Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

INTERVIEW da, who was Puig's crew chief last year . Santi Mulero will continue to wo rk wi th Checa . For John's crew, we have added a Japanese mechanic, Matsumoto-san; we call him "Matsi." He worked with John in the Castrol Honda factory tea m last year in World Superbikes, 'There will also be an HRC engineer, Kagame-san, who will coo rdinate our efforts wi th HRC as ou r link or liaison. He will join us at the tests coming up at Jerez . Alth ou gh tod ay 's SODs are th e fas test road racing mach in es in the world, wi th almos t all current quali fying, lap and race records held b y Doohan, Cri vill e or Okada, the SOOcc class ha s been criticized because of Doohan's domin ance. Wh y , in yo u r op in ion, has Doohan become so dominant? First of all, it's not just Doohan who has become dom inant; it is a combination of people and circums tances w ith Dooh an in the center . Mick is from the old school of 500cc riders. He rode the NSR when it was vicious and, like Rainey , Schwantz, Lawson and Gardner, he has the advantage of knowing how to control a sliding bike and how to s teer with the rear wheel. The old NSR was very difficult to ride and Doohan mastered the technique that worked in th e pre-Big Bang days. Even though the Big Bang motors are easier to ride, knowing how to control a sliding machine and how to steer with the throttle gives him an advantage when the tires go or in the early laps before the tir es warm up. Doohan has been working with the same crew chief and mechanics since 1989, and rid ing the same bike that he has developed. So you ha v e a rider and a te am who kn ow everyth ing abou t th e bik e an d abou t each othe r. Th ey are racing agains t a new generation of riders who lack that experience and that und erstanding. And, of course, Doohan is a truly great rid er. So how do yo u beat h im? Well , m a ybe h is w eakn ess is in h is stre ngt h. His streng th is that he knows the bike, he developed the bike and he has a team used to doing things his way. Winnin g riders don 't like cha nges and th ey don 't li ke n ew ch ass is a nd new ideas. They wo n by ins isting on having things their way, and they often don't like to try new things . John has the virtue of being from the same older generation of rea r-wheel steerers as Doohan, but he has been rid ing lots of different bikes and has been exposed to different ideas. While Doohan has been riding one bike, John has ridden the 250 Yamaha, th e 500 "s crea m er" Yamaha , the Big Bang Yamaha 500, the 250 Suzu ki, the 500 Cagiva, the Ducati , the Honda RC45 and now the new NSR Hondas. He has tried Doohan 's setup and he has found things wrong with it and things that he can improve. John probably won 't be as consistent as Mick, because Mick and his team have settings and notes from the t ra cks for the last n in e years, but I believe we will find a way to beat him . As I said , the p roblem for John will be to be consis ten tlv fast at all tracks. Let's talk a b~u t racecraft. Doohan has been in charge for the last few seasons, especially last year. He starts from the pole an d th en sets the pace. Last year he seemed to b e able to d o whatever he wan ted. In Jer ez, where Criville w on, Doohan had a mecha nic al prob lem. In Indonesia, h e admits h e mad e a mistake in strategy and let Okad a stay too close to h im in the final stages. Th en in Au st ralia he wa s runnin g away and fell off. But he won the other 12 and in a lot of them he seemed to play with his rivals be fore putting them aw ay. Ho w do you see Kocinski matching up with 5;to Pons Doohan as far as racecraft and strategy is concerned? I see John as capab le of cre ating so me problems for Mick that nobody has been able to create for the las I few seasons . Mick can break awa y on cold tires at the sta rt o f the rac e, and the other riders don't seem to be able to go fast on cold tires. But when John set the fastest lap at Eastern Creek (during the recent Honda test), he d id it on the second lap on a new set of tir es. Mick can also go fas t wit h a bike when the tires are worn out in the final laps, so me thing that comes fro m h is slid ing abilit y . But John ca n slide wi th the best of them , and comes fro m th e sa me d irt track backgro und that the best American riders came from. So two of Mick's advantages, going