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By Henny Ray Abrams Photos by Gold & Goose 22 here is something differen t about Anthony Gobert - always has been, always will be. And it's not just the difference from the rest of the mostly sedate Grand Prix paddock. No, this Anthony Gobert is different from the Anthony Gobert last seen ending his World Superbike career by whipsawing the Muzzy Kawasaki into the winner's circle at Phillip Island. That Gobert was a mesmerizing hellion, tossing around the underpowered Kawasaki with volatile neglect, spinning and sliding and sluing, equal parts hunger and talent propelling him to Q. pair of double wins. In the winner's circle, he showed off a flavor-of-the-week hair color which was more appropriate for a Slurpee than an Aussie, though it seemed like something of an affectation. The Anthony Gobert who finally made his race debut with Team Lucky Strike Suzuki (TLSS) at Mugello is none of that. Very tentative on the all-new and very disappointing Suzuki XR-87, Gobert is fighting too many battles at once, all of which have had a domino effect that has robbed him of his single greatest asset - his immense nat-· ural talen t. "I'm starting from scratch right now," the humbled 22-year-old admitted on the eve of his first Grand Prix. Gobert's right collarbone is his biggest hindrance. By his count, he's broken it about eight times in the past nine months. The last episode was espedally violent, shattering the plate which had been installed as a result of a previous cra h, ripping three screws out of the bone, and breakil'g the bone in another place. "The body can only take so much. If I keep breaking it, then I'm going to ruin my career, basically," Gobert realizes. The most recent spill was injurious on two fronts. Aside from the physical implica tions, the engine seizure two weeks before the season-opening Malaysian GP damaged his confidence in the machine, and it would eventually sideline him until the Italian GP. "Only wnen the machine started seizing up and throwing us down the road is when I started to panic about the whole deal," Gobert said, "mainly because my collarbone is so itchy at the moment that if I keep falling and breaking it, then it's going to finish me f9r good." A previous break was the result a highside, the injudicious. us.e of throttle on an old tire sending him into low orbit. Learning the Michelin tires, which are the 500cc GP standard, "after a career on the more forgiving Dunlops, means he has less confidence in the front end and can't slide the rear. Complicating matters is the absolute failure of Suzuki to provide him and teammate Daryl Beattie with a competitive machine, despite its being new from the ground up for 1997. "I think we've got a lot of tolerances coming together at the same time," Lucky Strike Suzuki team manager Garry Taylor confesses. "We've got a brand-new bike which, 'Iet's be honest, is the first bike without any Kevin Schwantz input into it. Daryl (Beattie) is very capable of developing the bike, but is coming back from a major injury and is still getting his confidence. Anthony obviously wasn't in a position to contribute to development of the new bike, because he has no experience on a 500. Already you've got the makings of a bit of a mess there." All of which is readily apparent. Gobert had been approached by Lucky Strike Suzuki at the same time they went after Scott Russell, in the summer of 1995. There were further discussions about the 1996 season, but he was convinced to stay with the Muzzy squad. "Kawasaki gave me a machine halfway through '95 and told me that was going to be the machine for '96, with a bit more engine development," Gobert explained. "So I re-signed with them, thinking that was going to be the motor. We turn up for testing at Daytona in December, they tell me that the motor they had planned was too expen- sive to sell to the privateer teams with the good parts, so they actually made a different motor. This different motor was actually 20 ks (kph - 12.4 mph) slower at Daytona than the previous machine. It was very hard for me to handle, and I still can't believe it to this day. I believe that was the only thing holding me b,!ck from being World Champion, and now I feel I have a lot to prove in this 500cc class, and I won't be happy until I've won three 500 titles." Easier said than done, he admits. "Doohan is hard to beat," Gobert said. "He has many years behind him. This is ·his ninth year in GP racing. He learned from the best, (Wayne)'Rainey, (Kevin) Schwlmtz, Eddie Lawson. It's going to be different for myself. The majority of the guys are young, too. I'm really not getting that much experience from them." When they scouted Gobert, the Lucky Strike team was looking to catch lightning in a bottle again. They were hoping for the SecOl~ coming of Kevin Schwantz, an aggressive, freewheeling riding talent with a captivating personality. Early results didn't disappoint. When he wasn't crashing in preseason tests, Gobert was consistently faster than veteran"teammate Daryl Beattie, who was coming off a season truncated by innumerable injuries and setbacks which many thought had terminally damaged his confidence, and possibly, his career. To make Gobert's entree into the GP world as seamless as possible TLSS hired former racer Stu Avant, a New Zealander journeyman 500cc racer who gave it up in the '80s to become a successful businessman, as the rider liaison. "Stu filled a weakness we had, of not having an experienced racer to put the racer's perspective on things," Taylor explains. But there were problems almost from the start. The buzz around the paddock was that Gobert was more independentminded and less disciplined than they hoped, and that they were trying to get rid of him, that he would never race a Grand Prix. The rumors were heightened when Gobert was told to sit out both the Japanese and Spanish Grands Prix, even though he had declared himself ready to race. The official reason was his physical condition; unofficially, word leaked out - cascaded is more like it - that they were looking to replace him. The names of Frenchman Olivier Jacques and fellow Aussie Troy Corser were mentioned. TLSS paid careful attention to the contractual proble,Il.IS Corser was ·having with the Promotor team. Reports of the disharmony filtered to the World Superbike Series, and immediately a number of offers poured in - some to finfsh the season, others for the Suzuka 8-Hour.