Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

INTERVIEW 6 fter a year that he w ou ld like to fo rge t, Rob Mu zz y has rebounded and is havin g a se ason to rem embe r. The veteran Kawasaki team owner an d aftermarket exhaus t entrep reneur spent too much of 1995 picking up the pieces left wh en his longtime rid er Scott Russell bol ted to th e Lucky Strike Suz uki team. While he was busy reso lving that crisis, the riders on his American team were struggling an d blaming Mu zzy for their decline. And the World Supe rbike tea m, reduced to th e talented rookie An tho ny Gober t, was never a factor in the cha m pionshi p, thou gh the yo u ng Australian d id put in a number of brillian t rides, including a win at the American round of the series at Lagun a Seca. This year Mu zzy went back into his ve ry successfu l pa st and chose Doug Chand ler , the forme r Grand Prix an d H ar ley-David son rid er who w on th e AM A Supe r bike ti tl e for hi m and Kawasaki in 1990. After six races, Chandler, to the wonder of many, has a 17point lead on Smokin ' Joe' s H onda ' s de fending Superbike Champion Migu el DuH am e l. It is cle arl y not a n ins u rmountable lead, but Chandler is a sma rt enough rider not to do anything silly in the final four races; his cautious second at Elkhart Lake proved tha t, and there are few rid er s DuHamel would worry more about leadin g him in the championship. As well as the AMA Sup erbike series is go in g, the Su pers po rt cl as ses a re . equally unsu ccessfu l. Th e Kawasa ki ZX7R is no m atch for th e new Suzuki GSXR750s, and Chandler is well down in the points and ou t of con tention for th e title. In the 600cc Supersport class Mike Smith has been able to win a race, but isn 't goi ng to be a ble to un seat DuHamel for the championship . And th e Worl d Su pe rbike team is a mi xed bag, at best . Australia n Gobe rt rod e da zzlingly to wi n one of the legs of the Italian round at Misan o, only to be disqualified for illegal carburetor modifica tions , Muzzy app ealed, b u t th e appea l was deni ed an d the win was taken away . With th e Ducati o f John Kocinski at the top of the title chase, and the Ho ndas suddenly resurgent, it will be an uphill s tru gg le for both Gobert and New Zealander Simon Crafar to win the series. The one thing you know you' ll get from Muzzy is the truth. "I've never lied to you," he said over lunch at Mid-Ohio, -ru tell you that I can't tell you, bu t I've never lied to vou ." Th is conversatio n had taken place two weeks earlier at the Homest ead round of the AMA Superbike series . The first thing we wa nted to talk about was last year. "Do we have to?" Mu zzy said with a laugh. The transcript of th e conversation has been abbrevi ated . There are reasons for what happened, and you ha ven 't been given the opportunity to express them. What everyone seems to say is tha t Scott Russell's leaving had a great effect on them and that it affected the team. I can't disagree with that. I think that his lea ving was, to m e and to Kawasaki, devast atin g. And th e one th in g that I th ink Scott ne ver underst o od ,. and I th ink most people d on't consider, is that m y contrac t w ith Kawasak iIncluded Scott Russell. And by not being able to provide Scott Russell p ut me in breach. So, in other words, frankl y, once he left, e ve ry bo d y thinks t hat I d id all the things th at I did out of vindicti ven ess, which is not the case. The reality is that the first ra ce that he did not appear at Rob Muzzy put me in breach of my contract with Kawasaki. All of my efforts and all of my attention for well over two months was focused on maint aining our situation with Kawasaki. What could have happened is they coul d have stopped immediately with us and stopped funding immediately. The pro blem with tha t is, as proba bly has been said in the p ress, is that fir s t of all Scott had received all of his money. Wh y was th at? A lo t of tim es jus t as favors or what have you. The guys like to get a big upfront pay me nt, so you give them that. I never considered a rider wou ld leave, so yo u ne ve r lo o k at that. You t ry to accommo d a te th em in w hatever it is they wa nt to do. And if they say, "Well, gee, I w ant one pa ym ent." You never pay them all up front. But as a court esy it's been common for most of the manu facturers that I'm awa re of to pay some have withdra wn a ny sup po rt to u s because as clear as my contract was with Scott, theirs was with m e . So t here wasn't an argument between m e and them, it was me trying to do whatever I could to fulfill . So ther e was no argument about the contract. If, in some way I could get Scott back, or if in some way everybody ag ree d, or whateve r. They admit tha t they said from the beginning that they were on my side and that they would support m e. There 's a lso the attorneys that, in fact, I know adv ised them to withdraw support. Let's face it, behind the doors in a corpo rate situa tion it's pre tty cold and hard. Would that have affe cted you r program here in the U.S. also? Absolutely . The re was on ly o ne contract. There st ill is, actu ally. Obviously th e con tracts are w ay d ifferent now, becau se of this. Bu t at that time, it was one co ntract that wou ld have ruined up-fron t m oney and th en some paymen ts. Well, the longer the guy's with you the more th at kind of gets stretched. Un til, th e reality is, Russell had. been paid 90 percent of his wage for the year, wh ich is substan tial. No t only that, in the early parts of the year from equipment costs and all those things, probably at least 60 or 70 per cent of my budget is spent. So what I'm trying to tell yo u is, if Kaw asaki ha d cu t me off, it wou ld have just about financially rui ned me. I think th at, abso lutely, during the peri od of time that it took to get all of th at finally settled to where Kaw asaki was satisfie d, I was satisfied, Scott