fas t on cold tires and goin g fast on burnedup tires, are matched by John. You raced two generations of 500s. In 1985 you rode the rotary-val ve Su zuki SOO, and in 1990 and 1991 you raced the pre-B ig Bang Honda NS R. Las t ye a r you took your Team Pon s Honda, a Big Bang vers ion, out for a test. Wh at comparison can you make? The difference is very great. The '90-91 Honda was much more d ifficult to rid e. you had to use different lines, you had to lift the bike quickly on the exit to be . able to get the power down, you had to slid e ou t of the comers, and the po wer could catch you out and high -sid e you if you made a small mi st ak e. The transition from 250 to 500 was terribly difficu lt , but to day th e more pred ictable power delivery of the Big Bang allows a rider coming up from 250 to adapt mo re s qu ickl y. Today' s SOD are heavier but easier to rid e and the transi tion from 250 to 500 is not so great. You look at tod ay's race times and you see more consistency in la p tim es. Th e lap times a re better, too, but the impo rta nt thing is tha t the rid ers ar e able to keep a quic k pace a ll race long. and that's because the bike is easier to ride. You see that in quicker total race times. Riders tod ay frequently set their fas test lap in the last few laps, bu t before the B Bang you 'd never see ,ig that . By th e end of th e race, the fier ce power d elivery had spent the tires and worn ou t the rider. • The only curr ent GP tea m th at has b een running lo n ger tha t yo u rs is Team Rob ert s. Kenny Roberts made the decisi o n to bu ild h is b i ke s a n d , m o re im portantly, h is own engines. Wh at is yo ur opinion of th e M od enas project? What Kennv has done is very brave and ve ry ri sk y : He ' s go ne off ~n his own wi thout the direct industrial support of a ma jor fact ory. If he had gone in to a n e ng ine p ro ject with Aprilia or BMW, the re wou ld be an ind ustrial base to build on and commercial jus tification for the hug e expen..<.es, but what Kenny has done is build a pure racer . This means that he needs constant spo nso r inves tmen t. It is very d ifficult to go up agains t the Japanese in the d evelopment of a racing two-stroke engine. If the results are good, the sponsor will be pleased, bu t it's hard to deliver results when you are d eveloping a new ma chine. Sponsors want their brand to be seen on TV, but Kenny is risking the loss of h is ma jor sponso r by usi ng their funds to develop a p rototype. Tha t is th e development that the factory usually do es out of sight and doesn 't expect the spo nsor to pa y for. I hope Kenny is successful, becau se the sport would benefit from an altern ativ e to the Japanese fact ori es in 500. It might help hold down the high leasing costs. At on e po int ov er the fall I read th at Ch eca sai d he wanted to go w ith a Big Bang engine th is season. Do you have the option to use both engin es for both riders? At this tim e, wh ich engines do you thi nk your team will be using? The interesting thing is that the lap times are just about the same with all versions . We've gi ven Honda ou r opi nio ns aft er te s ti n g a ll o p t io ns , a n d Honda w ill d ecid e on the basis of reliability w hich version th ey believ e gives us th e bes t cha nce o f wi nning. We 'll accept their choice. S ince Way ne Rainey wa s forced to reti re after his crash at Misano in 1993, Yamaha h as won only six races, and they went last se ason without a 500cc w in for the fir st time s in ce 1972. And since Kevin Schwantz retired, Suzuki has only h ad two wins, and none for the last two years. Last year Honda won every single SOOcc race. Is Honda really th at superi or? What ha s happened to Yamaha and Suzuki over th e last two seasons? Honda has developed the best bike, bu t that have also worked harder at d evelopi ng new rid er s. When they had both (Way ne) Ga rd ner and (Eddie) Lawson, they also add ed Doohan as third rider to build for the fu tu re. But when Wayne Rain ey ha d his accident, ther e was no rider in Yamaha capable of ste pping up to fill Wayne's sho es . The sa me thing happened in Suz uki wh en K evin retired. Honda has looked to the future jus t like we have do ne on our team. We worked wit h Criville, bring ing him up from 250, and we d id the same with Puig and with Checa . Mea nw h ile, HR C ha s d on e a good job