Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Fast Freddie's Big Idea t started with an innocent conversa- I tion in the middle of 1984. By the end of 1985, the dream of becoming a double World Champion was reality for Team Honda 's Freddie Spencer. In June of '84, at the Dutch TT in Assen, Holland, Spencer, the reigning 500cc World Cha mpion, had just dropped out of the 500 race after holding a IS-second lead, a broken spark plug cap frustrating his defense of the title. ''And we were sitting around afterwards, Mr. Oguma - who was the HRC manager - Erv [Kanemoto] and myself, and we just started talking about the Championship. This was about halfway through the '84 season, and we'd had a wheel come apart on me in Sout h Africa, and then had this [plug cap] happen to me at South Africa. We had gotten knocke d out of a co uple races. Erv and I had already bee n talking about it, and I bro ught it up that I thought it wo uld be interesting if we decided to go for two championships to make up fo r t he championship tha t we might not win in '84. We just kind of batted it around." For the record, it would not be the first time that the idea had been tried . Upon entering his first season of Grand Prix racing, Kenny Roberts took a crack at winning both titles in one season, o nly to abandon the 250cc class midway through the year - and, some say, too soon . The potential glory of being the first rider in history to win both titles in the same year remained, but regardless of that, Spencer .......... and Honda had a hurtle to clear in th at they lacke d a competitive 250cc machine with which to contest the series. "Ho nda had a production-based bike that they were running that year [1984] that wasn't a factory bike," Spencer says. "It was based off a production 250, more of a customer bike - an R5250, they called it. There was no works bike, no works team, nothing." But the ide a was appealing to Honda, and a game plan was fo rmed that wo uld see several seaso ns worth of deve lopmen t crammed into just a few short mo nths. It wou ld take all of t he physical and spiritual if not financial - resources that Honda could muster. ''A lot of people don 't know it, but that bike [the NSR250] went from being an idea to go for two championships, to a drawing, to a mock-up, and then to hand-built, to the first test when I rode the bike, in right around three months, " Spencer remembers. "The first time that I rode it was September of '84 at Suzuka." Spencer had faith in Ho nda's tremendous capabilities, however, and that faith would not be shaken , especially after his first ride aboard the NSR250. "Right away I liked it," Spencer says. "Within the first two days of riding it, I had set a new track record on the thing." Despite that initial testing success , and although historical hindsight might suggest otherwise, Spe nce r says that there was never any thought by himself or the team that reaching the goal was just going to be a walk in the park. In fact, Spencer recalls that he didn't fully realize how much wo rk was going to be necessary to pull off the dou ble. "Going into the '85 championship, not only did the 250, w hich was brand new, require development, but the 500 did too becau se we totally changed it fro m an upside down bike to a conventional bike," Spencer says. ''Also, I had to do the development while we were going from bias-ply to radial tires ." Still, Spencer was able to draw from his earliest road racing days, where he rode several classes on the same day, and develop a succe ssful strategy for campaigning the two GP classes . The fo undation for the strategy was put in place during a 10-day test in Australia. "The way that I approached it at the test was like we would at race weekends," Spencer says. "I wou ld ru n the 250 and the 500 back to back, making changes on the bikes after I had ridden both bikes, really 102 AUGUST 18, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS compartmentalizing the riding of each bike to teach myself and adapt to what I would be going through on race weekends. The bikes were different and requ ired different styles, and I approached it like I would at the races because of the way they run qualifying back to back." Ho nda had made it clear from the o utset tha t the 500cc title was st ill the priority, and that if the 250cc program were to hinder that priority in any way, then the 250cc program wou ld be halted immediately. "Erv and I knew that ifwe wanted to do this, and if we struggled at all on the 500, then we had to get it turned around quick," Spencer says. "Going in, the critical thing fo r me was winning both champions hips. I looked at them together. If we didn't do it, then I would have considered it to be failure , a big disappointment." W hen Spencer wo n the 250cc race at the series ope ner in Kyalami, South Africa, and finished second in the 500cc race to defe nding World Champion Eddie Lawson, there may have been cause for concern. At the following round , in Spain, Spencer finished ninth on the 250cc and won on the 500cc. "We were on the right path by the second race, " Spencer says. "I fe lt co nfide nt after Spain. Finishing nint h on the 250 [due to a broken exhaustpipe] allowed Carios Lavado and Toni Mang to get a few points on me , but we were back to even on the 500. At that point, I felt it was going to be okay." It turned out to be more t han okay, as Spencer went on to sco re seven double (250cc and 500cc) victories in I I rounds, becoming the first and, so far, only - rider ever to win the 250cc World Championship and 500cc World Championship crowns in the same year. Spencer looks back on the furious pace of that year and sometimes wonders how he did it "I literally had to jump off one bike and onto the other," Spencer says. "I remember in Italy I went straight from the 250 , podium onto t he 500 , drinking as much water as I cou ld. I just had to stay focused, but my mindset was tha t there was rea lly no adapting from one bike to the next . I'd gotten that out of the way during testing ." 40th Anniversary Sco tt Rousseau 3D YEARS AGO•• • Auquet: 1974 ea. Grand Prix Motocross stars Rod ge r De Co st e r and Brad Lack ey ~~~i~Bl'1I showed up on the cover of this issue, as did DeCoste r's rival Heikki Mikkola. At the time, all three riders were battling it out for the World Motocross C hampionship...)immy Wein e rt a nd Jimmy Ellis both took wins at a National Motocross race held in Delta , Oh io. Ellis won the 250cc class while Weinert won the Open c1ass...We did a test on the KX 125. Overall, we found that the bike was competitive with the po pular Honda Elsinores of the time ...Ph il Reid was able to keep his 500cc World Road Racing Champi onshi p title by taking a decisive victory at t he Finnish Grand Prix in Imatra , Finland. i!U YEARS AGU . •• A ugu§t 1984 ee. ""'.."'IIIIJ.... I"! Defending Dirt Track Champion Randy Goss appeared on the cover of this issue. Inside was an interview with the Harley-Davidson racer, where he discussed his chances of winning another tit le and beating the mighty Honda riders ...At the I Ith rou nd of the AMA Grand National Champio nship MX Series, Jeff Ward, Ron Lechlen a nd Brae Glover took home the class victories . Ward wo n the I25cc class, Lechien took the 250cc class win and Glover took t he 500cc class victory...Honda rider Ricky Graham took over the points lead with his win at round 22 of the AMA Grand National Championship Series in Peoria, Illinois. Finishing second to Graham was Bubba Shobert...We went inside Ha rley.Davidso n's inner workings with a feature about a tour we took through its racing department in Milwaukee, Minnesota . 10 YEARS AGU... Augu§t 17. 1994 The "Prince of Peo ria" Scott Parker made an appearance on the cover on his way to another victory in the Peor ia TT...There was a mention in "In the Wind" about an ISDE trai ning camp for all of the American riders selected fo r the event. It was the first of it's kind, as well as the last...Privateer rnotocrosser John Do wd took the overall victory at rou nd nine of the AMA 250cc Motocross Champio nship Series. It was t he second win of his career...We t urne d ou r 1994 CR 125 into a projec t bike, and with grea t success. To begin with, the bike was already strong, and with the added modifications, it became blazingly fast.

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