Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

INTE VIEW ' Jo R nCornwell basic setting. I w as really dissatis fied with the w ay thin gs were panning out with the road racing organizations in the U.S., the split between NASB and AMA , tha t and a bunch of other things. When I saw the schedu le, I didn't know if I wanted to spe nd a whole lot of time, energy and money to chase a champ ionship like that. I had a chance to learn something. to take advantage of where my career has taken m e. So mebody respected m y opinion enough to offer me this job, so I thought, "Well, I'll take it for a year, see if I like it, see wh at I learn, and take it from there." . How mu ch tr ain ing wa s re q ui re d to becom e a World Superbike sus pension exp ert? Th e r e was no tr a in in g . I wen t to Pomo na, I made plans to go to Laguna, bu t they (Oh lins) said , "No, please come to Sweden, come and talk to us abo u t this'." I was there for four or five days, getting ready, and th en I went to my first race, w hich was Misano. So I had been employed by Ohlins for less than 10 da ys when I was there, at the track. What was it like working with the top superbike teams? They're fairl y realistic, they know for the most part that I don't have a bag of magic tri cks . There reall y is no magic; it' s common sense, finding a way for three or fou r minds to w or k tog ether and find a good resolution for any par- - (Left) J on Cornwell works on the front fork of Colin Edwards II"s factory Yamaha su perbike. (Below)The four Canadians ; Miguel DuHamel, Steve Crevier, Cornwell and Pascal Picotte. By Colin Fraser Photos by Henny Ray Abrams, Dan O'Reil ey and Fraser he motto for Cana d ian motorcycle racing all-rou n der Jon Co rn w ell might be "bee n there, done tha t." The 34-year-old from Georgetown, On tario, n or th w est of To ronto , ri d es almost every thing on two w heels, and rides it well. In 1995, he added Professional dirt track car racer to his bulging resum e. Canada's top flat tracker in the early '80s, Cornwell sw itched to road racing and soo n earned a name on pavement. Cornwell won the Canadian Pro 250cc GP National title twice, as well as climbing the podium regularly in AMA racin g. The recent devel opment o f the 125cc class attracted Cornwell's attention, with "Corndog" winning several statesid e 125 events too. In addition, "Mr. Cornflakes" came clo se to earning the AMA GTU Endurance t itl e in 1993 riding with Owen Weichel for Chicago's 4 & 6 Racing , a nd w as a force in recent 600cc Su persport seasons aboard H o nd a CBR600 e quip ment. Co rn w ell a lso hopes to one day ride in the Intern ational Six Day Enduro wi th his Husaber g, still dabbl es in ice racing, and d irt bikes regul arly with his local club, as we ll as with proteges like AMA ' flat track star Steve Beattie. Corn well was a front-ru nner in 250cc GP action at Dayt on a last Mar ch, and ran the Pom ona U 5 and flat trac k AMA Nationals the next month. But then h is career took another big swing. when he abruptly pa rked his racing equ ipment to h e ad for Europe . Ju st as the Wo rld Superb ike Cham pionshi p 's e a so n opene d, Cornwell took a job as a techn ica l rep for fame d suspe nsion experts T 46 O hlins, looking after so m e of it s top four-stroke tearns. During the summer of 1995, Cornwell made several trips home from the Ohl ins b ase in Sw ed en, managing to lau nch his four-wheeled career driving a DIRT se ries sp rin t car. We caugh t up with Cornwell following Dunlop's Dayton a tire tests in Decem be r, w hen he dragged himself hom e to visit his wife Susa n, play with their pack of dogs and sta rt bui lding h is just-pu rchased "sec ond genera tion" sp rint car. How did th e Oh lins job com e aro und? That was an opportunity that presented itself, a nd yo u don't get ch a nces like that very often, esp eciall y with a cutting-edge company like Ohlins. They're a good company. Their stuff is so good, it's almost too good. You can al most leave the bi ke on ce yo u have a solid, ticu lar problem that the rider faces at any given track. This is opposed to one chief mechanic, trying to look after the sus pensio n as we ll as every other aspect of the bike s, including the motors. When you