Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

because it's just untrue. It was unfounded and it' s untrue. For '97, when yo u got on the Suzuki, what was your first impression? That I was glad to be back on a fourcylinder. It' s quite a bit different from the Ducati. The day I rode it, it was half a day in Japan with off-and-on rain and mist, and it was free zing cold on th ei r test trac k, w hich is pretty ro ugh, and a lo t of tree s . So (Jamie) Whitha m a nd I w ere the re, ju st to kin d of get on th e bike and familia rize ourselves wi th it. But my initial im pressions were good . Then we started a tes ting program, and the thing's ba cking into the comers and you're sideways th rou gh it and you're si d eways coming o u t a nd yo u ' re two seconds off and you feel that you should be s e t ti ng la p record s . T hat's wh en Whitha m a n d I realized tha t we had w ork to d o. . What was the p roblem? Well, ini tially, it would get sideways, like ge t it to the locks on the brakes - that sideways. And it would ju st carry straight; you could n' t tum it into a corner. For the stuff that they've got, th ey worked hard . Trying to get the bik e to tum and hoo k u p coming out, the first of the year, those bikes had really bad wh eelspin p robl ems on th e exit. I'd say that, pr etty early on, w e sta rted ge tti ng rea r-tir e tra ct ion a lot better, but the biggest thing was just getting it turned thro ug h th e corners - getting it set on the b rakes a nd set so that you co u ld . flick it in to the co rners and then hold the lin e th rough th e corners. Did you ever get it fixed ? No. I think we'd make slow but stea dy progress in that d irect ion, but not qu ick eno ug h. What would you have n eeded - linkages, shocks, sw ingarm ? I don' t kn ow . I wish I knew . But, yeah, it would be something in th at area . But there's al so a n issue of Mich elin -Dunlop. All the Su zuki superbike teams run Dunlop, and we we re the onl teams on Michelins. All of them, exce pt for u s , were o n Dunlo ps. I believe th at there' s a big enou gh variance b etween the tw o tires to affect d evelopmen t. Th e U. S. th ey're send ing their data to Ja pan. The A u s tralia n team o n Dunlop s, their . da ta 's to japan. Plus Japan . We' re all trying to develop th e sa m e bike. Asid e from th e tire prob l em s, what mo st affected you r results? DN Fs - that's what hurt us the most this year. Like nine of 24 ra ces - yo u 're not going to get anywhere in the charn pionship doing that. We had every thing from a flat tire to engines blowing u p at Hocke nhe im . I fell off in that oil in the rain in Australia. It w as just stu ff lik e that. How do you keep your con fid ence up? Getting out in practice an d mixin g it up. I'd hook up w ith Ru s s ell o r (Joh n) Kocinski or, every now and th en o n a weekend, I'd go ou t and I'd be racin g with Russell before the bike broke. On a weeken d I'd ge t hooked up with some guys, and I know I ca n still run with them . And then at the 500 test at the en d of this yea r I proved a lot to myself . A lot of the guys who sta rted to d oubt me sa id, "Maybe he can." You rode at Ph illip Island? I rode (Anthony) Gobert 's 500. This was so meth in g th at w as in yo ur contract? Yea h, it was in the co ntrac t. Actually , we were su pposed to do it earlier in th e year. It was th e way that our sea son was goi ng in superbike: If w e had any spare tim e, we were developing and testing on it. So it came down to the end of the year, and they were racing in Australia, and (No buatsu) Aoki stayed o n to test and a co uple of other riders . I was alread y over in tha t hem isph ere, so I flew down after japan and I rode for a d ay and a half. I got to Australia at 5 a.m . Tuesday and I go t to ride the last tw o ho urs Tues d ay and then most of Wednesday. What was your imp ression ?, , I loved it . I lo ved it. Af ter rid in g what I rod e all y e a r, th at bike ha n d le d . It h a n d led good. I cou ld stee r it with the throttle, and wi th a race bike, that's w ha t I need. It was fun. You hear all the talk about it - I actually ex pected more out of the 500. I figured it wo ul d be a lot har d er to ride. It was like natural. For me, it w as easy. Th e end of the firs t day, I rode it for two hours. I wa s right in there tim ewise wit h the other guys . It wa s just so mething that came easy to me. What we re th e final times? I w ent 34.3 and I don't know about the