Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

. Q You moved out to California pretty early in your racing care e r . What inspired you to do that? I had li ved in Ca lifo rn ia for n ine yea rs gro w ing up a n d I so r t o f m issed the su nshine, and ha vin g yea rro u nd racing was a n a tt ra ctio n. Pe ter Ca rro ll and I had the itch to try to make it as racers and we knew Californ ia was the place to be, so at 18 I moved to Los Angeles. A Wh at d id you do o nce yo u were . there? . I starte d working for Champ ion . Motorcycles in Costa Mesa and got hooked up with two real veteran racers w ho were underrated. That was Whit ney Blakeslee, who found ed Mor iwaki USA , a nd Lee Fleming, w ho was his business partner. I never missed a lunch with them and 1 stil l have a file full of napkins on how to take curves at Lagu na Seca, Willow Springs and Sears Point. Q A Q When di d you turn Pro? _ n 1984. Whit ne saw the success of Emd on e was A 'Davidand I estill ythe 250s. Emdweight a big guy had a lot of on me back then from my days of hockey. We sa w th a t Emde co u ld w in and that a lot of guys were using 250 GP racing a s a springboard to 500cc GP or Superbikes . I spent every d im e I had , wo rking ov er time, and bo ught a new 1982 leftover Yama ha TZ250 still in the cr ate for $5400 . In m y fir st Pro race, I finished 10th at Laguna Seca. (Actually, he finished ni nt h, according to AMA records.) It was a p retty tryi ng weekend. I ran over Stev e Biga nski at the top of th e corkscrew in p ractice an d g o t ban ged up pretty good . I had to tota lly reb uild the bike, fogged my visor in typica l Laguna co nditions , and still manage d 10th. o ' Laguna Se Q smade your pro ca is wh erea you debut. Not b ad place to start. . Every tim e I A Yeahwas al p aon stheodracedsoat Laguna Se ca, I w y r e as Kenny Robert s u hill mewhere, if wa tching me . I think the next time I ran there and had real good success was in 1988 in the 750 Su persport race, go ing agains t (Sco tt) Ru s sell and (Do ug) Pol en . I pulled out like a four-second lead and had the race in the bag w hen the bike ran out of gas in the corkscrew on th e last lap . I w ent up to Rob e rts afte r the race and sa id, "Ma n, d id yo u see that?" And he said, "Yeah, you finished third. What happened ?" I told him I ran out of gas an d h e sa id , "I h ad a contract in my hand ready for you, but I tore it up when you finish ed thi rd. " So he's busted my balls from the ge t-go. Aft er your first Pro season; were you still convinced that racing was what you wanted to do? I knew that it was w hat I wa nted to d o, but I learned that Dave Emde obvious ly rode the p iss ou t of the bike h e was rid in g a nd h e h ad guys th at we re real knowledgeable working on . his motor cycle. I never cou ld find anybody that I cou ld trust to work on m y bikes, so I was always d oin g the work myself. Plus, I was too.aggressive on the 250s. I kept high-siding because the rims weren't wide eno ugh - the tires couldn' t handle it w hen I started hammerin g on the thrott le. I wasn' t rea l smooth bac k then . Q A S o where did you go from your 1984 rookie season? . I wanted to lea rn how to prepare s u perb ikes, since th at is w ha t I Q A The moment of truth: Teammates on the Vance & Hines Yamaha team in 1990, Thomas Stevens (55) and Sadowski (5) had some bitter battles - both on 'a nd off the track. It came to a head at Brainerd when Stevens tucked the front end of his Yamaha in the final corner, causing a crash that knocked both riders out of the race. : wanted to rid e. I got hooked up with Ken Fu nk hau ser. He was a top-n ot ch guy from Mu zzy and we had a satellite Honda effort going with We s Cooley and Todd Brubaker. And I was riding a Honda 250 GP bike and in exchange for my efforts helping the Superbike team, they supported my 250 effo rt . I got to learn a lot from Ken Funkhauser on prepping a superbike and being able to put you r ea r to Wes Co ol ey' S he lmet when he came in, and wa tching him set up a machine was a great learning exp erience. g s o you w er e working o n th e superb ike crew for Coo ley an d Bru ak er and racing 250s? It must h