Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

is how you're seeing better lap times fr o m u s . Now we need to make the power better yet and we'll be right in the hunt. Did you have enough time in the offseason to de velop th e bike as much? Even though we got the bike as early as we did, which I thought was a miracle we got them at the tire test in December, we built the bikes a few w eeks before and we shipped them here - so to me that was a mi racle. Becau se every other new bike that I've been involved wi th, regardless of whether I was with Honda r Kawasaki, we've gotten about three weeks before Day tona. I d on ' t want to say we didn't have enough time, but the reality is th a t we didn' t have enough time. Let's face it, how long did it take Ducati to rea lly make the 916 competitiv e ? H ow lon g d id it take H on d a to make the RC45 competi tive? I thi nk we' re going to beat tha t. I thi nk we're going to be ahea d of either one of them. 50 I don' t want to sa y w e d id n ' t have enough time. We had ti me, yo u just can ' t do it that quick. Nobody has. An d Kawasaki understands that? I think they do. Usua lly it's on ly the rid ers that don't understand that. Because they have no concept of what it takes. They just think you should have it. They look at the Honda and go ' Look at how fast that thing is.' They weren't riding, actually Simon (Cra far) was, he understan d s much better than say, Anthony (Gobert) does. And even the crew, it's one of those th in gs, you know yo u're close and if you are close you just wa nt to be ab le to do it. 50 it's tough on erybody, But I know for sure that I'm aware of that and I believe that the key people at Kawasa ki are too. How different is the bike from race to race? How often is there a sign ifi cant ch ange? I wou ld say that cha ssi swi se there h aven"t b een si gn ificant changes in World Superbike. Just little things here and there. Enginewise, and again I don't want to say th ere' s been si gn ifica n t ch anges, bu t I guess it's how you measure that. As you p robably know we are run nin g ge ar-drives in two of the motors, we onl y have two of them . So if you call that a signi ficant chan ge... But you had that all season. 0, we didn't have it until Donington. The first time we ran it wa s Donington. These ·th ings don't come in big pieces: They come in little p ieces. At Hockenhe im we ran d ifferent cams. At Doningon we ran the gear d rives . Each time there's a littl e some thing. Hopefully at Monza we 'll ha ve a little more. It just d epends on which o f the things that we're testing shows more promise. Who does the bulk of the testing? At this point, it 's really hard to sa y. Once you 're into th e race season it's really difficult . The domestic (japanese) team ha s probably tested stuff before we have because the y're there. It's just that fast . Th e exhaust testing is happening more with us than it is with them . We have a new system that I've been w orking on tha t we th ou gh t we'd h ave at Hoc kenheim, bu t unfortunately the production of it did not pe rform as we ll as the test version and at the last minute I ra n ou t of tim e. H opefully we' ll have that for Monza, Again, I don't think it's becau se they choose to do that. It's easy for them to take a pa rt and go, let' s run ou t and tes t it, and if reliab ilityw ise it seems okay, or if there's no problem - I think it' s a coope rative thing. Right now they just sent me a fax aski ng me to do so meth in g that' s th eir idea that th ey kn ow we can do quicker than the y can . They look to u s to ac tu ally make the parts and try th em . It's a coo perative thing. However, it works. I'll have an idea , and I go, look, "I think this is wh at we should do. But it's a lot easier for you to do it than me ." You're testing more than you did last year? Yes, but I think that's natural. We have a new machine, we have a reason to test. If you don' t have a reason to test, there's really no reason to go. It' s very expe nsive. Wh at about from the rider's side? T hey want to spe n d more time on th e bik e. Sure, the rid er would test every we ek. They have no concept of budgets; ava ilabi lit y of equipment, etc., etc. It's just like the gear dri ve, we 've on ly got two of th em. So we go ou t and wear th em ou t and we've got nothing for the race. The real question is it doesn't d o a lot of good from our stand point to test, unl ess yo u ha ve some th ing to test. And I realiz e that-the ride r w ould like to ri de every weekend. Given the choice, tha t' s what he would do. But he doesn' t ha ve to p ay for it. And if y ou as ke d h im, okay, "We'll reduce you r salary so we can afford to do more testing," he'll go, "No, no, no." So it's easy to criticize if it doesn't cost you or there 's no penalty to you. To us, it's kind of a fine line. If you don' t have tires to test and you don't have equipment to test, then it' s not testing, it's rider practice. If we believe that it's a benefit to us and the rider, we 'll do it. If the negative outweighs the positive then we don't do it. How m u ch of a juggling act is it to keep the riders happy? If you're racing every two weeks I do n't think the rider really has a valid argument th at "I 'm not in shape, I ha ven't ridde n for a long time." And that' s really pretty much th e case once yo u get into the season. I can remember telling An tho ny last year wh en he complained to m e a bout n o t b e in g ab le to test enough . I said, "Anthony, the d a y' s going to come, thi s year, th a t you're