Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Anthony Gobert would bring a harangue. Gobert was disappointed, but no more so than the team. "If you could live that day over, it's like 'Groundhog's Day,' you would do that in a heartbeat," Yamaha's McCarty sajd. "Once those mjstakes are made, they're made forever. I thjnk that, yeah, we did let hjm down. All you can do is rebound and try to not let it happen again." McCarty said that the team is a good mix of talented people, "and they're all here for the same reason, to support a guy like Anthony." It's a situation he thrives in. After every practice session, qualifying session, or race, he thanks each member of the team indjvidually, a long way from comparing his mechanjcs to a German cleaning lady. The low point was a crash at Loudon, a crash which ended with a broken wrist, abraded elbow, dislocated shoulder, and a panoply of bumps and bruises. "That was the biggest crash 1 ever had," he said at the time. The crash was caused by two factors, having the wrong rear tire, and changed gearing. "I never use hard tires. I got a bit caught out. They need a couple of laps to come in," he said. He knew the harder rear tire had no grip, but no softer tires were ready when Gobert pitted prior to the crash. Also, the team had shortened the gearing on his Yamaha OW-01 and that magnified the deceleration caused by engine-braking. The chance of winning a Superbike title, a distant hope already, was gone. He would concentrate on the 600cc Supersport title, eventually fjnishjng second to Eric Bostrom. That he finished the 2001 season with the team he started with was a milestone. It was his first complete season since 1996. Not exactly a 500cc World Championship. "That's a pretty scary thought, really," Gobert says. "As someone sort of so young with a lot of potential in racing to sort of mess things up so much. I kind of can laugh at it a bit now because I think I still have enough time in my career that I can obviously redeem myself. It's pretty funny, really, to think that I hadn't finished a season since '96. And even in '96 I broke my collarbone halfway through the year and rrussed half the year anyway [With Rob Muzzy's Kawasakj team]. I hadn't really done a complete season uninjured, every race, since '95 [also with Muzzy]." He still hasn't. What he describes as the worst crash of his career, at Loudon in mid-June, forced him to miss a number of Superbike races, though it didn't cause him to sit out any 600cc Supersport rounds. (Gobert rode injured in a number of the Supersport races and was back on the Superbike for the final race at Virginia International Raceway, where he led late in the race, losing out to Hayden.) The one constant throughout the season, and hjs career, has been his fan base. Despite the fact that he hasn't won a title since 1994, his supporters remain loyal. "They've always been there supporting me 100 percent, and that has pretty much been what has pulled me through all the tough stuff is people always coming up shaking their fist and telling me how much they enjoy watching me ride and how much they want to see me become World Champion and all that. I have to thank those people 22 MARCH 6, 2002' cue • • n __ s because they're the people who really drive me and keep me going," he says. Hjs popularity has been vexatious to some of hjs fellow competitors. As fellow Australian Mat Mladin, a three-time AMA Superbike Champion who's known Gobert since they were kids, asks, "What's he done?" The truth is, not much. Over the course of less than three interrupted AMA seasons, he's won 10 Superb ike races, his best championshjp placing was a third in 1999. In less than three World Superbike seasons, he's won a handful of races, mostly at PhHlip Island and Laguna Seca. None of whkh matters to his fans. What they see is a showman; someone who genuinely loves riding motorcycles; who rides on the ragged edge but always in control; the master of volatile neglect. These days, his showmanship has been enhanced by professionalism. As soon as he sees a camera pointed his way, he zips up his leathers, hiding his nipple rings, to fly the corporate colors, and flashes a smile. His ability to spot trackside photographers and morph into the Wheelie King is unparalleled. Fans love it. In interviews, he's polite to the point of being acquiescent. The politeness doesn't end there, which bumps up against the "Wild Child" image assiduously nurtured for years. An entirely unscientific sampling of paddock opinions think he's for real, that he has a real shot at the title, if Yamaha can keep a competitive machjne under hjm. For his part, Gobert is working hard. Over the winter holidays, he stayed in Califorrua, at the home he shares with his brothers, Aaron and Alex, and his girlfriend, Suni, while hjs brothers returned home to Australia. Every day, he's out on his motocross bike mjxing it up with some of the best motocrossers in America and more than holiling his own. Mentoring his younger brothers has given him stability. The championship and the future is all that Gobert thinks about. Yamaha came to him after the 2001 season and asked him if he wanted to continue riding the R7. For Gobert, there was no question, despite the bike's advanced age. "To be honest, that felt like I was even going even further away from GPs," Gobert said. "You don't get to GPs by being AMA 600 Champion. So I was like, no matter how the bike is, I'm riding it. I thought if I could win on it last year then I thought, defirutely I could win some races on it this year." His faith is being repaid. The team expects to receive four new engines and a technician from Japan for Daytona. The carrot at the end of a stick is a return to the World Championships - MotoGP, not World Superbike. "I only want to go back to GP. I feel that that's where my heart is. I only went road racing in the first place to be GP Champion. I said to myself when I was three years old, I remember watching an ad on TV about Mr. Motocross, I said to myself, 'I want to prove to myself that I can be the best rider in the world.' 1 said that to myself when I was three or four years old and I've kjnd of been chasing that dream the whole time." What's been missing has been total support from all levels - family, friends, team, and, mostly, hjmself. His willingness to accept responsibWty for his mistakes. "What if he came out of the box like a little Hayden?" one team owner asked. "He'd already have won three World Championships. No doubt about it." "People always say you don't know what you've got until you lose it, and that's exactly what happened to me," he says. "I was finally focused and I didn't have any machinery to do it. So then, when I went to Yamaha, back with a chance to do good, then my motivation has even tripled - even now, this season." Whether he gets that chance to race MotoGP with Yamaha is undecided. Nothing in his contract suggests he'll move to MotoGP if he wins a title, though McCarty said "he's made it very clear that's really his goal. I don't think Yamaha was prepared to promjse anything, other, obviously, than that they want him as part of the family as far as riding Yamaha. They were hopeful that his results were going to be this great this year, and I think if he continues on and continues on proving to everybody that his past is berund and that he can deHver what he is capable of delivering, who knows where the future's going to be? Yamaha has a lot of opporturuties ahead. Every company always wants riders with some backgrounds on their machines to be part of what's going on." "I'm nearly 27 now," Gobert says. "I feel that I've matured quite a bit in the last couple of years. Before, I was kind of liVing like a rock star. Nowadays, I'm more about trying to be champion. I'm still about trying to be GP Champion. That's the only thing that drives me. I still want to get back there and I still want to try to be champion. And I still believe that I have the capabilities to do that. "I'm enjoying racing right now more than I ever have," he says. "I feel I've reached a new professional level. But right now seeing that, hopefully with Yamaha, it's only just around the corner, right now I'm really, really enjoying my racing, I'm really, really enjoying being a part of the Yamaha family. Yamaha, the way that they've treated me, has been incredible. I just really feel that I have a responsibility to repay them for what they do for me. And that's sort of why I'm putting in so much effort and in turn is why I'm having so much fun." CN

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