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/127791
·INTERVIEW Mike Hale son with his best showing an eighth, his worst showing a classic cold-tire crash during a much-needed test at Monza that ended with a broken' foot and at least a one-race hiatus. The problem, simply put, is that after a IS-year racing career, he is having to completely relearn how to race a motorcycle. Though the Ducatis are thought of as invincible, and ha ve been for years in the righ t hands, they require a different set of instructions to be ridden to their maximum potential, and learning . them, at the highest level of four-stroke racing, is proving harder than it looks. From the first time he ever rode a motorcycle, and he began racing when he was eight, sliding the rear was the fast way to go. Not anymore. Sliding. the Ducati gets you nowhere, the CUIrent thinking go.es, and Ducatis have won enough races and World Championships to back it up. So instead of sliding, Hale has to adapt to a new riding style based on a completely different machine, with different tires - Michelin for' Dunlop - than he had last year. "Some times when you're down, and you're working real hard, is when you're learning the most," Hale said. "And we've been struggling. It's no secret. My results have shown that. So we're going to take a good look at everything and make the changes so we can go on, start winning. I'm not happy and you've got to have fun at it. It's not me. Even dirt tracking I won a lot of championships, amateur stuff. Even when I turned Pro I was winning stuff. So, no, I'm not happy running in the back. And we won't." He is as self-critical as any rider alive, honest with and about.himself, able to see the big picture. He knows that both he and the Ducati are capable of winning. They've both proven that in the past. It's just a matter of getting it right. "At this level, it's not like we're missing by much, like a mile. We're off a little bit here and there and at this level, one second is 15 places sometimes. That's the difference between third and 18th. 1 knew that this would be tough. Everybody said, 'Well, you just don't know because Laguna is... you just don't know: I said, 'Bullshit. I watch TV: I see (Scott) Russell... and he had just crashed at Daytona and picked it up and passed everyone and. won. He comes over here and runs 10th and 12th the first two races. I knew it was going to be tough. But I felt from testing on the '95 bike, my times were right with Troy (Corser), faster than the HOl)da boys testing at Daytona in December. But I also had the mindset that we were going to be in the hunt L. . By Henny Ray Abrams I Photos by Gold & Goose lot of people back home are wondering what's up with you," Mike Hale was told before the German round of the World Superbike Championship. "Me too," he answered. It was not supposed to be like this. Mike Hale, the rapidly rising gallant who'd captivated American race audi- II ences with his tail-sliding style, homespun wit delivered in a moderate Texas drawl, and handsome smile is not supposed to be strugglit:lg to get the kind of results that took him to second in the AMA Superbike Championship last year. Not after his surprising World Superbike rides in the final two rounds last year where his best finishes were a couple of sixth-place finishes on unknown tracks in foreign places like Indonesia and Australia. Not after shattering the Daytona tra"ck record on unofficial watches during the winter Michelin tire tests. Not after running near the front of the Daytona 200 before slipping off. Yet here he is, four races into the sea-