Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Roberts in Japan Venny Roberts was homeless. idled Team Roberts was an itinerant in the Motegi paddock, wandering from box to box, even watching final qualifying among the scribblers in the press room. He'd come to Japan as a favor to an old friend from Yamaha - he rode ceremonial laps on an MV on an island track just off the Japanese coast - but had more pressing business. Roberts needs motors for next year and beyond, and most of the suppliers, except for Ducati, are in Japan. We caught up to him outside the Suzuki hospitality box, where he'd just had lunch with his son Kenny Junior and Junior's wife, Rochelle. I'.The owner of the Who have you spoken to about engines? Everybody that wants to have a chassis built. Team manager Chuck Aksland said that Honda and Ducatl would be the most credible partne"", Oh, for sure. Have you had positive meetings? Yeah. I would have to say, right now, everybody's been very good. The KTM guy [CEO Stefan Pierer] just dropped us right in the shit by not wanting to play the ballgame any more and he packed up his little toys and went home. Sort of left us like, 'Well, now what?' Of course we have some small sponsor obligations ourseM!s, [regardless of) how small they are. Still, our credibility... We can go legally into actions, but I can't do that right now. It's not going to help me get through this season. We brought the old bike to Czecho, and Michelin were kind enough to help us out. Everybody has been, 'Okay, we don't agree with what this butthole did, so we'll help you.' Things like that have been encouraging, and the talks with manufacturers have been all very positive. And now that we started this road of running another engine manufacturer, certainly running the top one would be more exciting than running the KTM. Who would have ever thought that you'd be racing a Honda? Yeah, when I used to follow Freddie [Spencer] around, I wished I was racing a Honda all the time. Every time he'd shift a gear and leave about three feet, I'd go, 'God, this is a four-cylinder, it's supposed to be faster than that bike.' Yeah, I thought about riding it a lot. But I have had offers in the past to work for the company - just never the right time or the right situation. I'm not saying it is Honda, but certainly you could never argue about their engineering. Sometimes I don't agree with the policies, but the engineering you can't argue about. The biggest hurdle must be money, The sport the last few years has really gone up in money. We struggle from time to time enginewise. I think securing a better engine would help that process and get us a better rider. It's just really kind of putting all the little pieces together so you can get 10 back into the money. Because it's worth money. MotoGP has never been - I think for the money you have to spend to run racing teams - I don't think it's ever been better value, because the sponsorship level hasn't increased along with the cost. What about ride",,? Everyone assumes It will be Kenny Junior. To run Junior would be great on a Honda engine, for example. But it's not just the engine. It's the whole team. It's the whole structure around it to run a World Champion. You've got make sure, especially with your own son, you have to make sure that you can cover all the bases like you used to. And we haven't done that for a long time. This year we were helpless. At least last year we could yell at the engine guys and throw used pistons and shit at them. But this year we couldn't do nothing, we could just wait. And of course, nothing showed up. Just like a double-edged sword. Okay, this year we've got a better engine, but as it turned out, it wasn't, and then you're helpless to do anything about it. If you're going to do what we did this year, it would be nice to do it with a company that you know the engine is the right product. And then, of course, with the right backup, which means money, to put the right team around a guy like Junior would be great. Because I think he could tell us what we need to at least get us back onto the podium. So what happens the next few weeks? Tying down the cost of all this stuff and having the balls to lay it on the line and say, 'Yeah, we're going to go do this.' And find the sponsorship money to do it. A new engine supplier would be helpful for 2007. The KTM future was never bright for 2007, was it? After watching the first race, it wasn't looking too bright. And listening to Shakey's [Byrne] comments and Randy's [Marnola] comments, it wasn't too bright this year. Yeah, the whole thing was never done properly in the first place. But give me some time off, my [golf) handicap is coming down. So it never really was a big deal. We had been building our infrastructure up to make a better product, but without actually putting it up and having a motor that was competitive, it doesn't do any good. And to be able to do that, and then you need '06 to do that and '07 have some... because this thing is getting more and more complicated, and I think KTM found out starting out with the wrong motor, the wrong powerband, is a disaster, except our method of fIXing it isn't there. They just