Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

INTERVIEw Rich Oliver By Mark Hoyer itting down with Rich Oliver next to his Team Oliver Yamaha team truck in the pit area at the Pomona Fairplex, the one th in g that stands ou t the most is how clea n every thing is. Inside his truck, it's the same way . Everything is organized and the team appears to move forward through the challenges of racing without effort. Later, as he pulled awa y from his rivals in the 250cc Grand Prix race held in the late-afternoon sun, it looked the same wa y - smooth and effortless . Then you take a closer look at his bike. Th e right -hand lever is ground d own a bit, as is the fairing. The knuckles on his right hand are missing some flesh he left on the asphalt af ter a p ractice crash, the same crash tha t ma rred the fairing. Working his fingers to the bone, you might say. Whe n the 34-year-o ld Fresno, Ca lifornia, resid en t pu lls in fro m that smooth- and effo rtless-looking victory on race day, his second of the 1996 season, he pulls off his hel met and is drenched in sweat. It is then you begin to realize the tremendous amout of effort that Oli ver puts into his team, an d that his effort to lead the te a m makes the team. Rich Oliver tries r eally hard ia nd Team Oliver Yamaha is a re fl ect ion of that focused effo rt, a nd that effort a reflection of the man. First off, there has bee n a lot of talk recently about th e 250cc class as a dying class. Do you thi nk there's any truth to that at all? Well, as far as the demise of ' the 250 class, most of the discussion about that has come mor e so fro m the pr ess than from any of the riders or from the AMA. [ think it's a typical scenario where the more things get talked abou t the more rumors sta rt and the more controversy swirls aro u nd the subject and every one sort of starts to believe it. I mean , if you say it long enoug h p eop le will sta r t to believe it. I've had conversations with the A MA a nd th ey have said tha t they have a very strong desire to co ntinue with a formu la - ty p e class, a Gra nd Prix class. Ma yb e no t two of them, and I t h ink that 's S what happened to the 1155. The 250 class, from m y point o f view , I thi nk went through a bottom-out sta ge abo ut midwa y through last season when we lost some of the mainstays of the class, Danny Walker, Chris D' Alusi o, Chris Rankin. A lot of guys got ou t of the class an d we lost some of the front runners. An d it's taken a little while to rebuild and ge t a gro up of top 10 riders that are real co mpetitive again. Right now I see it growing. Especially starting at Laguna Seca when Curtis Roberts joins the ranks of the 250 riders, with Brian Turfrey, and all the thin gs that Kenny Roberts can bring back into the class through Curtis. The en tr ies seemed pretty stro ng at Dayto na and they seem very strong here at Pomona . All these thing s are encouraging signs. I mean, the riders love th e class. I th in k it ' s mostly just that rumors have kind of gotten out of control. From what I've seen, there was some negativity toward 250s that came from Formu la USA over the winter and that so rt of led to what's going to happen to them in the AMA. And you know, here we are . I think the most important thin g for our class is for the AMA to really beat the bu shes hard along with the teams like myself to find a series sponsor and tha t will help solidify us . You've worked .a long time to get where you are. As far as the 250 teams you' ve got a re ally professional setup. And yo u've rea ll y go t it down to a scien ce. You go ou t there and go really fas t. I th in k a lo t of th e talk about the 250s dying cam e fro m your vict ory at Da ytona where yo u won by over 28 seconds. You've w orke d really hard to build up the class, and then you go out, and in some senses rui n the show. I'm a product of my own experience. What a lot of people don't remember is that I was taught to ride by Kenny Roberts . Before [ worked for Kenny Rob erts [ worke d for Rand y Mamola. These are some of the greatest rid ers in th e world . I' ve w o rk ed with tuners w h o have tuned for Kocins ki, for Rainey , world cha m pions, an d a lot of it rubbed off on me. The fact that [ do so well in 250 racing I think is just a product of all those years of learning. [ was always finishing seco nd to John Kocinski or Jimmy FIlice or somebod y , and w hen my time came I've been winn in g , sometimes by a large margin, sometimes by not so large of a margin, but [ think that has added to the criticism of th e class. They're saying, "Wh y can' t the rest of them run up there with Rich ," or , "Why ca n't Rich leave so the rest of them can run together for the lead." And maybe it is tim e for me to move up into su perbike or that situation. Everyone's got to look at it from my point of view - I'm successfu l at what I'm doing. By going to superbike and not being on a fullfled ged factory effort, I'm going to be racing for the top 10. I'm used to winning. Rather than me slowing down, it would be better if the rest of the 250 guys just slowly evolve into giving me a run for my money . Like th is w eekend here , Randy Renfrow, Mark Foster and some of the other guys ar e right on my times . It looks bad a t some ra ces, [ th ink only because I've been to Daytona for so many years in a row let' s say, and it's a highspeed track, I've got a fast bike and, yeah, maybe I win by a lot. We come here and I' m a few tenths of a second ahead - forget abou t Daytona. Do y ou have aspirations to move to su perbike or Grand Prix racing? I kn ow you were su p posed to go tes t one of the new Elf 500s at Jerez over the winter. Yeah, in fact I had a clause in my contract with Yamaha that said if for some reason .. I was able to work a deal to race a 500 in Europe in th e World Cha m p io nships, tha t they wo uld allow me to go do that. And fortunately for Yamaha here and me and 250s we' re stayi ng here. Unfortunately I di dn' t even get the chance to try the bike. What happened? That situation d ev eloped kind of in a s tra n ge way. To be completely frank about it, the representative from the learn in Switzerland ca lled some p eople in America as to who would be a good 500 rid er . My name kept coming up along with som e o ther n ames . They really d idn't kno w anyt hing about me or anyon e els e in Americ a. And so it we n t through a few recommendations and then there were so me ph on e calls and there were some tests set up and the tests fell through b ecaus e th e m achin es w ere n' t read y. Th e next d at e to come along, I would make a phone call, "When a re we lea vin g?" "We ll the machines aren't read y," and eventua lly they settled on the tw o riders that the y had alread y hired. They didn't want a third rider . So I never heard back from them to say, "We don't want you to come over." It just sort of fizzled out. [ felt it cou ld have been handled better on their end as far as keeping me more informed, but that 's how these things are. They're up in the air until the last minute. It was good , it motivated me to train a little harder, [ got in a little better shape . It didn' t hurt, it was just kind of unfortunate the way it was all handled. What abo u t racin g superbikes here in .. the Sta tes? Well, Superbike here has been d ifficu lt because a lot of superbi ke teams have never co nsidered me. They jus t don't th ink abo u t me. I also think th at they think a t 34 yea rs old, they thin k, well, "How m u ch more has he got?" And there's not a lot of spots open. This winter pro ved the excep tion to that , though. Almost everybody go t a new job in superbike. I've had d iscussions with Yamaha about my future wi th their com pa ny and Yamaha had a lot of di fferent ideas for me. They see the value of me winni ng a cham pionship when Yamaha really has n't won a champi onship ot her than 750cc Supersport for a while, and so they kind o f like me wi nning the champi on shi p fo r them b ecau se tha t's somet hing that' s a feather in Yamaha's cap. That way they' ve got the

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