going to tell me you don' t want to ride be cause yo u ' re just too d amn tired ." Well it happened . Sure it did. At Suzu- ka, in one of the tests . So, the point I'm tr ying to make is, that, you know, he can say whatever he wants, but th ere was a point in time when he asked that .he not have to ride because he was just too tired. He 'd ridden so much in the last few months. He can argue that and he can tell you he' s tested a lot more this year, but th e reality is he mi ssed one test . I'm not su re he has tested mor e this ye ar than he ha s last year. 50, I'm not bu ying his statement. He 's o bvi o usly p la nn in g o n goi ng somewhe re else next year. I've certainly read that a lot . What abou t th e rest of your team? The on ly one th at's currently under a two-year contract is Dou g Chandler. Is there a chance he co uld go to Europe? An ything'S po ssible. There' s an entire chance that I won't be going to Eur ope. My con tract ends this year. Neither one of us have really discussed '97. I d on't think there's any reason to at this time. We h a v e ' 96 t o take ca re of. Ma ybe toward the end of this year, if the y feel they'd like to continue with our te am and we feel that we'd like to continue w ith that program, we' ll talk about it. I'm sure Kawasaki will compete. It's not about Kawasaki, I'm just sa ying that the re's no real for-sure that m y team will compete. Will you be competing here next yea r? Yes . We al ready h ave a verbal agreement between Kawasaki and myself to race through '99 in Ame rica. What are your feelings about racing in Europe next year? I' m not prep ared to make any comment at this time. We'll wa it and see how the yea r progresses. I'm very pleased with the program that we have this yea r, the effort pu t in by Kawasaki. It' s jus t too 'early to talk abo ut '97. When you started the year you had a pretty reasonable shot at the tille. Do you still feel that way? If we can just get the level of the pe rformance u p a little bit, I think we've got a good shot. I th ink Ho ckenheim wa s th e track which disfavored us th e most because performance is our downside right now. Monza w ill b e t ou gh also . Wherea s wh en we get in to so me o f th e o t he r tr acks that ar e more technical an d not dependent on high spee d, I think we'll be right in there. How did you come to p ick Simon Crafar? It wa s basically my decision. I just felt that he was ready for the next move. I think that he's shown a lot of consistency and improv ement last year . He wasn't on an A bike. I just felt that with a full factory-supported effort that he would improve even more, which he has.. Does he give more inp u t than Anthony Gobert as far as development and set- • up? . H e has m ore e xperience, so yes, of course. I ha te to point that out, that that makes him better or worse than Anthony. Eve rybody, and m ostly, Anthony, ne eds to realize that, frankly, he just doesn't have that much time in the saddle of the Superbike. It takes time to perfect the skills of setting a machine up. But like all people at 20 and 21 years of age, he's very impatient. Who' s the best rider you ever had as far as setting th e bike up? You know, it's really tough . My first response is Eddie (Law son). And of course 1 d idn't work w ith Eddie in his later years and I can only expect that he got better than he was when he was with me. And it's a little unfair to dis. count Scott (Russell ) and Aaron (Slight) wh o were both very good. But I look at Scott when he first came to me, which wa s quite different than when he left. I th ink that I'd ha ve to put Scott and Aaron on a pretty much equal ba sis, ma ybe even Aaron a slight edge. And Eddie for sure. And so far, frankly , Doug seems to know what he wants and wh ere to go with it. He's asked for some things that have been a su rp rise to me, that have been good for him, that have alwa ys been positive. Could you envision a time when Scott coul d ri de for you agai n? You know, it ma y be a sho rtcomi ng or it ma y not be on my part, but most of my career I've been fairly consistent in the fact that if a person has shown a lack of promise in th ei r d ealings with me to hold that feelin g pretty much forever. And I think the reason for that is that so many o f th es e guys th ai continue to break their promise d id because they lied to me. And it's always been my feeling tha t the onl y way anybody will ever believe me or take me at myself is to be cons isten t. There's a famous story with Da le Q u a r te rl ey, wh o also broke a : promise with me one time . I sa id, "You'll never ride for me." He never - did. He asked me a couple of years ago why I would help him with stuff, but I would never hire him and I told him: "I can't. You b roke your w ord w ith me once . If I hire you now it means that it's okay to do that. Somebody has to sto p you guys from this. Somehow you have to pay the pric e." I wo n't say it's impossible, because the older you get the more you re alize th a t al most n othin g is impossi b le, but tha t wou ld be rea lly hard for me to do . Becau se in my mind, alth ough I harbor no hatr ed or anything like th at for Scott, I actually wish him w ell, h e broke his prom ise to me, stra igh t, flat -out, and jeopard ized my en tire program with his lack of concern. I don 't see how I cou ld hir e him back. I mig ht go play golf with him or whatever or go boating togethe r or some thing lik e th at, but I ju st d on ' t thi nk th a t I (~ cou ld do th at. 37

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