Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(Ta kesh i) Tsujimura going in, and his fro nt started to bounce on th e bu mp s and it jus t stop ped, and that' s exactly what h a p p e n s. You ge t in th ere a nd wit h th e bumps, the s uspens ion is bouncing, going up and down, and one of the tim es you are just going to start slid ing . You really have to sa y, "Do I wan t to s ta y upwa rd or d o I wan t to cras h?" Also, when I came here testing, you' re here for three days doing nothing but testing. You can go ou t and - with no pressure - yo u can follow a guy, and he'll give yo u a good tow . There was n' t as mu ch wind as last tim e. So raci ng gets a littl e mor e di fferent. You ge t a little bit more pressure. You don 't want to crash the bike. You ' ve go t to d o so many lap s in your tim e. So, fro m loo ki ng a t what I did, it' s not too bad. The race is a lot dif- ferent than qu alifying. A lot of times, a guy can go fast for one lap and ge t a good time in, bu t the race is 27 laps long and 40 minutes. By Darryl Flack Photos by Gold & Goose It' a good yea for me in e 500s I'v e d efin Arneds abeenthespecia lly.learningsettingritel y lea lot, abo ut the OU kn o w a rid e r has d on e well w he n his team runs d own the p it lan e to g ree t h im . For th e vanquis hed, it's usu all y a lonely turn in to the open ga rage before the shu tters are qu ickly drawn. As Matt Wait fought throu gh the pit-lane crush that awaited Mick Doo ha n af ter th e Aust ra lia n clinched h is fifth 500cc Worl d Cha mpionship at Ph illip Island , smi ling mem bers from Wait' s TCC FSR sq uad parted th e swelli ng thron g so th eir charge cou ld get through . His joy, like th eir s, was palpabl e. He'd just beaten his first factory V-Four after running down and passing local Team Suzuki repl acem ent rid er Mark Willis, and he'd ou tqu alified a n d ou t po in te d Juan Borj a ' s Shell Honda V-tw in - an act he wa s to repeat at the final GP in Argentina. Still, from his brilliant first test on the 1997 Ho nda NSRSOOV at Phillip Island in January to the other stra nge and new GP tracks that awa ited him, it's been a difficul t ti m e for the 1996 AMA H a rl eyDavidson Super Twins Champion. To put it into perspectiv e, for someone accustomed to thinking "top three" for all of his racing life, breaking into the top 15 in th e tou gh est raci ng class in th e world becam e an honorable objective. Not that it bo thers him . And then there' s the fact th at h is lifelon g rivals Ben and Eric Bostrom were setting the AMA Champions hip alight while he stru ggled to get more than a few lines of ink, let alone a photograph of him astride his cobalt-blue FCC Honda in farawa y Euro pe. Ta lki ng a t Phillip Island, Wait was happy for Ben and Eric - and happy for hi mse lf that he'd mad e a d ecision to go Grand Prix racing - to learn and to grow as a person a nd as a rider. At 22, he kn ow s he has time. He also believes the GP experience will help him in his qu est to make it to the top in AMA racin g. Drinking from th e pois oned chalice of 500cc GP racing didn't d o an y harm to Doug Chandler, Miguel DuHamel or Mat Mladin. With the chances of a competitive AMA sea t in 1999 diminished, Wait more than likely will head back to Europe. For the likab le Califo rnian, it's a circuitous jou rney tha t he hopes w ill lea d him back to winning t he AMA Superbike Championship and then back to Gra nd Prix racing for a real crack at the World Championship. bike up - just the wa y the bike wor ks all togeth er. It's definitely going to be a big advantage for me next yea r, no matter what I do - Superbikes or 250s or wha teve r. I'm d efinit ely going to know a lot more to ge t me close r to the fron t. Y 00 0\ 0\ ,...... 00 ,..... l-. (l) ,.Q S (l) :> o Z 26 YOU wen t well in your firs t test on the 500 V-tw in at Phill ip Isl and in January, but it' s been a pretty hard year since th en. Q H a v e you bee n t a l k i n g to a ny Q teams about next yea r? A- Just chit-ehat - nothing serious . It's r t kinda waiting for the end of the seaso n, and see wha t's open and what I can get , you know. DO you think yo u'll be in Europe Q or back in the Uni ted States? A- I' d lik e to stay in Europe, but... I r t d on' t kno w how many opportunities there are in Europe. I'm happy with the team I have, as far as m y first year of learning goes . But to be reall y competitive, you've gotta ha ve a V-four. But, realisti ca lly, I'm no t ready to try a Vfou r yet. It's hard to explain. If I got a good offer on a V-twi n, I'd take it. DO you like the team yo u're wit h Q at the moment? A- Yeah, I'm happy wit h the team. At r t first it wasn't as good as I thought because a ll the good mechanics from last year went with Nobu (1998 Team Suzuki rid er Nobuatsu Aok i) or to the (the FCC TSR) 250·team. I got so me new gu ys, so it was new for them as well as for me, and it just wasn 't happening as qui ck a s I w ould 've liked. But no w , everyo ne is lea rning a lo t more, a nd we 're grad ua lly going up. I ha-ven' t seen u s go d own a t a ll - we're hitting one plane w here we've been staying, but now we're go ing up. As lon g as we can keep doing that, it'll be good for the last few races. You ' ve talk ed to the team about