Cycle News

VOLUME 57 ISSUE 42 OCTOBER 20, 2020 P105 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 Honda's tremendous capabilities, how- ever, 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 suc- cess, and although historical hindsight might suggest other- wise, Spencer 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 work was going to be necessary to pull off the double. "Going into the '85 champion- ship, not only did the 250, which was brand new, require develop- ment, but the 500 did too, be- cause we totally changed it from an upside-down bike to a conven- tional 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 successful strategy for campaign- ing the two GP classes. The foundation 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 would run the 250 and the 500 back to back, making changes on the bikes after I had ridden both bikes, really compartmentalizing the riding of each bike to teach myself and adapt to what I would be going through on race week- ends. The bikes were different and required different styles, and I approached it like I would at the races because of the way they run qualifying back to back." Honda had made it clear from the outset that the 500cc title was still the priority, and that if the 250cc program were to hinder that priority in any way, then the 250cc program would be halted immediately. "Erv and I knew that if we want- ed 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 criti- cal thing for me was winning both championships. I looked at them together. If we didn't do it, then I would have considered it to be failure, a big disappointment." When Spencer won the 250cc race at the series opener in Ky- alami, South Africa, and finished second in the 500cc race to defending World Champion Eddie Lawson, there may have been cause for concern. At the fol- lowing 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 felt confident after Spain. Finish- ing ninth on the 250 [due to a bro- ken exhaust pipe] 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 than okay, as Spencer went on to score seven double (250cc and 500cc) victories in 11 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 the 500, drinking as much water as I could. I just had to stay focused, but my mindset was that there was really no adapting from one bike to the next. I'd gotten that out of the way during testing." CN This Archives edition is reprinted from issue #32, August 18, 2004. CN has hundreds of past Archives editions in our files, too many des- tined to be archives themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, in the future, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones com- ing down the road. -Editor Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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