ave been pretty he ctic. ll was, but pr ior to that I was use d to working 80-ho u r weeks to su p- : port my own effort. So working with those guys and not having to punch a clock seemed like a lot less w ork, eve n though it was probably more. A YOU were signed b y T eam Hammer t o go enduran ce ra ci n g in 198 . What was that transition like? Jo h n Ul rich (m a n a g e r of Te am Ha mmer) saw that I was not only a goo d rider bu t also a good mechanic, so he so rt of go t two bird s with one stone . It was a cha nce fo r m e to ride a bike w it h over 100 horsep ow er for the first time. That was also my first real introduction to politi cs in the sport. I began seei ng the behind- the-scenes aspect of racing and what it took to get the atte ntion of the factories. I continued to do a lot of work on the bikes and got to work wi th a lot of good guys like Pat Hernon, who happened to be one of the funniest peo ple I've eve r met. 2 A HOW you with Q IVancedidHines?land th e ride1988 at think the key to that was in . e AMA Na A t hboth the 600 tional750t SupersportI a Loud o n . won a nd & races th at w eek end a nd I ha d a reall y clean-l ooking setu p. I think that's when ' Terry (Va n ce) took n otice . In 1989, I . signed for Van ce & Hi nes Suz u ki to race su perbike. We wen t throu gh a lo t of development problems that season. That season was littered with mechani cal failures. It was a ve ry st ro ng test of m y patience . I th ink after Elkhart I ca me back to th e tra iler to hid e my frustra tions, and I locked m yself in the trailer and grabbed the bigge st thing I could find , which was a sui tcase, and threw it as har d as I could. I spun aro und about five times and let it go. Right as it was leaving m y ha nds, I noticed ou t of the comer of my eye it was flying towards a figure in th e back of the trail er, and it hap p ened to be Terry Vance . I got a three-page letter for tha t one on how to contain my anger. Even after such a frustra ting year with Vance & Hin es in 1989, you decided to come bac k ? I had a two-year contract w ith the . team, bu t I asked Terry to let me ou t of the contrac t du ring the off-season. About a month af ter I quit th e team, Q A . . Terry called and asked me to recons ider. H e told m e he had just si gned with Yam aha . He sai d , "We 'll hav e the best bike in the field, I guaran tee you ." H e was so confide nt tha t he gu aranteed me fir st -p lace-fi nish mon ey all year lo ng . Aft er t esting the aWO l th at came straight from Japan at Willow and later in th e Da ytona tir e tes ts, I knew I' d landed on the right spot. rid e o that b ike as the What O You rwveryinfirsttDa ytonan 200. chnew w it like to go ou and win su --;S an important race first lime out ? I rem embe r e a rl y in th a t week , . . things were goin g very w ell. The bike was rea lly , reall y s tro ng . Thomas . Stevens had signed on an d he was going just as fast as I was even though his bike wasn't ge tting the 'm eticulous pr ep ara tion mine was . Ther e wa s d efinitely an A lB rid er sit ua tion goi ng on, a nd he was n ' t h appy abou t it. That kind of made th e whole s it u a tio n abras ive. It seeme d like the race was min e to wi n as long as I d idn't let pride get in the w ay and tr y to run away with it too ea rly. Then we had added pressure when the British Honda tea m showed u p w ith Carl Fogarty and Jamie Wh it ha m . No longer was it jus t going to be just a race between th e o ther AMA guys . Th es e guys cou ld match us w ith horsep ower and they had all the trick Michelin tir es, so it was go ing to be a ba ttle. That en tire week, I cou ldn' t sleep - I kept dreaming that I was going to cras h and throw it all away . I had d rea med abo u t w innin g Day tona for so long and now it was all on the line. I jus t couldn' t ge t to slee p. That's the same week a fri end introduced me to the Lord, and I' m not going to go long on th is, but it d id pla y a major facto r on how I appro ached that week. I was readin g scrip tu res, tryi ng to settle my mind so I could ge t rid of thi s stupid dream that kept wa king me. One passage in Matthew says, "Ask and it wi ll be given to