Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Connecticut Yankee, Part Two: The Deal of the Century T here is no love lost between Mike Baldwin and former Kawasaki (later Honda) racing team manager Gary Mathers. After all, Mathers fired Baldwin. Twice. "He was the one who took over the Kawasaki team when I was riding for them in '79:' Baldwin says. "I broke my leg really bad, and he took over for them right after I got hurt. I remember that I went out to California that spring after I was out of my body cast to talk to them about the possibility of a ride and even the slimmer possibility of getting them to help me out with my medical expenses, which had pretty much broken my bank account. Back in those days, the AMA medical insurance only went up to $10,000, and I was in the hospital for five months. By the time I got out to California, they were well on their way to having their California team in place. He [Mathers] pretty much threw his pencil in his pencil holder on his desk and told me to get the hell out, and he pretty much spit on my request for help with medical bills." Baldwin would move on to Honda where much happier days would come to pass. "Funny enough, but Steve Mclaughlin was the team manager for them, and he called me up in 1980 after I got my leg healed up, and asked me to ride with Freddy Spencer in an endurance race on a 900:' Balwin remembers. "It was like a six-hour race, and I think we won it." One thing led to another with Honda. "They put me in touch with the guy who was actually in charge of HRC:' Baldwin recalls. "They really wanted to win Suzuka, and they wanted American riders based out of France on the French team, so they got me and Dave Aldana to ride for Honda of France. We had nothing but troubles that whole year, but at Suzuka we were able to win - after jumping through about a thousand hoops." And winning Suzuka greatly improved Baldwin's credit at Honda. "I had a good relationship with the guy who called most of the shots at HRC," Baldwin says, "and he set me up with the deal to ride for American Honda the follOWing year on that V-four I000, called an RS I000R, that they came out with in 1982. It was a specially built prototype made to win Daytona and the Isle of Man. It was really fast, had a little too much weight and shredded tires at Daytona left and right. Ithink we finished fourth down there that year. It was an incredibly awesome bike. I rode it all through '82, and we won the [Formula One] championship on it. I rode it again at Daytona in 1983, and then I went to the Malaysian Grand Prix [at the time, the race was not part of the 500cc World Championship calendar], and I won." Baldwin then scored a quiver of factory Honda RS5OOs, which were produced by HRC to duplicate the NSSOO that Spencer had contested GPs aboard in 1983. Baldwin racked 98 MAY 25, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS up three successive Formula One titles on the factory two-strokes, and he cashed some big checks along the way. "My first-year salary was about $90,000, and the bonus was another $100,000:' Baldwin says. "So, the next year, after I won the championship, my salary was $190,000, then $290,000 the next year, then $390,000. 50, you're talking like $400,000 for a salary, which was pretty good back then but would be a joke now. Then Mathers got in there, and the first move he did was tear up those contracts." Baldwin's last year of racing for Honda was '84. "They had secured Bob Hannah to ride for them in '84, and they had me riding on the road race team in '84, and at the end of the year, Mathers decided to pull the plug on Hannah and myself:' Baldwin says. Out of a ride, Baldwin was left to contemplate his future when he received a rather odd phone call in November of 1984. "Udo Gietl was the team manager, and he was on his way out to go to the automotive side or something like that:' Baldwin says. "He called me in November and said, 'Look, they're pulling the plug on the [Formula One] road racing program, but you can buy these bikes if you want to buy them.' I asked him how much they would be, and he said, 'Get out here with a truck, and we'll worry about the money when you get here.' "So I got there, and they rolled all these bikes into my truck, and they're walking out of the parts room with all these big boxes full of parts, basically clearing the shelves of every RS500 part they have:' Baldwin remembers. 'Then they come out with an invoice that says, 'five bucks.' Udo said, 'Do you have the money? If not, I can loan it to you.' I said, 'Well, I'm a little strapped for gas money to get back home: but Igave him the five bucks. I wound up with four RS500s and all the parts you would need." For $5, Mike Baldwin was the most posh privateer in the AMA Formula One pits in 1985, a year that would see him win three races and claim the Formula One Championship for the fourth straight year. But that was only part of his program. Baldwin had also made a unique deal that saw him contest several GP rounds in Europe aboard those same RS500s. "I rode the Match Races in England and then the first three Grands Prix in Europe:' Baldwin says. "I had made a deal with Michelin that was kind of cool. They had helped me with tires in '83 and '84, and I had won the number-one plate for them, and they really wanted it again in '85. So, I talked them into sponsoring me for the U.S. and Europe, and they paid to foot all the freight of sending my bikes back and forth between the U.S. and Europe that year. And the really cool thing was that whenever I'd run a GP. at the end of it I would roll all my wheels over to the Michelin tent, and they would put all brand-new tires on, and then we'd pack them in the crates to come back and ride Loudon or Elkhart Lake, or wherever we had to go, with tires that were all GP-spec rubber. We'd go out and kick ass and take names, and then we'd load up and go back to Europe." Despite the hectic schedule, things went pretty well for Baldwin in Europe in 1985. The end result was another big step up the ladder. "I have a funny story about that season:' Baldwin says. "I remember that we were in Austria, and those were h". i ... "~~~~~'L -- J.~ !.. . - ~ W;;;;; ~~ , , • ,; ~..."a;.., "';,... 'i ~ '.~ • "j-;<;di~ ': 'r,\li\. ' .. ~~, ..,' ~ - "~', ..: '.. ,,.'_ still the days of push starting. There was a kid named Didier Rodrigues from Belgium who would straddle the bike and push it like a 125, and he would always get off the line first. Well, he came flying by me - between me and the guardrail - and caught my elbow just as I was trying to start, and he sent me end over end. So, 1got up and got going, and worked my way up to sixth or seventh, which was pretty good considering how fast a track Salsburg was. "So I'm back in the pits, packing stuff up when Paul Butler walks up and says, 'Come here, Baldwin, I want to talk to you:" Baldwin recalls. "He takes me up on this motorhome, and Kenny Roberts is standing there. And Kenny says, 'How would you like to ride for me next year?' So, I ended up riding for Roberts Yamaha in '86 and '87." The only AMA race that Baldwin contested in 1986 was at Laguna Seca, which he won. In Europe, during a banner year of American dominance, Baldwin finished fourth in the final standings, behind teammate Randy Mamola, while another American, Eddie Lawson, won the title. Baldwin's season result was to be the highwater mark of his GP career. "What happened in 1987 was that at the second race of the year, at Hockenheim, I came off the bike at the end of the straightaway," Baldwin says. "I slid a couple hundred yards and came to a stop right in the runoff road by the chicane at the end of this straightaway. So, the ambulance came to pick me up, and while they were there, Frankie [Pier-Francesco] Chili overshot the chicane and had to use the runoff road. He was going down the runoff road at over 100 mph, and he had the choice of hitting the ambulance or running over me, so he ended up running over me. It broke two bones in my ankle and five or six bones in my hand, which blew up like a football. I had to have surgery done to it, and I missed from May until the last three races of the year. That was pretty much it for me. The next year they got Wayne Rainey on the team." Today, Baldwin still resides in Connecticut, where he is the marketing manager and "go-to guy for whenever something goes wrong" at Spectro Oils. He says, without a doubt, that he is very happy with his road racing career. "It was one of the coolest things I could have ever done with my life," Baldwin says. '~nd that particular [Honda purchase] deal was a pretty good one. I haven't eN made many deals better than that!"

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