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/127870
INTERVIEW the Big Bang motor, you tend to get a bit a ggressive with the th rot tle. And all . you' re doing is basically filling it full of fuel, and then all of a sudden it starts to spi n, so you roll off, and then you've got to ge t back on it aga in, and then you do th e sa me , th ing and it sta rts sp in ning again... Th ey can be a lo t m ore aggres si ve with the Big Bang mot or, an d get away with it, whereas this - well, it suits me. One of the rea sons why the Ja p anes e didn't want to give it out to everyon e was becau se they can see off the compu ters that the other riders' throttle control isn' t as smooth as mine. There was also an element of playing mind games with the other riders. I kn ew if I had something d ifferent, it would p lay on t he other guys' minds. It di d, and Alex tried it again after we go t back to Europ e. Bu t s tra igh t aw ay h e again rejected it . Thr oughou t the year, (Ca rlos ) Chec a was go ing, "I' ve gotta have one of th os e engines, I' ve go tta h a ve o n e of th os e e ng i n es ." Tad y (Okad a) was the sa me . An y edge yo u can ge t is a plus. If the others had all sw it ch e d to Scream ers, w oul d you have been ready to switch back to the Big Ban g? Well, yea h, especially at the begin nin g of the season. I d idn' t rea lly' know how it wou ld sta nd up in a race sit uatio n, an d I was ready to go back to the Big Ban g. ,D id you ever come close to sw itch in g back ? No. Stra igh t away, in Malaysia, the bike seemed to be wo rking good, alth ou gh Okada was on p ol e, a nd o n the tig h t tu rns he cou ld ge t off Detter tha n me, which cou ld be pret ty good in a race situation. The o n ly tim e I r ea ll y thou ght i t mig ht be diffi cu lt is in th e we t, bu t again, if you were smooth in the w et, it see med qu ite good . It's just if you were agg ressi ve on the throttl e, the th in g sp ins . Wha t the other guys weren't used to - it' s a diffe rent w ay of spinning . The Big Bang sp ins u p very qu ick , bu t it's s lower th a n thi s m o to r, w h ich ju st bu ilds rpm straigh t away. So you h ave to anticip ate it. Well, if you can try and avo id the thing spinning. Is it more fu n to ride? For me it is, and that' s one of the ele ments as well. Because - it's a two-s troke agai n. It was real fun to ride. You shu t the throttle do w n and they ro ll on int o the corne rs - and it had a pow erband. It wa s ju st that much m or e livel y. And that probably mad e me keep on my toes a littl e bit more, because I had to think abou t it more. Will you ride the Screamer engine next year? I can' t say that 100 percen t. Things will be d iffer ent next yea r because of the fuel situ ation. (Unleade d fuel come s in next yea r.) We d on' t kn ow wha t' s going to w ork, so we mi g h t h av e a d ifferen t engi ne aga in . Ag ain, it w ou ld be perha ps a little bit more ra di cal th a n th e . other guys' . The objective is to wi n Th is is always ass uming yo u ride for Hon da ne xt year. It seems any ch an ces 00 of a move to Yamaha are now all over. ~ It' s all ove r - u nless I wan t to go back...... wards . If thi ngs didn't work ou t with Hond a, I don 't thin k I would be wi tho ut a rid e for n ext year; p u t it tha t way. H onda and I ba sica lly knotted so mething out in Barcelon a in Sep tember . It's jus t the technical side of th e co n tract negoti a tion s. Nothi ng's concrete, bu t it's almo st done. (More than a month later, the d eal was still d raggin g on. In Europe in lat e Novem ber, Doohan said , "HRC 6 Cycle News Rider of the Year: 500cc World Champion M Doohan ick expec ts to make an a n nou nceme n t in January ." ) Hond a surprised me, how much they wa n ted to keep m e . It ' s t heir 50 t h anniversary next year, an d I wanted to give th em a bit o f respect, to cou nteroffer after Yama ha, because I had bee n w ith them for a number of yea rs. They were quite recepti ve to'w hat I wa nted to say and wha t I was asking for. Basically, they've come u p to eve ry thing . H a d Wa yn e' s (Rai ney) offe r (to sw itch to Team Rainey) been a year earlier, I think I'd probably have bee n over at Ya ma ha . I think w e ca n all see th e Yama ha isn' t such a bad thi ng. Like in Ind onesia, Luca' s (Cada lora ) lap time in th e race was only a tenth slower th an th e fa s tes t la p , a n d h e w a s coming when, unfortunately, the engine broke. I have no do ubt that we cou ld get the bike on track, if we we re really working to w ard s i t. W h a t im p re ssed m e is, Yam aha rea lly was committed to wan t to go racin g. Bu t it di d n' t make econo m- Thi s is what frus t ra tes m e, a nd I wan t to get away from it. What I say to Ho nd a is, "You don't learn an ything if you're just given info rma tion." You see w hat happened wi th Wayn e (Rai ney) and Kevin (Schwa ntz). When I sto p, you do n't wa nt it to