Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Did you have any second thoughts about going straigh t intothe Expert ranks in road racing? I've been thrown in wi th a pack of wo lves, you could say . But it's a learning year for me and I look forward to the challenge of going ou t ther e an d learning how to road rac e - and I also look forward to bei ng a rookie again. That's going to be a lot of fun . O ne of your las t road races was ab oard a Wood-Rotax in th e 250 ra ce here at Dayto na. It w as about '88. It wa sn 't a real good deal for me . The thing slid around quite a bit, but I don't know if I was ready to be a development rider on that bike at th a t ti m e : The la st road race th a t I rem ember was Memph is in 1988 o n Lucifer' s Hammer, back in the Battle of the Tw in d ays . It wa s smoking hot. Plus, that bike didn't have all the best guards on it. I think I rem em ber having burns on my leg s from the ex haust p ip es. It wa s so hot it burned the heck out of it. When did you start discu ssing the possibility of ro ad racing wi th Harley? I approa ched Ha rley w hen Steve Scheibe h ad come aboard a co u ple of yea rs ago, w hen the bike was getting closer and closer to getting on the track, and I'd men tion ed to th em th a t I'd be in terested in riding the motorcycle. We ha d tentatively scheduled a test session at Moroso Motorsports Park in Feb ruary of this year, It just didn't work ou t. They we re und er the gu n ge t t in g thi ngs goi ng. They were afraid of me going out and h urti ng th e b ike o r crashi ng the bike or so mething like that, at the time. They di dn' t want to ru n the risk of that so close to D~ytona . And I thi n k they only had a couple of bikes at the time. So th at go t p os tponed, but I ta lked to them a couple oftimes durin g the year an d we ha d someth ing se t u p for the week after Springfield th is year. Bu t I en ded u p spraini ng my ankle severely and I was right in the middle of a points chase. I rea lly wanted to ge t on the bike sooner than I d id, an d it just didn't work out tha tI cou ld beca use my ankl e was hurting and I needed to reha b it. I was raci ng at Castle Rock in six d ays fro m the time I go t hurt. So we scr apped tha t and we we nt for the week after Del Mar. We wen t ou t to Blackhawk Farms on the Illin ois- Wisconsin border. Things came arou nd, I started to ge t a goo d feel for thi ngs and did all righ t. So we decided to go ahead and 'make me the numbertwo rider. When did you actuall y app roach Harley? Was it this year or las t year? It was n' t really me seeking them out. I didn't kn ow what th eir interests were, w h o th e y h ad in m ind, an d I had exp ressed an interest in the past, and it's on e of those thi ngs tha t just kind of ge lled together. It's good for them, it's good for me. It jus t hap pened . Wh en was the decision actually made th at you would race this next year? Pro bably, I woul d say, th e evening of the last d ay of testing. You didn't know all through the seaso n that this is what you'd b e doing. On the las t day of testing at Blackhawk in Octobe r, I'd pro du ced so me respectable times in my last session out. I'd ga ined a lot in my last 15 to 20 laps that I'd ridden on the bi ke and th a t' s whe n they rea liz ed, and tha t' s w he n I realized, that this is a goo d opportu nity for eve rybody. I'm a Harley man and I ha ve bee n . I signe d my contract for this year, and it's m y 10th year wi th Ha rleyDavi dson . I think it's goo d for Harley in the sense that the y have a gu y that is a rea l Harl ey rid er that' s b e e n rid ing them . Not somebod y that shu ffles in for a ye a r and is off to so mewh ere el se. I th ink it's not only good for th em, it's good for me too . This way I'm not bu rning any bridges. If I make a mockery of m yself and fail at the superbike th ing, I still have an inroad to go ba ck to d irt track. Are you going to do 18 dirt tracks th is year? Theoretica lly I could do 18, but I won't. There are a lot of variables; it depends on th e sche dules. I have had a look a t th e ten ta tiv e dirt track sched ule, bu t I h a ven ' t seen th e road race one y et. I would imagin e that I would do between 12 and 15, depend ing on where they fall and wha t tracks they are. I do n't want to go to so me of th e ga rbage tracks, th e ones that yo u have to get a holesh ot in order to win. With the exception of the sho rt track here (at Daxtona) - becau se I've don e well here in the past, and Tm the defend ing cha mpion, so I'd like to go do that agai n. Is this a on e-year contract? All of my contracts are. This is my 10th one-yea r cont ract with Harley. When you were te sting, I understand you first went ou t on a Su zuki. The firs t h alf of th e first day, Miguel. (Du Hamel) and I, wh en he was still testin g fo r Ha rl ey, went o ut and raced rental cars aro und the track to blow wet leaves off becau se it was the beginning of fall in Wisconsin. I learned a little bit of the track in the rental car so at least I k ne w w hich wa y to g o when I wen t around the tu rn . We did that the firs t half of the first da y, but the track wa s a bit damp. So I rode Steve Scheibe's personal GSXR1100 wit h Supersport tire s, basically in Supersport trim. And rod e it around p ret ty much the ma jority of the first two and a half days. And then we had had a few teething problem s with the VR and I got on it the secon d ha lf of the last d ay and got in ab out 30 lap s. And at the end of that I got within 1.1 seconds of Migu el's time for that week, his best tim e for that week. What were your in itial impressions of the VR1000? I really don't have a who le lot to compare it to as far as road