o ther guys. Aoki, (Pe ter) Goddard , Fujiwara - th at w as it. Mick' s ( Dooha n) track reco rd in the race wa s 33.9 and my time wou ld've qualified for the front row. And tha t wa s on race tires. I did it my best lap at the end of the day . They needed to borrow the shock off of m y bike, and I di dn' t ge t it back until (there were only) 10 mi nutes left, and by the n I knew I could go quicker and I wanted to. I'd just come in and tell them to fill it up w ith gas and go back out. I was ha ving so much fun . Ha d y o u already decided what y o u were goi ng to do the next year when you did that test? No, b u t I was s peaki ng wi t h Duca ti here. Th ere we re so me talks in Eu ro pe with some of the ot her teams th at ha d factory backin g. There were so me guys trying to do a lot. There we re some pri vateer teams that cou ld ge t factory bikes. After the 500 tes t, we were speakin g to Garry Taylor every d ay and he wa s working re ally ha rd to put something togethe r - and w ith Lucky Stri ke pulling out. Suzuki, they work hard for the size th at they ar e, and a three-rider 500 tea m is a huge undertakin g w hen yo u ' re u nderw riting th e w ho le team . There we re some negoti ations goi ng on ~_t h er e for some money, and I don't think ~:~ they came to g ether. Garry Taylor said w e need to keep in to u ch , but w e're not go ing to be able to do it this yea r. After the 500 deal d idn't happen, th er e was still some ta lks w it h some priva teer 500 teams, bu t my w ho le program and my focus went to getting back her e in the States on a bike th at 's capable of winning - winning the championsh ip, and re-establishing myself, and winning again. Because tha t's all I care about, is winning - that' s it. And you think the Ferracci team can do it ? I kn ow that Mat (Mlad in) won a bunch of races on it last year: I've done 50s down her e (d u ring the NASB races in November) and I know how ha rd I was pushing it. I like working with Ferracci, He's pretty easy. It' s w hat I need. Wh ere I'v e been the last two years, I think it's going to be a good rela tionship w orki ng w ith Eraldo . He listen s to his rid ers and he underst ands what I'm saying because he's been a rider. I'm loo king forward to this test because th at bike wasn't perfect when I got on it for those races. Ferracci also sa id he's going to do more testing this year than he did la st year? We are. In january, we're going to test a few tim es . Before I signed this deal, I ta lked with Mic helin in Euro pe, and I hadn' t been here in a couple of years, so I d idn't know what the level of su pport would be. And -wi th Ferracci being th e mai n V.S. fa cto ry , Michelin is pretty keen. I'm pretty certain that we' re goi ng to get the tires. I've ridden the Michelins the last two years so I have an idea of w ha t tires are out there. Let's hope we ge t a good one sorted out for Ma rch this year. Do you think the AMA championship is going to b e more competitive than World Superbike? Th is series is d efin itely m ore com petitive than it was the las t time I was her e I mean with (Anthony) Gobert. We all know w ho the fast guys are, and there are a lot of us. It's good for the AMA and it's good for su pe rbike racing in the Stat es . I th ink it' s just going to raise th e level of the V.S. Su perbike C hampionship - internationally. I know it wiIl. It'll help bring it up. We' ll get m ore publicity and just mor e attention. Are th ere a ny track s that favor th e D u cati ? Well, th er e are a few tra cks tha t I haven' t ri dden, lik e Pi kes Peak a n d Vega s . But I think th e Ducatis go g ood at Loud on , Phoeni x - lik e th e ti ght t ra ck s . I 're m e m b er '9 4, w hen I fi rst d id th e w hole ch a m p ionship w a tching (Troy) Corser - an yt hi ng lik e tho se s m a ll er tracks he did r e all y g ood . I think tha t p robab ly it's g oo d e no ug h to run them both. Is it a lot be tte r th an the one yo u rode two years ago? The bike would turn here wh en we were h ere in October . That was the thing I noticed. Ta ke th e Internationa l Ho rses hoe, for inst ance. Wit h that ' 96 m od el when [ first ca me here, I co u ld n ' t get it to turn throu gh there. With th e ' 95 model, I co u ld s mo ke throu gh there. The bike that I rode here in O ct ober was in be tw een . It didn 't tum as w ell as the '95, but it turned better than the '96. C'i 00 0\ . 0\ ,.- 23

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