happen to you. If you keep giv ing information, then these guys aren 't goi ng to expa nd as riders or learn how to app ro ach the race; then you' re go ing to be left in the same situ atio n . You' re goi ng to be givi ng these guys n ew s tu ff a t test sess io ns , an d they' re going to go, ~'I don' t know wha t does Mick think?" And Mick isn't going to be there. Honda has basicall y ag ree d, an d we have to sort -ou t the details. This is the p innacle of motorcycle racing . I don't th ink you sho uld be ge tting back-hand ers. If yo u' re not good eno ugh to set th e mot or cycl e up - well, bad lu ck. If yo u g e t a H ond a , th at 's h o u ld be enoug h. One of the reason s I was so upset last But Al ex Cr ivill e does n't fall in to th e same category ? I noticed in testing h e was goi ng h is ow n way, which I was pre tty impressed about. He still is d oing that and I'm still impressed . I thi nk he u nd erstan ds that to go to th e next le vel, he has -to s tart learn ing abo u t the machin e for himself. Alex go t taken out of th e season with h i s inj u r ies a t Asse n . Were yo u relieved? Not rea lly. It was a bit of a shame. We already had quite a goo d lead . I don't th ink Al ex w as rid ing as well as last year - bu t last year I was racing at a pace that was qu ick eno ugh to win, and that was all. I knew tha t this year I wouldn't be able to do that. I knew I had to do something different. It wa s basically go out an d run a s trong p ace the w ho le tim e. I thin k tha t broke Alex a bit. He wasn't used to bein g pushed the wh ole wa y. He ran off th e track a few times. The race times have been consid era bly quicker this year than last. ic sense, really. It wo uld be in teresting, bu t I got a bett er offer to stay where I' m a t, and to try and crea te someth ingin my own team which we haven' t go t at the mo men t. You've been complain ing recen tly about having to share your sellings with other Honda riders. Is th at what you're talking about now? Ob viou s ly . Wh en I was a yo u ng guy coming in in 1984, with Wayne Gardner as my teammate, we di dn' t have all this compu ter contro l, as we have now , wi th everythi ng stored in one house. I used to have to go - basically, I used to go to Eddie (Lawson) and sa y, "Wou ld you mind me having a look at wh at you 're using ?" . I wo uld n't mind if that was the case n o w - the n you ca n say yes o r n o , d epending on how close you are to him, Bu t w he n it ' s jus t ha nd ed over on a p la te - "Here's th e bike tha t won the race last year, all the settings ." Then yo u see th e s e guys in t h e firs t session, they' re st ra ig ht away there - and yo u think, "Shoul d n' t yo u s till be getti ng yourself u p to speed?" week (after losing the last-lap scra mb le t o Okad a a t Se ntu l) w a s n ot o n ly because I lost the race - and I'm never hap py to lose the race - but because I w as ra cin g m y own mot orcycle, with somebody else on it. He had exactly the sa m e se tt ings , th e sa me gea rbo x, th e same suspension as I ran in the race last yea r . And th at ' s a bit dis hea r teni ng, because you think, "If he'd have started the weeke nd w it h a base motor cycle, . then wh ere would he have ended up?" Okada ha s been running stronger as the year went on . Ha ve you be en su rp rised by h im ? Yes a n d no . I th ink la s t year, on th e tw in, he was ast ou nd in g. He di d a lot better job tha n (Taku ma ) Aoki 's done. But aga in, I think the im po rtance of the setu p this year has helped him , so yo u can 't really tell how he'd have go ne. ' What about Nobuatsu Ao ki (who finishe d t hird o vera ll in the championsh ip, behind Okada)? He's ge tting the same . He's said to me at fo u r o r five races t h is year h e can ' t believe how he gets to a race track and away he goes. Last year, Alex was on me by the end of the season. He knew I'd run a pace , then the last two laps I'd go. This year, even if I did go fast the last two laps, I had to go faster earlier as well. Watching the way you let Aoki get past you at Imola, you were obviously playing with him . Wa s it the same with Okada at Bmo and Donington? In Czecho, yes . Okada carri es a bit more corn er sp eed than Alex ever did . Alex still runs it into the com er and par ks it, w hereas Tady, wi th his time on a 250, does carry qui te good co rner speed : He's good for two laps when he gets out in fr on t t h er e , t h en hi s e n try speed d rops. I knew that, so I thou ght, "Okay - I' ll ge t back in front and try and go." But then he's coming with you agai n. It's the same old thin g - the guy in front dr agging you alo ng . I kn ew he was going to ha ve ano ther go , but I kn ew when he came alongside me tha t he wasn't going to 'ma ke th e co rner. (The r ew ar d fo r Okada's persistence was a crash.) What happened at Sentul? Did he tak e you by surp rise there? Sentul was the same thing. I let him out