Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

got a certain wa y to ride it and I know that it' s d own on power severely compared to Aprilia. And th at' s th e o nly way you can make it fast is by the style that he' s got. And for me, I was struggling so hard becau se I just wa sn't used to that blinding entrance and mid comer speed on the front. If you crash, you're going to do a faceplant all the way to the damn sa nd trap. It's jus t amazing . It' s not set up for the rear or to slide. It's jus t set up like a train on railroad tracks and you don' t really know how fast you can go in wh at part of the comer." Pa rt of the problem was his size. Being abo ut 25-30 pounds heavier than Ha rada fully outfitted is noticeable on a 250. "You start off and you feel awesome and you start to shift to second or third and these Hondas are jus t flying by and I think, 'Wh at the hell am I doing wrong?'" That would not be a question he would ask himself when he first got the opportunity to ride a 500. It came following the final GP of the season at the Catalunya circu it outside of Barcelona, Spain, and the resu lts were instantly enco uraging. Riding a Dunlop-equipped YZR500, Roberts tied the race lap record on his third day of testing. "I was more relieved than surprised," he said. From there he wen t to the circuit in Albacete, Spain, and broke the lap record by a second and a half. "I knew the power wasn't going to be a big cha nge. I thought the steering of the thing and the handling was going to be a lot worse," he said of his firs t impressions. As for the power: "It's different, bu t it's not a big difference for me becau se I've rode, like d irt trackers, big 600s, at Lodi. You've got to be really gentle on the throttle. On a 250 you 'd be on idle and then from there you get the curve of a wall when you roll on the throttle. "On a 500, even though you know that you've got it opened up quarterthrottle going through the comer, and just want to give it a bit more. That bit more's about 40 horsepower and on a 250 it's probably like 10. You've really go t to un derstand them. That's got to be driven into your head time and ti me agai n . They 'll sneak up on you for sure." As he would soon learn. "I was pretty pumped when we flew to Mal a ysi a, and that's where we swi tche d tires . Tha t's where I fell down ." Going fr om the predictable D unlops to th e grip pier but less predictable Michelins on which he would race this year, Rob erts cras he d on the fourth lap of the test and broke his leg. It side lined him for the first two races of the year and also taught him the value of experience. "You can get the thing on its side and it sticks good becau se it's hot there. But when you sta rt to p ick the thing up, there' s a part of the tire that doesn't heat up as fast. And that 's the sa fety margin as a rider. That' s when you're picking it u p and yo u' re g etting you r e ye s o u t there and you're looking at the next cor- ner, and the next thing I know the thing was completely sideways. It was just a thing... I couldn' t believe it. I was running in the grass and I was going, 'Wh at the hell happened?' I just couldn't fathom what had just went on." Tha t lesson learned, Roberts came back for the Japanese race, slogging through the wet practice and riding cautiously to 12th in the race. The first real test would come a few weeks later in Jerez, where he could finally let go. The result was a sixth, but only because his inexperience caused him to wear his rear tire out early in the race and cause him to back off with about 10 laps to go. "At the start of the race the thing starts transferring a lot of weight, using u p tires, using up grips to go those times. An d then w hen the gas gets low an d the bike gets lighter and the tires start going off, I can still stay in there for about 10 laps, an d th e n once my gri p starts going down, then I d ro p back. So the key is to try to get the thing to try to no t use up all th at gri p in the beginning of the race . It' s just experience . That' s what Mic k (Dooh an) and th em guys, that' s wh y they can ru n 45flats in the race an d 1 was try ing hard er at th e end of the race to go fast than I was at the beg inning, but I was do ing 46. I ha ve a lot to learn, " he says, and it d oesn 't hurt that he's learning from the best. Th e p a st tw o yea rs he r od e for Wayne Rainey, who was m o re than willing to provide t he k nowledge gleaned fro m three World Ch amp ionships. He isn't averse to approaching anyone, including Dooha n, but this year he's relied more on fo rmer 500cc GP rider Randy Mamo la, as well as his father. "He's (the elder Roberts) a rider, he's not a team owner, when he talks to us. He always knows what to say and when to say it and, unexpectedly, you just hear it, like anything, an d you go, ' God, that would help a lo t.' He' s always a step ahead of anybody else in the paddock as far as running the team. He just says stuff, ' Don' t do this: an d you go, 'Why no t?' and abo u t three days later you go, 'Man I'm glad I didn't do that.''' Asked to offer an examp le, Roberts tells a story abo ut his race return in 1994 at the Argentine GP. "I sai d the tire took a crap, this and that, an d I had gotten sixth, and he said, ' O kay, well look, jus t say th at everything was fine, the tires were great, this and th at: and I d id , and in th e end it m ad e me look better because I d idn't do wn every th ing . The good result, th e last thing people wanted to hear me say was the tire took a crap ." So he taught Roberts to lie?" "Yea h:' Rob e rts says with a b ig laugh. "Bu t yo u 've got to under st and that it wasn 't the tires' fault. It was my fa u lt because th e bike wasn't se t up righ t and I was rushing it in there." A better example would be his first test on the 500. The elder Rober ts wasn 't at the test and Jun ior was struggling. A phone call was made. "He goes: 'Well, d rop the engine back. Put it down and back . That's w hat Wayne used to like.' Since we we re on Dunlops - obvio usly it wouldn't have worked on the Michelins - we tried it and, yeah, that's a lot better. A second, like that." The difference was from pushing hard to do 1:48 lap times to matching the track record of 1:47.525. "Even though maybe we were going to get to it, it's like he said, N it now and Do it should feel better." He's always jus t ahead on everything it feels like. I have complete trust in whatever he says to do . Because if you listen to the guy and you do what he says, it's going to work in th e en d. As lon g as yo u' re not like Jo hn Koci ns ki and you reb e l against everybody and do comp letely oppos ite, you're never go ing to have any p roblems with him." There is obvious ad mi ra tion in h is vo ice w hen he ta lks abo u t his father . N kn ows what he wa nts and usu ally He it' s right. He's won four wo rld championships, so the team can' t be that bad ." And he rea lizes th at th is is th e best of times. "I race motorcycles and that's all I've go t to do right now. I don 't ha ve to w orry about an y responsib iliti es so I have a really easy life right now. I guess when you retire, th at ' s when it star ts getting hard." I~

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