Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

for the past three years, he's been plying his trade in America. As with his appearance, there's no compromise in his assessment of his career. He knows he ha n't lived up to his own expectation . Some of the problems were his own, some were not. Fourth in his AMA debut year in 1996, Mladin switched from the Yoshimura Suzuki team to Eraldo Ferracci's Ducati team the next year. In 1997, he won four races on the Fast By Ferracci Ducati, but he was let down in enough of the others, by both Michelin and Ferracci, tha t he finished third for the season. The 199 season was spent in an uphill fight against a lack of power on the Yoshimura SU7uki, a situation plain to the naked eye but frustrating nonetheles . He earned even pole positions, from which he takes little olace, but only one win - in the final race of the year in Las Vegas. The race at Loudon should have been his, but a valve failure willie he was at the front took him out. The valve problem wa the handiwork of an overzealous tuner - no longer with the team - who leaned on the engine a little too hard. Had MJadin won there, he would've been righ t in the thick of the championship hunt. As it was, he finished third. At the annual winter Dunlop Daytona tire tests, Cycle News asked the uperbike rider for their list of the top 10 riders at the end of the 1999 season. (The results will be published in ad vance of the Daytona 200.) Predictably, most of the riders voted for themsel ves to win the title. Most of those who didn't picked Mladin. The reasons are clear: He know the limits of aggres ion and rides within them. He doesn't take sen eles risks. His work ethic is unquestioned and it allows him to make the equipment look better than it is, without being abu ive. Fitness simply isn't an issue. Gravity is not an enemy: He doesn't crash. The significant chink in the armor is his team. In the Superbike class, the Yoshimura Suzuki team has experienced little but frustration since winning the title with Jamie James way back in 1989. It's not major failures but Illggling problems that have held them back, which is why Mladin has his team within a team, run by fellow Aussie Reg O'Rourke. Even 0, the team is spread thin, supporting four riders on both GSX-R750 superbike, as well as GSX-R600s. Mladin doesn't like it, as you'll read, but he knows that he's unquestionably their best shot, and he will make the most of it. If he comes up 'hort, so be it, but it won't be for lack of effort. let's tart with your decision to stay-with Suzuki for the next three year. Why? Because T have DO ambitions to go to World Superbike anymore. I couldn't be bothered with the hassle, I couldn't be bothered with the politics, and 1 couldn't be bothered with putting up with a lot of the decisions that get made over there. And, frankly, they're not looking for new riders, they're just regurgitating the old ones - even though they're slow, most of them. A few of them are fast, very fast. It's obvious to see every weekend who's up there. But there's a lot of factory bikes over there, and a lot of them are finishing a minute and a half behil1d the ones that are wil1ning, and I know that the bike's not tl1at bad to be fini hing tha t far back. But every year they just keep turning riders over and turning riders over. It's like, well, obviously they're not looking. And, you know, I've done nothing exceptional in like two or three years over here; I've won a few race, blah, blah, blaJ1. Other people have spoken about this, I've spoken to otl1er riders who've said they haven't ever even had a bite, haven't had someone say, "What're you doing next year?" And T'm in the same boat. Even Suzuki what are they doing next year? They got two new riders this year and they didn't even ay, "Do you want to have a test on the World Superbike?" It's sort of strange, I think, anyway. 50 Suzuki came up with this deal for me and said we want to give you another two years, and I looked over the deal and said, "I'm happy living in the States - a lot happier than I'd ever been in Europe." I enjoy living here; i,t's good fun. My wife enjoys living here and we're happy, so I did the deal. They paid me right - I did the deal. Did you ask for anything different than what you'd asked for in previous contracts? 0, nothing in particular.