Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

INTERVIEW Iy make Max (BiaggO upset if we keep pushing that advantage. I said, 'Hey, we're on a tire nobod y else has: Bu t, again, I was thinking that was an ideal situation. I was trying to sell it to him and it worked, it worked for a while. In Indonesia, we won. He just fiat out outrode them. Here (at 5uzuka), the Michelin hould have been terrible here. He was pole position and he was a second behind and in three comers he caught right up, but Max sucked him in there and he fell off. And as soon as he fell off and he hurt himself a little bit, he was just like, some of the stuff that he was telling me is that "Wayne, I've already been World Champion. [ don't need to go out there and prove myself anymore." And I said: "Yeah, you do, you do. When you're World Champion you've got·to keep proving to everybody that you're World Champion no matter what situation you're in. If it's .bad, you've got to do the best you can. But if you're going to ride around in 18th, I'm not used to that." I said, "All you're doing is hurting 'your career riding around in 18th:' But the tire choice was a bit controversial. You tested at Shah Alam, back to back, the Dunlops and the Michelins. They tested Dunlop in November and in December they tested Michelin. I wasn't there for that test. He was sold on it. Isn't that a track that favors Michelins over Dunlops, generally? Probably. It's temperature. But 250s aren't hard on tires. It's more of a profile "thing. Dunlop has always been quicker than Michelin in the 250 class, even in Malaysia. So, after the Malaysian test he liked the way the bike turned and he thought that there was a lot of promise there. And he made the choice? He didn't have the choice. Yamaha was pushing hard for Michelin. And Marlboro and Yamaha were tired of hearing about tire problems. Put the same tire on as everybody else, and to make everything smooth we went with the 250 tire. But Harada wasn't happy with it, honestly wasn't happy with it. But again, he could have been. The philosophy was working for a while until it threw him .off. Then he wasn't willing to work anymore. What was the final straw that caused him to leave the team? He never said, ''I'm leaving." I aid: "Hey, Tetsuya you're riding around. I bring all these guys here and we need you to put the effort in:' And he just couldn't do it. And I just said, "Hey, it's okay. Why don't you just stay home and I'll put somebody else on the bike. I know you're not going to push." I said "You've worked hard to get where you're at and we'll put somebody else on it:' I think he was quite happy with that. You knew at Barcelona that he wouldn't be back. We had 5ete (Gibernau) testing at Czecho. His (Harada's) last race was lmola. With Tetsuya there was no effort left. I had to fulfill the contract, but I didn't want a guy out there riding around. Especially when we had done some tests and I was talking to him and I could see that he just gave up and it just wasn't worth it to me to wa tch all that. I needed to give somebody a chance that was willing to ride it and do the best they could and 5ete was the guy. So the season ends, and you start thinking about this yeax. When did you make your rider choices? Abe was always there. Everybody knew that, Marlboro, Yamaha, myself, Kenny knew that, that Abe was coming two, three races from the end of the year. We won the last race, but I knew omething was up because Loris was just so distant there. He tested the '97 bike on Monday and I could just tell he maybe needed a break. He just wasn't the same kid; he was real distant. Then I got a fax saying he left the team. That kind of surprised me because Loris and I were pretty good friends and we'd worked good together. He and I never had a problem, but then he left. I had Abe and we were just wondering who the second rider was. Who else did you talk to? At that stage, the first people Marlboro had me talking to was Max (Biaggi). But I kind of got in the same position with Marlboro with Max as I did with Mick (Doohan) and Marlboro. With Mick, Kenny had a contract (with Marlboro in 1995). 