you. Seek and you wi ll find . Knock a nd it will be open to you ." I kept playing that over and over in my m ind and wa lk ing arou n d saying to m yself, "Th is is go ing to be m y ra ce. I w ill w in t his ra ce ." I was wa lk ing around the pits like a blubbering id iot. The race started an d right in front of me , Ja m ie (James ) tang le d w it h Nia ll Mackenzie in the first tum. All of a sud den I cou ld hear this voice that was in my drea ms saying, "See, I t old you you ' re going to lose ." I ra n off in the wet gr ass and had to take my time getting back on the track. I came back on in 47th plac e, almos t a mi nu te down to the lead e rs . The p a ce ca r came out and tha t helped me ge t back with the leaders. My bike was a bu llet and I worked my way up, and by lap 18 I was up dicing wit h th e le a d ers. I stuffed Foga rty in the corkscrew; he flinched an d punched in the air and flipped me off. That go t me all fired up. From the n on out, tha t race was jus t a matter of conserving my tires so they wou ldn't blow a pa rt . At one poin t I was ridi ng aro und on a tire that was com p letely ch u nked ap art. I was A pray ing the wh ol e wa y th at the th in g wouldn't blow apart. I can't imagine wha t it would be like to ride at 180 mph ar ound Dayton a's h igh banks with a destroyed tire. 1l was just com ple te ignorance - and a b lind ing desire to accomplish a goa l I ha d set since I came ou t of high sch ool - th a t kept m e go ing . To race with Randy Renfrow at the end, a guy who I had always chased in th e 250cc cla ss - there wa s so me payback d u e there . The re were a lot of moti va tin g factor s. Having the Brits and their Hond a s chasi ng me, a nd Fogarty flipp in g me off, and he and Whitham tu cking their bike's fron t end a nd nearly taking me out. Wh en I g ive ta lks a t schools now and s ho w them that vi d eo, I tell them that I can basically describ e life in a bott le by sh owing them how you have to overcome adversi ty and trib ulation s by just keeping you r he ad down a nd p lugging away at se tt ing y our go a ls , and things will work out. Q A. you Ch ristian, Q Wh en threwbecam eoaf people for ita. really a lot loop. grown to know and A Theyhahad-cored rinkinwho had a love rep. . this rd racer u tation for hard g, fighting and just genera l overall rowd in~s . one story that especially Q Thaere isout regarding you, Fre d s t n ds Merkel and Kevin Schwantz. Do you care to share that one? We used to cut loose qu ite a bit in those days. I looked t!P to Freddie, a nd he he lped a n d encou raged m e alo ng the wa y. On ce he cam e up to me an d told me he had never see n an yon e go th rou gh tu rn eight at Willow Sp rings as fast as I did . Of cou rse, he tell s me that just after he had ridden around the · ou tside of me in that tum. He wa s just an aw esome rider and a hilarious an d good -hea r te d huma n b eing . I h eard some rumors that he could be a wise- ass after dark. Sure eno ug h, we were at this place at the com er there in Elkha rt Lake and a bu nch .of racers were in there, as were a nu mber of big foo tba ll p layers. Merkel was there and I think Schwantz was, as well. Of cou rse, ther e wa s a pretty blonde girl I was talki ng to and having a pleasant conversation with . Little did I kn ow tha t she was the barten der's girlfrien d. About tha t tim e, th ese footb a ll s pl ay ers were ge tting read y for anothe r ga me of pool. Jus t as thi s guy was rea rin g ba ck to h it the cue ball , Merkel picks it up and th rows it to me. Me rkel the n heads ou t the door a nd sca mpers towa rds h is h otel. Well , I d idn't th in k it wou ld be a successfu l caper u nless I showed Me rke l the cue ball in the mo rni ng. So I took the ball, put it in my pocket and head ed for the door . As I d id ,"the ba rt en d er ju m ped over th e bar, grabbed me by th e shirt and spun me aro u nd . I ca me a rou nd with a full left hook, and I d idn't think I hit the guy that har d , but he fell like a ton of bricks and was sleeping . Three o the rs jumped on me and my br oth er A 00 0\ 0\ ,..... 00 N 1-< lJ) ..0 o ...... u o 13

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