quit. Our method would be, 'We have to struggle through this because we made commitments.' His way is aetually easier. What about maintenance of whkhever engine you get? I really wouldn't want to open them up. I have always seen it as being an engine deal, should be an engine deal. Should be like Formula One. We should plug them in and unplug them. It's not to our advantage to take them apart and see what's in them anyway. We want to win races and do the best SEPTEMBER 28, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS Kenny Roberts (center) talks to Randy Mamola (left) and Chuck Aksland (right) at the Japanese Grand Prix in Mategi. job at that. And to have a reasonable shot at that, you need all them things put together. I don't want to do like the Yamaha deal and end up making half the motorcycle myself, because it's just costly to do that. But in the end, you just spend all your money doing it. Is there a wide range of costs in leasing in the engines? No, I don't think there's a big deal of costs. I think a lot of it depends on whether they really want to help you or they don't. The biggest problem that I've seen over the last three or four years is the tire deal - if you can secure a tire deal or not. Obviously securing a tire deal is easy. but securing a tire deal and getting sponsorship along with it and being able to put it on the racetrack is a big problem. Do you have to find a sponsor to survive, or could you run like WCM without a major sponsor? I'd like to think that we could [survive]. The kitty is not completely full, but when KTM decided to pull out and leave us another hole to fill doesn't help. So we're not as financially well off as we were at the beginning of last year. I would like to think [that] had all of that not happened, we probably would have been able to commit and start going without a sponsor. But now I would say that's a little bit unrealistic. It's unrealistic that we could do it, but it's unrealistic to think that we could do it and be competitive. We've always looked for the future, or tried to, and a lot of sponsors don't, a lot of commitments don't go that far. Well, KTM didn't go half the season. A lot of people just don't have the same view. What do you think of the way the GPMA handled It? I think the GPMA has some responsibility for the manufacturers to make sure that that doesn't happen. I mean, if that's easy, I just think back to how stupid I was these years pounding sand uphill. I could have just cut and run and saved three, four, flYe million dollars. We would never have done that, of course. But we're different people. Obviously [KTM] saved a lot of money by cutting and running. I think there has to be some recourse against that. I just talked to the GPMA and said, 'Hey, this guy's a manufacturer.' So everybody agrees that what he does was very wrong. But now who's going to help with recourse? How's this situation left Shakey Byrne? Absolutely horrible. To get the guy an uncompetitive engine and then to drop him halfway through the year, that's totally disas- trous. Because as a rider, you're only as good as your last race. And he has commitments also, other companies, helmet companies. And just to say, 'Okay, we're done with this, we don't want to waste any more money so we're going to live up to your contract: which was a pittance to this guy, was really wrong. And the press kind of sugarcoated it. This guy didn't just pull the engines, this guy quit MotoGp, just said, i\h, this is too expensive, I don't want to do this anymore.' Just to back out of it. I watched the TV show; they said, i\h, yeah, KTM just decided to pull their engines from Team Roberts.' That's so far from the truth. I was pissed off at the time. What can you do? If this is the attitude of the press, then I guess it's okay. I would have been a little bit more voiceful, I think. Would you consider hiring Byrne next year? Yeah. I think the problem is that it left such a dim thing on his record. I think he's a decent rider and an absolute joy to work with, but no one's going to know his talent level over the last couple of years. And for KTM to pull the plug - Aprilia must be kicking themseM!s in the butt for not doing it the year before. Is that what we're going to start now? Riders have done that, and people have actually sued them, and it worked out okay for them. Now we've got companies doing it. I would think about hiring Shakey again. Are you looking at a one-rider team for the time being? With the short stage and to secure the sponsorship, two is a little bit unrealistic. One is unrealistic, two is almost impossible. Yeah, but you've done things that were unrealistic your whole career. That's true. Are you definitely running in Valencia? Yeah, we're working on one of the old dinosaurs to bring out. I thought you were talking about Jeremy [McWilliams]. I was. Is he going to ride it? No idea who's going to ride it. Kind of leaning toward Kurtis [Roberts], because we had such a shitty year for him, and he's doing nothing at the moment. He's one of the guys we might put on it. He'd like to do a race on Michelins once. Henny Ray Abroms

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