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/127714
I'm pretty much on m y o w n. I d on't really talk to anyone. . How's th e food? I don't really mind the food tha t much because I've gotten used to it. I also take a Sarnsonite packed with food like macaroni an d ch eese every time I go over. Also, there's some stores that sell American stu ff to you like magazines and food and whatever , but it' s pretty expensive. What's television li ke ov er th ere? The y have three channels that alternate back and forth between English and Japanese, so I can usually see something on TV all the time. Is Japan w atch ing th e O.J. Simpson thi ng? (Laughs) Oh yeah, the y're really into it. I remember the day he was driving that Bronco through LA. I was watching but . I co u ld n 't quite figure o u t wha t was going on. The re were people hangin g off the bridges and standing alongside the road and all that. I mean, if you couldn't understand what the announcers were saying, w ould you ha ve known what was going on? Let's get back to racing. Are the riders in Ja pan clean or dirty on the track? Actually, some of them reall y are dirty guys over there am ong the top guys. I th ink " Chicken" will fit right in ov er there . That's right. Jeff "Chicken" Matiasevich is going to Japan this year for Kawasaki. Wh at happened to Kawasaki Japan's old rider, Eddie Warren? He went back to Australia. Did you guys ever hang out togeth er? No, not really. It was kin d of hard to because we lived so far apa rt and it's so expensive that you can't really go see each other on a w eekend. During the week you are busy riding and testing. We hung out and spoke a lot at the races bu t, then again, I wa s brought to Jap an to beat him. It was kind of hard for us to get really close. And now Kawasaki 's bringing over Matiasevich to beat you, right? Yes. How does "Japanese Na tional Motocross Champion" translate into Japan ese? I hate to tell you, but I ha ve no idea how yo u would say that in Japanese! Do they televise the races in Japan? Most of the time, yes. This p as t year almos t every race was televised all over the country. Do peopl e ever re cog ni z e you away . from the track? No, not really. Sometimes at the airport peo ple will recognize m e b u t that's about it. When will you go back to Japan to start prepping for the .'95 seas on? . I'm not going back until after Daytona in March, so I will probably race the Gainesville 250 National and the Daytona Supercross just to get in some racing. It should be a lot of fun. How lega l wou ld th e bi ke you race in Japan be if you b rought it to America and tried to' race it? Nothing on it wou ld be lega l (und er the production rules of AMA motocross). The bike I rid e in the '95 Nationals will be a pre-prod uction '96 bike and practicall y everything on it is different from the '95. I don't think they would let me ou t on the track in America with it. So you probably have a lot of in fluence on what gu ys will be raci ng nex t year. I wouldn't say that I have a whole lot of influence. I do a lot of the testing and I help with the earl y development. But as far as true influence goes I sa y, "Yeah, this feels good," or "No, this feels bad," and they kind of go from there. I give them some help on the bikes, but I'm really jus t over there to w in races. a 25