have someo ne totally dedicated to chassis and sus pension setu p, it makes thi ngs so much easier. It also means you can draw from a lot of d ifferen t riders, get opinions about anyone race track an d so on; you have a much bigger base of information. The pyra mid is much broader a t th e bottom; whe n you' re sitting at the top of it, or halfway up, you have a lot mo re experience to draw from. Who did you deal with at the track? Officially, the major teams we re Yamaha, Kawasaki and Prom otor Duca ti. The teams tha t I more or less worked w ith were those three p lus th e Britis h Reve Kawasaki team, the Itali an Kawasa ki team, the Italian Yamaha team, and any an d all of the Du cati pri vateers. So the only teams I didn't ha ve contact w ith was the Castro l-Honda team ... T h ey d o n ' t run O h li n s product, although their fro n t su spension looks rema rkably similar. Let's just say you can take an y of the pieces in an Ohlins ana put it in their (Hondas) forks and it would work. They have some shock techn ology that' s pretty neat. Also I was involved with the factory Du cat i team, Carl Fogarty an d (Mauro) Lucchiari. Who impressed you at the track? Actually, th ere. were a few rid ers who re ally im p ressed m e. John Reynold s (Reve Kawa sa ki, n ow s igned to lead Suz uk i's new squa d) reall y impressed me. He was always on. It didn't matter how fast th e bike w as or w hat h e wa s do ing. bu t he wo u ld come off the tra ck an d h e wo ul d h ave tried h is hardest , every single time . Anthony Gobert is imp ressive for the fact of w ha t he can get out of a bike. It's h a rd to work with Antho ny, beca u se when you have to talk to him he is inexperienced enough that he doesn't know how to give the information, or even what information to give. He finds it very difficult to think abou t all o f the things you have to think about: gearing. jetting, chassis and suspension, tires. Every single thing he find s overwhelming ri gh t n ow. Th a t' s be en hi s u sual comment: "I d on 't know how to th ink ab out all th ese things, I want to th ink abo u t one th ing at a time, not everything." What i s more importa nt w ith yo u r work, th e technical en d or th e h um an ele men t, working with the rid ers to get th em to th eir person al b est ? The human end. The m echan ical stuff yo u can con trol, but you can't control the human p art . You get a rider who is having a frustrating time, a bad p ractice or wh atever, and as a rider yourself you know what it' s like w hen people come asking ques tio ns after a session like that, as k, "What' s the bike doing?" You ' re not parti cularly concerned at a mom ent like that; yo u're p isse d off that you're no t getting the resu lts. Colin Edwards ha s diffic ulties w ith that. He spends a lot of his time broodin g ab out th e lack of re sults w ith his equipme nt , inst ead of getting on w ith the job. If Colin would turn his br ain off and just rid e, he would go a lot faster. He did that this year, at one race in particular, at Brands Hatch . He impressed everybody there, including himself. But h e se ems to ge t aw ay from th at , a nd sp end m ost of h is tim e, after the fact, pointing fingers at wh at the bike is, and what it's not , in stead o f d oing something constructive. W e' ve hea r d th at y o u were wellresp ect ed in th e pits for yo u r k n ow le d ge a n d abili ty , but n ot everY0'1e ap p reciated your frankn ess. I've had a lot of trouble w ith that, especially wi th the Japa nese and some of the Eu ropeans. Th ey don ' t wa n t to hear w ha t you have to tell them. I'm not the kind of guy who is going to sugarcoat it. Either you get ou t there and get down to doing some quick times and come back and tell me wha t the bike is doin g. but d on't drone aroun d four or five secon ds off the pace and tell me the bike doesn 't handle. You can' t tell at th at spee d. It's a total w aste of time, becau se any adjustments you make for that speed are not going to be good enough for when you get up to racing spee d . That's the hardes t th in g . I w as to ld b y eve ry body, inclu ding my boss, that I have to try and tone th at d ow n, b ut unfo r tuna tely I

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