Russell was satisfied, Brown & Williamson was satisfied, so ev ery bo dy was satisfied at how th is thing was finished, it totally consum ed me. I don't mean consu me d in passion , cons umed in time . My wife still talks abou t the one weekend I had off and we nt to a ho rse show to spe nd some time with her an d I spent six hours on my cell phone in a five-way conference call with attorneys. And that was typical to how my d ay went. So a nywa y, I've got to ag ree with any bod y tha t says it affected the entire team , beca use it d id in the fact th at it took me away. My tot al focus w as to save ou r program, not to get Scott Russell back. But it had to look that way. It's probably qu ite different from wh at anybody imagined. As far as I'm concerned, I could no t hav e argued with Kaw asaki. They were full y within th eir rights to everythi ng , So in answer to those wh o have mad e the sta temen t that th e deal wit h Scott affected the team , I have to agree. I do n't believe that it is a viable excuse for anyone, for any ride r, I don 't buy it as why they didn't perform. It d id take me pe rso na lly away and so, my feeling is that we still had the best su pport we could give at th at time an d I d on't think tha t if I had been able to give more atte ntio n or not, un der the circumstances of last year, that it w ou ld have made any difference . But I cannot de ny that it took me away. In the en d, how did it affect your relationship wi th Kawa saki? I'll never know, to be honest with you. How has it affected it? By the wa y contracts are done now and by the way th at our program is set up now and in lieu of the things that I had to overcome in the '96 program, I wou ld say that it questioned my credibility and my ability to control my responsibilities. Ha s their level of su p port changed to you? It's increased in World Superbike. Actuall y t here h a ve been a numbe r of ch anges a t Kawa saki itself. An d th at came from previous experience. This has got nothing to do wi th Russell. As far as the working of the team now, basically, Kawasaki had some concerns at the end of '95. I had some concerns . We both ha d some ideas on how to improve the pr ogram and I think we 've come to a very wo rka ble solu tion that I'm very happy with and I think they are to. What has actually cha nged is really a great deal within Kawasaki itself. And that is tha t the entire engineering, motorspo rts and dom est ic race-team outlines have been cha nged. The way that they do things. Last year we had one engi neer who traveled with the team to the World Su perbike rac es w hose responsibility was to work with the team, act as a liaison, and to p rovide Kawasaki engi neering with figures and specifications, etc., about wh at we were do ing. That didn 't seem to work very well for some reason. I don't know why, b ut it jus t d id n' t seem to work. And it wasn't ju st us. Anyway, wha t has cha nged for this year is that the per son w ho is the head o f the m otorspo rts division is also the head of engineering, so th ere's one boss, big boss. .. Secondary to that they've taken the engineering division and essentially d ivided it in to three segme n ts: road bikes, road racing; off-road bikes, mot ocross; and watercra ft. And in ou r particular case w hat that mean s is th at the sa me guys th at d esigns th e 1996 ZX7 is the sa me guy who's d irect ly resp on sibl e for the d evelopment of the race ma chine. Secondary to th at they' ve divided up the responsibilities and the fellow tha t used to be th e m an a g er .o f th e Jap anese domestic team is now head of all testing . All testing, us, the domestic team, the 8Hou r team , everythi ng that has to d o with Superbike testing. What has also chan ged is the fact that all of th e racin g th at is d irect ly under motorsports all work for the same pe0pl e. Th e testing, th e d eve lopment, the results, the speci fications is all dispersed among everybody. And now, we have a person at every race so far thi s year. We' ve had, at Hockenheirn, the head of the test grou p was there. At Misano the very top engineer was there. At Daytona we had th e very top g uy who is the motorsports engineeri ng boss was there. And at every race we have had a motorsports d ep ar tmen t rep resentat ive. We ha ve a full -ti m e guy wi th ou r tea!" w hose job is to relay all the information to KH I e ngi neeri ng a nd a ny peop le involved and to relay to us any inform ation fr om th em . But he' s par t of ou r team . So anyway, we have at least four people at every race from Kawasaki. So we have a great deal more su p port from Kaw asak i. O ne of th e prom ises in exchange for th at was that I wo uld be at ~. every race. Th ey wanted me to be at every race, that was one of my concessions . So, any way, I think th at we've finally come very close to ac hievi ng wha t I have been after for us for years, and that is, a total cooperatio n between us and them and th e d omesti c team , every fact ion of the 'professional racing end. Forgetting all the stuff abo ut whose id ea it w as or w here it came fro m or who m akes it o r wh a te ve r it is, just we're going to make this machine better and we 're all working toward the same goal. The riders, and not jus t you r riders, seem to say that you 're still down on power. We're clearly down on power. The han- . dling of the bike seems to be quite good. The tires have improved this year. Our wea k lin k is th at w e ju st d on 't hav e enough power. We're now approaching the performan ce of th e '95 ma chine as far as ju st out-and -ou t pow e r go es . Everybody else im p ro ve d their m achines. H ond a m ade some drast ic im provements. Ducati mad e some drastic im p rovements. I gu ess at this po int you could say we've now atta ined parity in engi ne pe r form ance to las t year, but the chassis is definitely better, which

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