50 I was talking to Mick, and Marlboro said we need a letter of intent so I got that. I was talking to Mick in '95 and Kenny had a contract with Marlboro in '96 already done. It was already done. That's why I chased Mick because I wasn't taking nothing away from Kenny. And Marlboro said you need a letter of intent from Mick becau e he's done this a lot to us before. I'm thinking, well, that's news to me. So I got a letter of intent signed, everything was done. I did everything that Marlboro had asked. Then Marlboro went to Kenny at the very next race and said, "You need Mick Doohan." After they had already seen everything that I had done. They knew that I had him. So that's when they were going to give me Loris. And Mick stayed at Honda because it got real cloudy after that and ljust said, "Hey I don't want no part of that." It was kind of like what happened with Max. They said talk to Max. And Max was gOing: "You know Wayne, I hear you talking to me and stuff and Marlboro, they're also telling me to go race a 250. I'd like to ride a 500 but they want to keep me in 250." They had talked for a month. I felt like they were doing the same thing to me with Max. They'd say, talk to Max. As soon as you hang up the phone, they'd say,' 0, no, you're going to ride a 250." 50 I said, "Well, what do you want me to talk to Max for?" That was the thing that was going on that just didn't make sense. And they said Max is not an option, talk to Luca (Cadalora). So at the end of November, beginning of December I was talking to Luca. Through this, Marlboro comes up and Luca wanted a lot of money to ride for Marlboro. He figured that there was a lot of money there for him, but there wasn't. I tried to tell him that. You were always critical of Luca, both as a teammate and afterward. How could you hire him? Well, I was talking to him and I was telling him why I was critical, which was pulling in when things weren't right. Or Luca, "What's it going to take for you to beat Mick Doohan?" With Luca, I don't hide that fact at all. I wasn't real high on Luca. I was really excited about Abe. But if it helped to sell ponsorship maybe I could work with Luca. This was all going to be up front with Luca and the stuff I was talking to him about, he knew I was critical of that stuff. I'm not afraid to tell people. The thing is, that I'm a racer still, I can't race no more. When I go to a race track I'm there to race. And I let everybody around me know that we're not here to make money and say hi to the crowd, we're here to win and everyone's got to do their job. And maybe that's where I'm different than other people. Maybe I push hard and stuff, but I don't think I push tha t hard. But looking back on what I did and how I pushed and how I got the team to do it a certain way, maybe it's a little bit hard on these guys. I don't know. So how do you change that? By example I guess. When I fell off at Donington, I had a concussion. I figured out a way to race the race and make something happen. But mo t people aren't like that. Most people are going to go out there and race and go, "Well, if I get a good start maybe omebody will make a mistake and I'll take advantage of it:' That's just the way I thought about racing. It consumed me and there was never any compromi e. But you can't teach that, can you? No you can't, you can't. It's hard. It's different now. I was never satisfied. I see a lot of young guys coming up and their salaries have to be there. For me to get motivated by money, I don't need it. I enjoy coming to the race track and I enjoy trying to help the riders and com, ing up with possible scenarios that could happen in the race and seeing it pan out. I was just talking to Ralf Waldmann yesterday and he was talking about his hand and stuff. I said, "Hey, Max can make a mistake this year," and he made one the very next day. That's the way you've got to think. With some people you get done talking to them and they say, "What's that Rainey talking about?" I don't know. I just look at it a lot different than everybody, I guess. I've had .to tone down some things, arid some things I'm not willing to. Like what? When I'm watching a race, or when I'm watching qualifying, and I'll see a look on a rider's face, I'm analyzing a situation to what I think it is. I'll watch a corner and I'll say, "That guy's off-line there. Did you see tha t?" I'll see that stuff. It's all so clear to me how it needs to be done. But most of the people that I have to be around don'f see what I see. So sometimes it's frustrating to me that I can't be out there doing it and sometimes I'm pulling l'hat in because, it's just like if you just did it like this the people, riders can't c.omprehend or understand that. There's a lot to this analyzing that would take all day. It's just that I'm different, I guess. Can you accep! what you have to accept? And for how long? Yes and no. I accept the way I am now as far as what my life is because this is the way it is and I can accept that. But there are some things that happened in my life that I'll never accept. Some of it's personal and some of it is right here in front of me. Some of it's complicated, some of it's black and white. Sometimes

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