Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

The Swis s compan y Swi s s auto ha s bu ilt a V-four s ideca r engine which will be run in a Harris chassis and ridden by Ad ri an Bosshard later on in the 500cc season. Swissauto wants to sell a compl e te 500cc GP b ike w ith LCR cha s s i s for 100,000 Sw is s Fran cs in 1996. This is a third of the price of a ROC Yamaha. You are loo king forward to that? Very much. WhJ' is the Yamaha stu ff so expensi ve ? H a ve n 't yo u been reading? Fo r fo ur years I have been saying I don't understand this. It' s (a 500 engine) four 125s pu t together. Figure it out yo urself! Are they making m o ney o r losing m oney? It ' s n ot up to m e to write th a t. I a m working wi th th at compan y. Bu t I am th e most voca l about it. I h ad 10 bikes goin g to America for a racing class over th ere . I wanted to m ak e the b ik es in England . I knew I cou ld mak e it cheaper. When th ey sa id th ey'd tak e care of th at, I told the m: Hey, the price has got to be low. All of a su dden w hen I sai d I' m not doing that becau se they o nl y wanted to build 10 engines, the price went up. Harris and ROC have not so ld a single '95 bike yet. Well , Swissauto will sell a lot of these Swi ss engine s. If I wasn't with Yamaha, I would have mad e thi s e ngine four years ago. The same id ea, the same principle w e had already tested. We built a prototype a lon g tim e ago. Let's talk about 199 5. Norifumi Abe has a contract with Wayne Rainey but he rid es in you r team.. Wayne started talking to h im at the Ja panese GP . Wayne asked me about him and I said, Put hi m on a letter of int en t. So Wayne tried all se aso n to get him on a letter of in tent . When it came to abo u t the Frenc h GP, it wasn' t fin ish ed yet. Whe n Honda heard a bo ut it they let Abe go. But Abe cou ldn't ride a bike u n til a fter the (Suzuka) 8- Hour be cau se he had a com mitment. Wayne had him on a contract by then and still has him on a con tract. If Wayne needs him for a 250 he ha s go t him. Abe wa s either going to ride fo r Wa yne o r me. The kid knew he had a job . It w as ju st diffe rent money . Because Wayne had (Tetsuya) Harad a an d Kenny [ r., we decided Abe w oul d ri de in m y 500cc team in 1995. That's why he has also go t a contract with me. But the original contra ct is wi th Wayne. It's difficult to find a 19-year-old who is able to lead a 500cc GP. Didn't you want to put Abe on a long-term contract? I d on ' t believe in long-term contracts. Because if the rider gets offered another mill ion dollars somewhere he is going to come back to you and sa y: Hey, you have sig n ed me on a three-year deal. And I don't like to have a rider unha ppy . If they want to go they can go . I either find ano ther one or I have to pay him. I ha ve always found ou t that con tra cts aren't worth a shit. I d on't need a contract. Your idea is to make Abe happy this year so he doesn't want to leave. Yes, if he w ants to race wi th us - great. If he wants to race with H on da or Wayne or whoever, I'll find another guy. For a while you thought about hiring a third 500cc rider, like Doug Chandler? Yes, we kick ed it aro und . But th ings go t late and Wayne's team didn't ge t sett led until rea l lat e. Luca Cadalora wa sn't happy with the idea of a third rider? H e ag ree d at th e en d . It would n't have been a third rider. It would have been a rider of an oth er small team. With a different sponsor like with Rand y Mamola and Budweiser in 1992? Pos sibly. At one point, Wa yne Rainey thought about running Kenny Jr. in the 500c c class? Wa yne was putting to gether sponsorshi p d eal s and o ne popped o u t th at wanted one guy in 500 and one in 250. He tho ught about this for a while. You prefer Kenny Jr. to stay in 250s for another yea r? Kenn y had mad e a co m m itme n t to Wayne to run in 250 earl y on as we were trying to ge t Wa yn e's team es tablis hed last year, and to get spo nsorshi p to h im so he could have a full racing team. And Ken ny wa s part of it. If Kenn y wants to ride 250 - no problem. If he wants to ride 500 then we would look at it. If he asked you for advice? . I wou ld run hi m on a 500. H e would ha ve to ask me if he wanted to go 500 raci ng. The Gennan data-recording specialist Dirk Debus noticed at the Malaysian test that Kenny Jr. rode very smoothly, fast and consistently. Ralf Waldmann has to improve a lot compared to Kenny, he said. Waldmann has been to my ranch a couple of times and th at' s it. He thinks he knows how to roa d race. You can't help everybody. The problem is, riders usually come to us when they are out of a job. When they are factory riders, th ey go for ni ce ca rs and pretty girls. When you weight test them - they go uu uuaaaaah- hhh, stQp. But that is you guys' job . But you're not doing yo ur job . Becau se you sho uld know the riders w ho are training. That's th e problem with o ur sport: Doohan, Schwantz and those guys work so hard. And y o u gu ys jus t think Waldmann stands out there and he is the sa me, he just needs a 500. That's not true. That wa s a real p roblem in m y career. I was so m uch more fit, so much m o re foc used and so mu ch s tronger th an Barry Sheene a n d th os e guys. Nobody ever p ointed th a t o u t. It was jus t - Ro berts is faster, .and they are slower. Very few people really thought ab out it as a professiona l sport. So yo u can't expect a rider like Waldmann and those guys to go o ut ther e and keep u p on the constant cha nging of wha t a rider has to do and how fit he has to be. I think Waldmann is one of th e very se rio us guys. Because he used to come to ou r ranch. And he is not the most talen ted guy I've see n at th e ranch . But he was definitely more talen ted th an some of the guys who were there. If you see a guy like Harada or like Litt le Kenny o n a motorcycle you see