S. Superbike National in 1995. That's right, Jimmy Filice - Mr . 25Occ. It is easy to forget that the AMA 's all -t ime winningest 250cc rider once rode a su perbike with the best of them, but it's all there in black and white. In 1987, Fil ice wa s a member of Yamaha's factory superbike team , riding a Yamaha FZR750. Although his season started miserabl y with five non-finishes, Filice's final rides on the bike resulted in admi rable results: seco nd at Laguna Seca, third at Mid-Ohio, fifth in Memphis, and second at Sears Point. " Yeah, right, but who did he ra ce against?" Let's see. Laguna Seca final results: 1. Bubba Shobert; 2. Jimm y Filice; 3. Gary Goodfellow; 4. Scott Gra y; 5. Wa yne Rainey. Mid-Ohio final results: 1. Kevin Schwantz; 2. Wayne Rainey; 3. Jimmy Filice . Memphis final results: 1. Kevin Schwantz; 2. Wayne Rainey; 3. Bubba Shobert; 4. Doug Polen; 5. Jimm y Filice. Sears Point final results : 1. Kevin Schwantz; 2. Jimmy Filice; 3. Doug Chandler. In case you weren't counting, there were six future World Championships waiting to be won by those with whom Filice was racing. Soon after the '87 season, Filice turned his attention to 250s where he went on to win the 1988 United States GP before comp letely dominating th e AMA series in the years following. We caught up with Filice recently. to talk about his .1994 racing season, and the season that lies ahead. After winning the AMA 250cc Grand Prix race at Daytona you spent most of the season racing Grands Prix and the Spanish Ducados series for Wayne Rainey and Yamaha. That must have. been quite an experience. It was. After Daytona it looked like I was going to do two Ducados races in Spain for Wayne. At that point that is all we had for the season. Unfortunately, Kenny Junior (Roberts) was injured just after that and two GPs went by without anyone riding the Rainey 250 bike, and Wayne felt that they were going to fall far behind if they did not get a rider on the bike, way behind. So the team, Wayne and Yamaha decided to get me on the bike and to give it a try and help them set it up . You've been winning races for Wayne Rainey for a long time, so it must have been hard to go back to a situation where the bike maybe wasn't capable of winning GPs. It was tou gh on me. But it was a real good experience and I learned a lot and we worked the bike out so it was pretty good. We sorted some bugs out of it, but I had very high expectations to do well. T -.:f< 0\ 0\ rl --D rl I-< Q) 1 o :> Z 28 n't g we paBu e it a good shot and it was a good experience. It was a development situation, I knew that going in but, like I said, I expected a lot, to do very well and I didn't think anything could stop me at that point. The bike was off in handling and for me to ride hard I need a bike set up to s uit me. So we tried to get the cha ssis sorted out and at the first two GP races we really didn't have a chance - we were really just testing at the race track. You can't do that in Grand Prix Jimmy Filice (1)won the 250cc Grand Prix class at Daytona after holding off the advances of.Rich Oliver(97). racing, it's impossible - you ha ve to go there ready to do the business. The riders over there are good, very good. The bikes are fantastic, but the riders .are something else. They can do some pretty amazing things; I just wi sh I would have had some better stuff to enable me to run with them. . And you gave Roberts Jr. a pretty decent bike when you were through with it, he finished really well. You'll go down in history as the first rider on the Rainey Marlboro team. What was it like working with those guys? The 'dep th of knowledge there and the means to make the bike better just stagge r the mind. They have some of the best gu ys obviously in the world working on the technical end of tha t team, guys like Bud Askland, Doug Brauneck and Wayne's dad Sandy. Again it was a good e xperience and I learned a lot there. They had a lot of confidence in me and they treated me well and they gave I me 100% all the time. It was nice to De I involved in that quality of a team . I only I wish the results had been better. But just I to experience that was something that I. will be able to draw from in whatever kind of racing I do in the future. I really I I en joy ed racing in Europe because the people were so enthusiastic, especially in Spa in. But it was an all-new experience for me because I had never raced in Europe before. I've raced in Australia, Japan and other places, but never Europe. So (have that under my belt I. now, too. The Ducados 250 series initially went weIl for you... Yeah, we won the first race of the series after qualifying th ird. I raced with the Spanish Ducados Champion the whole race and after about 20 laps he crashed and I won the race. That was nice for me because I had just come off the GP deal and to come back and win tha t first race with the bike that I won at Daytona with was nice . Plus the press is really good there. The Spanish magazines come out the Tuesday after the race with these just beautiful color photographs. The last two races I rod e were live on television, on Eurosport. I think the Ducados series is a good series and they are passibly going to expand the series ne xt year so it's good to see racing grow like that. For someone with as versatile riding I talents as you posses, you get pigeon-?" holed more than any rider I know of. People said you couldn't ride a super- I bike back in the eighties because you i were a dirt tracker. Then, after you became a factory Yamaha superbike rider and finished on the podium in front of persons who would go on to be World Champions, they said you couldn't ride a 250. You went on to win