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/127698
took that first year, and I knew what happened last year was going to happen. Th ere 's a good scen ario, bad scen ario. There's only aboo t two of them. It could have been better than what we expected, it could have been worse. It was actually what we expected, which was like many teething problems and stuff like that that gets to you. And I went through that in the hope of next year getting, still, I guess, the recognition from my team and everybody there and looking forward to next year like, "You did such a great job this year we definitely want you ne xt year and we'll do this deal," or whatever . I think they wanted me back but not as bad as th e fir st yea r. That w as disappointing. I mean, yo u can't hide it. I wen t th rough a wh ole year I cou ld ha ve jus t signed up with somebody else, Honda or Kawasaki, and had a m uch better vear and still I wo uld not be with Harle y when it starts to pay off. When the bike's the lightest it' s been and I know from being w ith th em how m uch h o rse p o w e r they gained ; they gained quite a few, I mean we 're talki ng a big step forward. I knew all this and all th e time th at we were with them o u r co m p le te willin gness or whatever, we reall y wanted to be with them. But in no way, shape, o r fo rm, I'm sayi ng th is because I read it somewhere and it's not true, that we had a verb a l agreement with them o r any thi ng else. They had a con trac t out, and we d id not want th at co ntract. We still wanted to ride with them. We said th is is what we need, this is wh at yo u shou ld give u s, as far as every th ing goes . They were buckin g on a d etail, I think it' s almost a d etail fo r Harley-Davidson, and reall y little things. And I think it was reall y a case of somebody saying, "Thi s is the de al, take it or lea ve it." Becau se when Honda showed up - before that it w as alw ays "Okay, we'll try to do this, we'll try this, try that" - there's more ways to skin a fish or a cat, or whatever the expression is, when you want something bad enough. For a while it seemed we were trying to move something, but it w asn't m o ving . And, of course, all of our rid e offers were going down. I mean, everybody was signing up this season and testing. I think it was a gamble they took which could work. I mean if you don't have any more rides after a while and you hang there long enough, that's it, you ha ve to take that ride. Which, as far as rid es go, I would not be happy about as far as the contract goes. But, 10 and behold, Honda ju s t came up and this was like a tw o-day deal. They called us up one day and said, "Here's the deal and we don't ha ve that much time. We've got to get on with our plans." Because we'd been talking on and off with them for a while, during the season, during the off-season. Them and Kawasaki and Yamaha even came out. Mostly Honda really wanted us bad. And many times we told them what we thought and what we'd like to see and they'd go, "No, we can't do that" and they'd leave. But they wanted u s bad enough that they came back. They had a really good offer, pretty much what we wanted, exactly what we wanted. And you appreciate th at too . It's not just that , th e fact o r m oney or bonus terms. It's them kn owing th at they have that much confidence in you, saying "okay, yo u're the man for our job, we want you guys to d o th is right. " I co u ld h a ve just s ai d , " Yes," and tha t w as it, th e en d of th e story , but I wanted to give Harley ano th er sho t. Becau se I'm saying, "H ey, don 't lose me, I like to stay with you guys." So you went back to them after you got the offer from Honda? We h ad to go out of ou r way because Ste ve Sch eibe was o n vaca tio n, which was a sha me, bu t he was on vacation. . From what I understand, he rarely takes vacations. No, never , never. And ahead of him is Mar k Tuttle and we go t in contact wi th him th rough his secretary, and told him it was urgent. We got him out of a meeting and told him about it just to let him kn ow wha t's go ing on and the delays. I d on 't know if they thought we w e re bluffin g or something. Basi call y, th ey said, "Th is is the deal, take it or leav e it." It carne pretty much down to that. As far as hearing that after the special circu mstances of the first season I went through, it didn't make any sense for me to stay with Harley when Honda and Smokin' Joe carne up to me and exp ressed such a need and want to have me for many reasons, my ridi ng talent and .PR management and so on . It's kind of hard to describe the situ ation becau se, of course, this year, like I said, th e bike's lighter, fas te r, and has more horsepower. I'd like to see that pa y off. But that's gone and done. How much better was the bike at the end of the year than when you got it? From the beginning of the year? Do you want me to put in percentage or so methin g? Was it better significantly in every way? You almost can 't compare th e tw o. We, basically, almost did tw o years' evolution in one, I think . We fo u n d so me b ig th ings. Any other way of going abo u t it would have been wrong. So they did that righ t. And at the en d of the yea r it wa s goi ng well. We d id n't have th at many problems . We pretty mu ch go t away from teethin g problems and stu pid stuff that on a new bike wo uld occur to where I was thinking, "We' re d own on horsepower, we need power." So they worked o n it, they found it. The bik e definitely was a hundr ed percent better th an whe n we s ta r te d a n d a h undre d percen t lighter, too . Had you ever worked that much on a bike? Had you ever had to do that much development? My da d always helped me in mo tocross, and w hen I s ta rted road racing I ha d loc al d eal e r sponsors hi p and th e g uy ยท came along and he wo rked on it. I understand a little bit of it, but there's no way I'm going to be a mechani c or any desire to be one. So I just tell them what's going o n . I' ve go t sort of an understanding abo ut it, but just en ough to get me by, I gu ess. Did you think you'd win a race this year? Th at was my expectation. When you started? When I started, before we signed even. Probably by a co u p le of track s th at I knew like Mid-Qhio. Brain erd wa s a big su rp r is e, a b ig su rp r is e . I think that th ere a re a lot o f p e opl e w h o s a id, "There' s such a long stra ight, how corne yo u're in front. They're not that fast. Or why do yo u suppose they're not that fast ?" The thing is, there are two corners that demand ed a lot of sp eed and a well- set -up bike. I would s crea m through those corners and wind up on th e brakes reall y hard and make up all my time through there. Through the rest of the race track I was at least the sa me, if not faster. Did you ever have to ride that hard through a whole season? Because you could see, whether it was you or the bike, that you were trying. Every tim e I go riding I try to rid e th at hard. Some times it d oesn 't look as obvious because there's not such a big ga p of ho rsepower or wha teve r. I was workin g really hard, but the bike was handling really we ll and permitted me to do that. Th at' s w hy it loo ked so obvious . I've worked before on othe r bikes tha t sort of went unnoticed and this was also part of the deal w hen I signe d up with them, I said " this is goi ng to be a good sho wcase for peo ple realizing the speed and talent and the di fferen ce a rider could do." How did it affect your riding? It didn't. It just sharpened it up. Braking deepe r and later, as possi ble. And being o ne-hun dred- percen t o n a ll the ti me probably increased some com er speed. I th ink all an d all I wasn' t lacking th a t much befo re I rode it. Did having a second rider change the team at all? I don 't think so. Basically we knew that Fritz (Klin g) w as go ing to come on the team because he tested the bike before I did and d id well on it. I think, of course, th ey wanted two riders because of th e possibility of breakage of one bike, which turned ou t right. For some reason, which th ey couldn't explain, Fritz's bike would al ways get to the end of th e ra ce and min e was always s to p p in g for so me probl ems. And that led some people to believe that the bikes weren't th e same, but they were exactly the same. Do you think it's because you rode yours harder? I don't know. I'm not a mechanic. I definitely rod e it as hard as I could. I think it probably took a toll on it. We consumed more gas and stu ff like that. I gu ess I was rou gh managin g it, a lot rou gher maybe, and maybe it cam e to make it break a bit. What did it feel like to get on the Honda RC4S? . The biggest thin g about the RC45 is that 49