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/127772
an .INTERVIEW Team Hondam ager Gary Mathers 22 ith 30-som e ye ars of snowm obile a nd mot orcycle racing experience behind h im, silver-hai red Ga rv Mathers has seen a lot. As the racing mana ger of Team Kawasak i (1979-1985) and the current racing bo ss for American Honda, the list of rid er s whose contract s have floated across h is d esk r ea ds like a who's wh o of motorcycle racing: Edd ie Lawson, Wa yn e Rainey, Fred Merkel, Jeff Stanton, Rick Johnson, Jean-Michel Bayle, Ricky Graham, Bubba Shobert... and the li st goes on. That doesn 't include the men who raced his snowmobiles when he wa s the manager of the Polaris racing team in the late '60s. And he has stories about all of them - som e he' s willing to tell, others he keep s close to his chest. Today he's responsible for Honda's racing efforts in the United States and what an effort it is. Last year Honda chased five AMA National Championshi ps. Guess what? They came back to Torrance, California, with all five. H on d a ' s MX team won both th e 125 (St eve Lamson) and 250cc (Jerem y McGrath) National Motocross Championships in addition to the AMA Supercross crown (McGrath). In road racing, Smokin' Joe's Racing's Miguel DuHamel w on both the 600cc Supersport a nd AMA Superb ik e N a ti on al Cha m p ionship. Not a bad season. To waffle on about Math ers would be to waste space. It' s far better to let th e . man s pea k fo r h im se lf . Cy cle News caught up w ith Mathers in th e week s lead ing up to Camel Motorcycle Week in Dayton a... Are you s till involved in rider contracts? Yes, I do all the rid er contracts. We initiate th em here, and if it' s so meth ing that's different from wh at we've done in the past then we hav e to go to legal and get ap p ro val from them. Then it goes through Ray (Blan k, Mather s' s boss), and if he wants to go higher with it then he does that. We get approval across the board and then we do it. The planning starts with me. [ try to get input from the mechanics and othe r people on different riders. [ go to meetings and it' s Ray Blan k and Mr . Na gashima, Mr. Kur od a. W e hav e sometimes, six, eigh t, 10 meetings. We usually est ab lish a pri ority list of who we'd like to have, and we start down the list. How lo ng is Smokin' Joe's contract with Honda? We don't have a contract with Smokin' Joe' s . Th e co ntract is wi th Martin Ada ms . Martin is still th e team owner like he alw ay s has been. We ha ve an ag reeme nt with Martin Adams and he has one wi th Smokin ' Joe' s. He ends up being the go-between, but he's still the team owner. The team is still Common wealth Racing, but because there's been so m any names he' s ju s t decided to drop Comm onwealth from the name. Would there b e a Ho n da r oa d ra ce tea m of this m agn itude wit hout Camel? I'm not in a go od position to an sw er that, bu t I don't think so. I don't think it would be this big. We got into this thing as an experim en t to see if we could actually sup port an outside team , and have an ou tside team owner. We had to see how it wo u ld w ork out. We did the same thing in motocross with tearns like Pro Circu it. The thing with Martin has ju st rea lly worked out. I can't see it being this big if we didn't have Martin I would guess not. The re are still a handful of racers ou t th ere campaigni ng the Grand National Champions hip on Honda equipment. Are th e re a ny plans to help t h ose Honda-usi ng dirt track racers, esp ecial ly in regard to contingencies? No. There are no plans to do anyth ing in d irt track. Sticking to d i r t track raci ng for a moment, Ricky Graham was fielded in both the Daytona 200 and in th e Da ytona Short Track on a Smokin ' [oe' sbacked Honda in 1994. Were there ever an y 'pla ns for that relationsh ip to continue at that time? We talked abou t that in the beginning, when we agreed to running him on the road racer at Daytona. The original plan was jus t to do Daytona. We talked abou t what would happen if it wo rk ed out and everybod y liked it a lot . Amongst ourselves we just said we'd address it at that time. It didn't work out and we ne ver got around to going an y farth er with the planning. Graham has said he's coming back for the 1996 Grand National seas o n . Is th ere going to be an y Honda in vo lvement in hi s effort? We're not involved at this point and my own personal feeling, in a case where som ebod y is trying to come back, it's just like you're trying to get th at fir st sp onsorship - you 're goi ng to ha ve to show somebody. You're not going to be sponsored to the hilt going in. If he's serious abou t it and he show s up and does well, something will happen. He' s got so damn many fans. But I think he's going to have to do well first. Which he can do if he 's serious - there's no doubt. Fro m a management sta ndpoi n t, how