Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

-IN R IE Mike Smith TE V W ik e Smi th loo ke d at himself in the mirr or at the end of the 1994 seaso n and h e d idn't much lik e wha t he . saw. The resul ts weren't there, which he could deal with, but on a person al level some thing was missing. This past wi nter has been a time of reflection duri ng which he has d issected his life in to its fines t pieces, rebuild ing for the comi ng year. And he has taken to talking abo ut himse lf in the third person, a hab it so me will find annoying, but one which displays an ability to view hi mself from the outside, as others do. Mike Sm ith ar rive d fo r the 199 4 Da yton a 200 with mixed emo tions . He was in hi s th ird season on the Am erican Honda fa ct ory team and h e was b eing jo in ed b y A u s tralia n Kev in Ma gee, a fadi ng Gr and Prix sta r, bu t one wi th a lot of expe rie nce in develop ment. An d th at experience woul d be invalua ble because the team would be cam paigning the all-new and untes ted RC45, a mo torcycl e tha t came with much advance notice, but a very short gestation period . On the downsid e, Smith's personal life was in upheaval and h is marriage was breaking up, a process which began around Christmas of th e p reviou s year. He 'd depended h e a vily o n h is wife t o kee p his life org anized, and wh en she was gone it was time to start over. Dayton a wo uld be th e pla ce, th e wrong pl a ce as it wo u ld turn o u t once h e thre w a leg over the RC45. "You know how you wa nt somethi ng to be a certain wav? And, when it' s not, you keep wanting it to be that way and you do n't reali ze that it' s not that way until something happens?" Smith asks in describ ing his first impression of the RC45 at Dayton a. "I wanted it to be a certain way , but I knew b etter." So, at the very first race of the year, Smith changed his plans. "You wa nt to kn ow what I did last yea r in Superbike? I saw tha t we weren 't there at Da ytona and there' s nothing I cou ld d o abou t it. So I focused on 600s (Superspor t) and I focused on ridi ng that bike (the RC45) a~ fast as I cou ld and try ing to ou trun my teammate. I concentra ted on doing the bes t I could wi th wha t I h ad : ' The .600cc Supersport class is the most highly competitive among the riders, and, mor e im portan tly, among the .manufactu rers since the 600 is a top-selling mod el. Smith wou ld fly the Honda flag in th e class, racking up five wins and a one-p oint lead over the tenaciou s Jamie James go ing in to the penul timate rou nd at Sears Poin t In tern ation al Raceway . Then, with less th an tw o lap s to go, Smith threw it away - the race, and, ult im at el y , the cha m pionshi p . With Honda never eve n rem otely a factor in superbike racing, or any other solo class, this was their one hope an d it ended in a p ile of h ay bales ou tsi de of tu rn 10 a t Sears Poi n t. Van ce & Hin es Yam aha' s Jam es, who was press uring Smith at the tim e, saw the whole inciden t. "Mike's go t a big heart and he staye d with it to the last minu te an d it pitched him off," said Jam es, who woul d go on to win the champio nshi p at the fina l round at Road Atlanta. Smit h wen t back to h is h otel room where "life wasn' t fun " and began to reexamine his wo rld . Becau s e of h is ma ri tal break-up, Smith said he "p ut all of my effort into my racing and into the 600, because that was the best chance I had . So, bas ically, I put all that in ther e an d had a lot to lose. And I lost a lot at Sears Point. H

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