nex t year? No, I haven 't. It looks like it's go nna com e down right to the end . Whatever's open to me is what I'm going to take. Q A I've h eard fr om insid e th e tea m that they've been happy .with your p er ormance si n ce com ing back from th e b reak at Brno - th at you h aven't been crashing as much in practice. Yeah, well, the cras hes had to do with the setu p of the bike . I mean , we had a major fro nt-end probl em. I com municated to them (the team) that the fork s wer e bottoming out and had tons of cha tter. I fin all y told th em to tak e the forks to Showa, th at I wanted Sho wa to redo 'em. And when Showa A did take them apart, they found ou t all th e parts were old , all th e pa rts w er e dirty. Now , since Sho wa redid my suspensi on , it' s so nice that I'm not having ,the problems I d id before. So, yo u know, maybe if they'd listened to me a littl e earlier, we rnay've been in the points a lot more. w a s it ove r th e break that th ey fixed th e forks? Ye a h , I d idn 't ge t it fi xed till Czecho. Q A T ha s w h n team Q Yeah,t' that's ewhetheI go t 'emsays you improved. A n fixed. Q That simp le? . Yeah. Their (the team's) main program is wit h the 250 (with FCC TSR sta r Haruchika Aoki), and I think I'm jus t ki nd of a si de thing, so I have to really put pressure on them to get things changed . A g Wh en you came to Ph illip Island . for y ou r firs t te st, you wen t s o we I, and that w as on a production b ike; then ' you got onto a new bike. Is the new bike the sa me as the old b ike? Basically , there's not a lot of difference - the engine is not much different. When I tested here last time, I think my times were faster. But if there was too much wind, w e sat ou t for better cond itions. But on a race weekend, we don 't have that luxury. A Q What ab ou t the engine? A lt doesn't feel any faster than it was . Wh at abo ut the handlin g? I saw it wobbling across the line. Yes, I hit that bump in the middle th er e. I only hit it once . Th e tra ck cond itions are more bumpier than they were the last tim e I was here. Now you really have to watch it in the tight righthander over here (MG Corner). Also th at uphill lef t-hand er - th ere are so many more bumps now. I saw (Ma x) Biaggi going in there - it wa s like kchh! kchh! kchh! It feels like you' re hitting a bu nch of speed bu m ps. Q A Q Like d irt tra ck? . A- Yea h ! Yo u hesita te more th a n r t before. When I came here before, it was a lo t smoother . You co u ld go in there and have a little mo re confidence. Now, it's like, "What shall I do? 'Cause if I hold on, the. fro nt's going from the bottom, the front is going ." I wa tched Q Wh at abo ut your fi tness? My is good . haven't go any Agoodfitnessthefatigue.I All of the tyear, tiredness or my muscles . At begi nni ng are when I started, I d id n' t have the strengt h to do it. My first race - it was at Suzuka I felt good ther e. I was trying to ge t on that first lap but there was chaos in the ha irpin and I go t tangled up wi th that mess. Lik e, my first race was actuall y Malaysia , that actually I go t there, full racing. I finished 12th . There we re a lot of guys wh o crashed, but it felt good anyway. But I was so out of it after the race that I had to go to the d octor and ge t tw o IVs s tu ck in me because I was totall y drained of fluid a nd so totally fatigued. But tw o races after that, I just felt that I didn't have the stamina. After those few races, I started tra ining really hard - running, lifting weights. I could really tell the difference because I could run all the practices, all the qualifying. Come race day , I felt ju s t great, you know, wh er eas before I felt so sore, my legs were so sore fro m us ing the m so mu ch, and my arms were tir ed . Com e race d a y , man , I w as tired a lready, before I'd eve n s tarted . But now I feel totall y good . It totally makes a d ifference if you tra in hard . It d oes you good, because you ar" going to be there at the en d of the race. You're going to be as strong as you were at the beginning. So what goa ls did you se t for th is year, and did you achieve th em? Well, co mi ng from th e AMA, yo u d on 't kno w wh at GPs are ev en abo u t until yo u ge t here. I thou ght it' s not going to be that mu ch hard er tha n AMA. I shot my goa l for the top 10, bu t now I'm like lau gh ing because, like, the top 10 - that' s aweso me. Realistically, to be in the top 10, you have to have done it before. Counting the Mod enases, there are 16 V-fours and V-threes . Even if all those fini sh, o ne is not go in g to get points, and then yo u' ve got eight or nine V-twins. So, it's tough, you know. It's good if you can beat mo st of the V-twins. Q A H av e bea ten Garry Q I've beaytouBorjaaenough? McCoy and Juan Athem few times, bu t not r t enou gh. It's no t having th e confidence in my front end at the beginning. N ow I have th e confid ence that I can beat them . I ou tqua lified Borja, so I can be at h im in t he r a ce. So t h a t is an improvement for me becau se before, I wasn't able to beat Borja fair and square. I mean, he'd be in front of me and he'd crash. So I' d beat him, obviously, bu t just racing, I can ' t beat him . For som e

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