· I asked for a few things to be done to the bike and sort of asked for a few promises of things we need to try to develop with the bike, and they said, "YeaJ1," and we're in the process of doing tha t for next year. And it looks like we should have something done for the Daytona race; what that is, I'm not going to say. YeaJ1, they're trying very hard. I'm a little bit disappointed that we've still got fOur riders on the team. But that's Suzuki's policy; that's how they want to run it. There' nothing I can do about that. 1 still believe they should be concentrating on a couple of riders. Moreover, they should be concentrating on one rider and having another rider tl1ere as a backup. Personally, if you're going to do it right, 1 don't think you need two number-one riders in the race team. l think you need a number-one rider and another guy there that can give good for the product. A young guy, or something, to teach a bit of stuff to. They don't mind pending a lot of money and running four riders good luck to them. I'd like to see a tworider team, scale it down a little bit, and focus a bit more on a smaller team. Q A Will your team within the team be different than it was this year? 0, not necessarily. It'll be the same. If we get anything from Suzuki, from Japan, that we only get one of, and it seems to work, then I'll get it.. Because, obviously, Suzuki thinks that I'm they're best chance for next year for tl1e d1ampionship. So if we get anything better, then they're going to give it to me first. And if I'm doing terribly, and omeone else is bea ting me out of this team, obviously they'd look at the championship. Did you have any other offers for the coming years? I poke to a couple of race teams. 1 wa with uzuki for next year anyway. 1 had a two-year deal anyway. But, yeah, T had people talking this year about after that, after the '99 season. It's a challenge for me, and l need to have a challenge to enjoy this - you know what I mean. Obviously, Suzuki (has been) struggling for the last I-don't-knowhow-many years to be really consi tent. And tl11S year, I think, without a couple of the problems we had, we were consistently really good - given that Anthony (Gobert) and Miguel (DuHamel) were out for a lot of races. We were consi tent, we did what we wanted to do. I'm happy with what Suzuki has done. Like . I said, they looked after me financially as well, so [would've been stupid not to take tl1e deal. What about the 600cc Supersport class? Did Suzuki insist on it? 0, they didn't insist on it. I perr\.sonally think that it's going to help me with the superbike stuff by riding the 600. Things like midcorner speed and just being in with the 600 guy and banging it up a little bit. Obviously, to ride a prod uction bike fast, you've got to keep good corner speed up, because you can't afford to have that thing slowing down. ll' one thing I suffer from a little bit. My midcomer speed is not the best. It's a little better than what it used to be, but it' not the best. Q Do you expect Suzuki's 600 to be competitive with the new Hondas an Yamahas? I think so. It's the same deal. Every year there's a new bike and it's going to do this, it's going to do that. And they never seem to turn out quite as good as everyone is saying tl1ey're going to be. And from what I've seen over the last couple of days here, the Honda and Yamaha guys aren't doing anything majorly spectacular. They're not like a second a lap under the lap record or anything. We're figunng they're not going to be quite as qUIck as what... I'm sure that Honda and ama-' ha are smart enough to know hat they're not going to go out and knock a second off the 600 record with a new bike. It's not going to happen. Ie the same thing. 11's going to be competie ve. You've still got a lot of race tracks where speed doesn't come into play, and we think we can be competitive on those tracks. When this contract is finished, will you be finished at that point? l'll only be 29. I don't know; if 1'm fast enough, I might want to keep going. By the looks of things, there' no major-league talent that's going to come up and take all the seats away from us. There's a couple of the Hayden kids and a couple of the young guys coming up. There's a lot more than two or three seats in the superbike. A few of the guys are getting older, too, so they're not going to be around in three years. Probably Doug (Chahdler) and maybe Miguel (DuHamel) in three years I'm sure will be thinking about (quitting). Obviously, Scott Russell's not going to be here. You don't know what's going to happen. That's another thing: Suzuki looked after me financially and 11 I wanted to retire in three years, I can. It took a big commitment from me to do thaftleal with them, to get me to do at deal. It was a b.ig commitment for me to make up my mind what I'm doing 0 years from now. We came to an agreement, and I'm happy with it. During the year you had seven pole position, but it only translated to one race win. What's going to tum those even poles into wins next year? Is it something the team's going to do, or is it omething you're going to do? There's nothing I can do, because, as far as I'm conrerned, and I'm comfortable in my own mind, I did everything I could do in those races to win. I did everything I could do. A couple of races, J had a couple of poor results, like in Atlanta. It was the same old deal: We tried sometl1ing to try and help us in tl1e race. We didn't qualify that well in Continued on page 39 17

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