racers go. It's a real nimble bike. It turns really 'Yell and it's stable. And the track we rod e on is a bit on the rou gh side, wit h a few pavement changes th rough severa l of th e comers. In fact, apexes in jus t ab out all of th e corners a re a di ffe rent type of asphalt than what you 're normally ridin g on in the straig htaways. So havi ng the different type of pa vem ent changes and ha vin g r ou gh tra ck, th e b ik e seemed to swallow up the bumps pretty well and it fit me good . The only thing they ha d to do was - the bike I was rid ing was the one Fritz Kling rode in the past - and it wa s a little bit long in the sea t, so they had to shorten up the seat. What dirt track s kills did you b ring to it? I'm not to the point that I' m applyi ng a lot of my dirt track ski lls. I wo uld say if an y, the exit of the comers is where I'm usi ng more of my dirt track skills. A little bit of the slid ing com ing out. I used mor e of them on the GSXR beca use that thing felt like it had two swingarm pivots on it. The thing danced around quite a bit with the stree t tires on it in compar ison to the Harl ey. The Harley just stu ck .so mu ch bett er. So I found myself ga ining more and m o re co n fidence wi th slicks on, and going faster and fas ter and reali zin g that th is bike will allow me to do more than the Suzuki did. How much more testing will you get in before the Da ytona 200? I' ll proba b ly be on it at lea st once or twice before the week of the 200. The test schedule hasn 't been set yet. Do es it matter who your teammate is? In a sens e it d oes. It certai nly needs to b e , fo r m e, so me body w h o 's in m y ga rage tha t I can go to and be able to ask some advice. I don ' t know who the best person for tha t is. I've known Doug (Chandler) m y whole life, just about. We've raced against each other growing up . We were kind of riv al s as kids. I have a lot of re sp ec t for not on ly th e guys who are tryi ng out for the num beron e spot on the Harley team, but I have a lot of resp ect for the other guys who I'm racing wi th. I've ha d several of the riders already this week tell me tha t if I ha ve any questions to go ahead and ask . They said they 'd be more than hap py to help me. It' s a gre at bunch of guys, And that's always nice to feel we lcome d like that and not feel like an outs ider com ing in. I've go t several ears I can bend while I' m goi ng th rough th is learning process. What I'm wondering more about was 'for development. You' ve made it pretty clear that you' re the number-two gu y. I kn ow in my heart and in m y mind tha t I'm the' number-two guy. The re mi ght be so me little things that I might be able to cha nge. As far as being able to tell wha t is rig ht and what is wron g right now , I d on 't have the background for it. An d I, in no way, sha pe, or form am I try ing to insinu ate that I'm the numberone rider. How long do you expect it to take before you feel comfortable? I kn ow that I felt comfortable at Blackhawk abo u t 25 laps in, but I had been ridi ng on the track for a couple of days on something else that didn' t run quite as good or ha ndle qu ite as good as what I was on . That's hard to say. Not only do I have to lea rn how to rid e, I also have to learn tra cks at the same time. Ob viously, Troy Corser had no problem wi th that last yea r. But he's got a huge road race background. It's easy to learn dirt tracks. Yeah, tum left 98.8 percent of the time. For me to go ou t and, not only do I have to concentrate on techniqu e, I also have to learn which way I need to tum and when. Have you thought a'bout road racing full time? Giving up dirt track entirely. At thi s point, no . Part of m y deal with Ha rley-Davidson is to dirt track 12 races on the 750s an d any of the sho rt tracks ' a n d TTs that I d o are s trictly on my own. I've owned my eq u ipmen t in that area eve r since I've been wi th the factory . I' ve gi ven a lot o f th ought to it. I grew up in Northern California racing a hund red races a year an d last yea r I raced 27' races. Of course, when yo u go to a road race any mo re it se ems that y o u ' re raci ng t h re e d a y s ou t of the week , as lon g as you 're there. So that's going to be differen t. So having the combina tion of the tw o, I'm kind of weening myself off of d irt track, in a sense. And if things go we ll on the pavement then there will come a day when I won 't ride di rt track again on a regular basis. Are y ou go ing to m is s go ing after another title aft er this past year? I've bee n going after that title, and in the hunt, for the last six year s. This year wa s pretty close. Th e past th ree years have been close, w ith the excep tion o f '93 w hen Ricky (Graham) kicked our butts . '94 was cl os e, '92 w a s cl os e, '91 was down toward the end. We tied in '91. I'm not going to miss that in the sense that, now, the d irt tracks that I d o go to, I can go to an d enjoy racin g ins tea d ' of worrying abo u t every cotton picking position that I'm in and counti ng points in yo ur head wh ile yo u' re riding . I' m lookin g forward to goi ng to thedirt tra ck s a nd enjoying them for racin g. Did the possiblity of road racing in 1995 affect the way you approached dirt tracks at all lasl year? No, not at all. I wasn 't con cerned at Del Mar that if I stuck my foo t in a hole, like I did in Springfield , and tw isted it that I couldn't get to go testing for Harley and it w ould je o p a r d ize it. I was reall y putting the road racing off as best as I could. I didn't want to go out on th e bike too soon because I was focused on th e dirt trac k ch ampionship. Th at' s 31

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