th e differen ce right away ..We have got to have coach- es working on th es e yo unger g uys . Mak e them m o re knowle dgeable. And th at' s wha t our Training Camp at Barcelona is all about - giving them th e o p portu nity to have the knowledge if they wa nt it. If you send me a real slow rid er, I am goi ng to se nd yo u back a m ore kn o w ledgeable slow rider. If yo u se n d m e a fast rider; I am goi ng to send yo u back a m ore knowled geable fas t rid er. Tha t's all I am goin g to do. I can o nly give a rider the kn ow led ge th at he can use to be better. At the Australian Grand Pri x in 1994, Wayne Rai ney took o ver yo u r 250cc team. But Team Ra iney only existed on p ap er . Yo u sti ll held all th e contracts. Was th is just a friendly gesture on your pa rt? Well, I had s ta rted a n d financed th e team. Wayne is my friend and I d id th at to get him sta rted. Yo u d id all the deals w ith the s p o n sors? There were no sp o ns o rs . It was me. Same wi th John Kocin ski in 1990-. Mar lbo ro h as never run a 250cc team from Lausanne (Switzerlan d ). Thi s year is the fir st yea r th ey ' ve run one fro m La u sann e - w ith Wayn e. In the long run there could end up being so me competition between yo u and Wa yne. He wants to run a 500cc team and he may end up asking Marlboro for money. We're in competition now. It' s not a bad thing th at Wayne and I are in competition. We both like competition. We can still be friends and compete w ith teams. We ar e not fighting for Marlboro budgets. I don't think Marlboro ever wants to hav e three Marlboro Yamaha rider s full y branded. You have signed a new contract with Marlboro? Yes, tw o years and an option for another year. The same with Yamaha? We a re working on th e second year now. Have you g iven up on the idea of sw it ch ing to a different factory forever ? I look at every p roposal fr om every body. Aprilia is looking for a professional team to run their 250 and 500cc works efforts in 1996. Interested? Well, th e A p ri lia is a ve ry , very fas t m otorcycl e . They are actua lly d o in g their homew ork and they are very good people, obvio usly. W e h a d a major blow-up - years an d years it has been a big s truggle for me . I wa s not h appy w ith Yamaha's racing strategy, personnel and budgeting. But now I've go t a major co m m it- m ent fro m Yamah a' s top people. They h a ve a renew ed interest in the 500 cc class for reasons of television in China, Th ailand and othe r places. I'm happy. If I am happy, I'll never lea ve them. At the recent Jerez tes t in Spain, Loris Reggiani lapped quicker with the 400cc Ap ri li a twin than Lu ca Cadalora, Abe and Schwantz. Are you worried? The problem is we are making ru les that attract this type of sys te m . W e a re putting weight o n o u r four-cylinder 5OOs. Which is I think w rong. I think we need to li ft o u r weight lim it. Th a t ' s what's holding u s back. You wan t to li ft it b y 10 kg (6.2 pounds)? From '130 (286 pounds) to 120 (264 pounds)? I would like to see it put back to where it was - 115 kg (253 pounds). But the weight limit for twin s (100 kg/110 pounds) should sta y the same? Yes. Unless they want to make it lower . I don't care . People say to us, H ow come your 500 riders aren ' t any fas ter th an th e 25Os? Or, How com e your bikes are not going any fast er? Th is is the frustrating part. Well, they put a weight limit on u s and th en th ey ask us stu pi d stuff like this. Tell u s a bout your training camp in Barcelona. . What we ha ve la id o u t is a three-day sch ool w hich consists of learning w ha t a motorcycle does whe n it's ou t of control in the d irt, and how to co rrect it. Wh at you need to d o to make it work \0 be b etter. What it takes phys ic all y a n d mentally to be a GP rider. This th ree-day school is for the guys w ho w an t to be a racer o r race at club le vel. They d on 't h ave a fu ll und erstandi ng of what we understand when we areMick Doohan or Wa yn e Rainey, me or whoever. All th e gu y s I ever brought up like Edd ie Lawson, they all know this stuff. And we a re going to teach the m th at stuff at tha t age. As they progress they will know that inform ation . That's very cheap. We d on 't wa nt to cha rge. thes e you ng g uys a lot of money. The school is abo u t $1300. The rider s just show u p and they ge t hotel. foo d, bi ke s, h elm et s, leathers, boots, any thi ng . We ha ve a m ore com plicated th in g w hich will probably be la ter on in the summ er. After the three-d ay s chool we put them on road racers for another two da ys. Then we w ant to offer a different package to th e IRTA guys, and road racers who are on a different level. Somehow we ha ve got to make it pa y. It's a big organization and it' s costing a lot of money. We were hoping that the industry would ste p up and would w a n t to help u s a little bit. So far it hasn 't happened. Th e only people that have helped me so far are Yamaha and Marlboro. Ara i and Ga ribaldi have helped with products. If Dainese and all th ese companies would put u p a little mo ney we wouldn't have to charge the IRTA guys anything. And th at' s 'w hat we want to do. We want to wo rk w ith the IRTA guys, especially w ith th e young IRTA g uys. We will p rob ab ly have so me type of Gold Ca rd system where a s ponsor p a y s so mething like $20,000 dollars. There w ill m aybe o n ly b e 20 of them . A n d the n yo ur rider s can come any tim e they w ant. What about the 1995 United States Grand Prix at Elk hart Lake? It will be a good Grand Prix - the fastest track of the year. Work w ill be completed a cou ple of da ys before we get there. Why should it be different? No, I don't know an ything about an additional day of testing . The Americans already know where they are going. Sowhy ha ve one? l:"t

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