bringing Okada along. Withou t yo ung riders , the program of bike d evelopme nt lags behind because it's all built around jus t on e rider. Yamaha without Rainev was unable to win, like Suzuki wilho~t Schwa ntz, but Honda toda y has two or three rid ers capable o f tak in g over for Doohan, John Kocinski comes to your learn wit h a reputation of being a dif ficu lt rider to manage. Were you worried about th is? How is it all working o ut ? Ho w has Checa ad justed to h av ing Jo h n as a teammate? To be honest. I don' t pay a lot of attention to all the paddock gossip and 1 don 't believe much of it. Alberto Puig was a very difficul t rider to work with, but we ga ve him what he needed to ride at his best level and to win. All riders are difficult to work with. Thev are under a lot of s tre ss a nd p ressu re, What a rider needs from his tearn is support and loyalty . The team has to adapt to the rider as much as p oss ible because the rider ha s to have a good working environment. The team has to kno w wha t to do and what not to do . Some rid ers need to b e press ured , o the rs ne ed t o b e left alo ne, but n o team s h ou ld try and cha nge a rider's cha racter. I'm not wo rried abo ut that kind of thin g and so far I've been impressed wi th the way John works to set up the bike. As far as Carlos is concern ed, he is very competitive and he is learning from watching John work and trying to match him . Sito Pons won two 250cc World Championships pr ior to sw itching to 500cc Grand Prix rac ing. How have th e op ening te st se ssions gone so far? In the first tests, John was ge tting used to the bike and Carlos was testing new versions of the mac hine, so in Jerez and in Phillip Islan d we were lea rning abou t our options. In Phillip Isla nd we we re generally pleased with the times, but not with Doohan being a second quicker. In Eastern Creek, when John was quicker than Doohan and Carlos was third and just a ten th of a second s low er than Doohan, we we re frankly very happy. It means that at this stage of the preseason we are on the pace and we just have to keep working stead ily to improve. What is yo u r opi ni o n of the current sta te of Grand Prix racing? If you look back to 1991, th e last yea r before the Dorna /n-vP contract with the FIM and IR TA, you s ee ama z in g improvements. The world television coverage is many times gre ater in audience and in quality. The sporting and organizational side is mu ch im proved. We used to have bickering and political problems. Now the Grand Prix com mittee, consis ting of th e FIM , Dorna , IRTA, and the GPMA (G ra n d Pri x Manufacturer' s As socia tio n), serves to eli mina te p rob lem s before they occur. What we all wa nt and are all working for is to see Grand Prix racing compete for spon sorship and popularit y with sports like Formula One, tennis and golf. We ha ve made some important improvements in giving more focus and importance to the 500cc class. Professional motorcycle racing is a pyramid and at th e top is the 500cc class. These SODs are the fastes t and most technologicall y ad vanced racing moto rcycles in the world , and they are the most difficult to ride. Other classes, 250 and 125, and World Su per bike, too, produce good racing and develop good riders, but this year we d earl y have the wo rld 's best riders all racing in the 500cc class. We still have Doohan and the other top 500 riders, but now w e a lso ha ve th e World Superbik e Cham pion and the World 250cc Ch ampion, Max Biaggi, and the 250cc runner-up, RaIfWaidmann. But we 's till have to im p rove the cha mpionship OI l" the commercia l side. We have to all wo rk together to bring new sponsors to the championship. It's not good to see Team Rainey Yamaha still without a ma jor sponsor, and to see Tea m Suzuki also wit hout a sponsor. We are wo rking with Dorna on id eas that wi ll im prove this . We've got the best riders, the fastest bikes, good organization and the best motorcycle-racing television cover ag e; now w e ju s t have to make commerci al s po n s or s a w a r e of the opportunities that our sport offers, and we all have to wo rk together in a positive wa y for the good of our sport. The old conflicts between IRTA, Dorna and the FlM are resolved, and I think Grand Prix racing is moving in the right di recl~ tion .

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