Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

THE ADVENTU.RES OF BOB HANSEN! 'Whe r e in A Lot of Questions Are Answered About the 1972 Road Racing Season. ; Ye t th e story th at hurt Hansen's im age th e most, the o ne concerning Kevin Ca me ro n, carried J ess T homas byli ne. If mu ch of Hansen's not orie ty co ncerns his rela tio ns with p riva teers, th e rest of it co ncerns his rel a tionsh ip with racer s, particularly Paul Smar t. A ctually , accordi ng to th e contrac t drawn up b etween Hans en an d Smart, Paul was primarily a "race-m echanic and devel opment rider... t o be available fo r work a t the T eam Hansen faci li ty each regular w o rk d ay ... to help develop the Kawa sa ki racin g ma ch ines to th e b est of his abili ty by test rid in g and ad vising as necessary." Fo r his work , Paul w as to be paid $ 1,000 a m on th . His p osition was " mecha nic and development rider". In addition to being paid as a full time employee, Smart w as to receive use o f a road racer and back up for seven U.S. Nation al Road Ra ces. T his included expen se money to and from , as wen as at, the races . Obviously, there were more work days than ra ce days during the duration o f the con tra ct , J an uary 1972 to October 15, 1972. Paul Sm art was primarily a me chanic an d d evelopment rider. Racing wa s a secondary fun ction. Judging from events in 1972, somebody didn 't read th e co n t rac t they sign ed. It Was in June 1972 that the press started ca us ing T eam Hansen problem s. Th en again, perhap s th e informa tio n sourc e ma kin g it self loudly available to th e press Was 'th e r oot of th e problems. It see ms th a t "M otor Cycl e New s" (a British paper) quoted Smart as say ing the ra cers of hi s e mp loyer wer e "com pletely and u ll erl y un ridable and dan gero us". 1 guess Yvon DuHamel h ad n o t h ear d t he new s...he see me d to be riding these unridabl e cre a tures quite well at th e tim e. Th e same n ew s ite m credited Hansen as being "sligh t1y sy mpathetic to th e p roblem", but refusin g to foo t the bill fo r Smart 's wo r k with Colin Seel ey to improve the 750 racer's handling. "So it is Sm art wh o p ay s", said "M otor Cycle New s" . Interest ingly eno ugh, seve ral cancelled checks in dicate tha t Pau l Sm art received hi s usual salary as a dev elopment ride r wh en he w as in En gland w orking with Seeley. He Was n o t paid tr aveling e xpe nses to En gland. The stop at Seeley's Was o n th e w ay to lrn ola, wh ere Paul was to race Ducati, Sm art was given the amo un t it would have ta ke n to fly him to Talladega from Los An geles and back in cash , since after Imola he would be joining T eam Hans en on location in Tall ad ega. . This brings u s to an other printed it em which added to Hansen's infamy ...Smart's reasons for riding Ducat i at Im ola. In a Cycle News interview Smart said, "It was a sheer sequence of events that I ended up on a Du cati (at lmola) . I wanted to ride a Kawasaki, but Bob Hansen stalled and stalled , and literally a few days before the meeting said we were not going. " But Hansen and Wilvert tell a different story. "Paul Was the development rider, and he said that the bikes handled terribly. I co uld n't see us sticking our ne cks out running at Imola if we couldn 't win . The Imola organizers wanted us to go, I didn 't want to go, and Paul said our eq uip men t wasn 't any good. He had already made arrangements to ride at Imola prior to coming to the United States. He asked me if , since we were not running Kawasaki, he cou ld go and fulfill hi s obligation to the Imola people," relates Hansen. Since Smart's co n trac t stipulated that he would not "ride an y make of m otorcycle other than Kawasaki with the exclusio n o f any motorcy cle agreed upon in writing in ad vance by T eam Hansen", Bob gave Paul a letter stat in g th at he had permission Z i I ,i • I / •t b y John D. Ulric h Just wh o is Bob Hans en ? Major A me rican motorcy cle publicati on s print nasty th in gs abou t him. Fast Paul Sm art accuses him of be ing mean to Paul during hi s days as a Kaw asak i/aspiring Du ca ti{friumph/an ybody else with bucks developmen t-race rider. He has been blam ed fo r th e failu re o f Kevin Cameron 's lea ding H2R at Ontario. S urely Bob Hans en mus t have a long flo wi ng beard, h orn s, an d a red sui t wi th a cape covering up a triden t trail. Bu t if th at we re so, wh y did th e same co mpany th at laid o ut $35 0 ,00 0 in contingency m on ey allo w him, their racin g d ire ctor, to foul up n o t on ly a p romisin g privateer, but a fact o ry ri de r as well ? It j us t didn't fit . T hese questions drove me to seck ou t th is man, and I motored down the freeway to meet him at Team Han sen h eadq uar te rs in S anta Ana , California. Bo y, was I su rp rised ! When I m et Bob Hansen, I met not a brimstone breathing lower diety but a very fri endly dude with a grin from ear to ear. Funny, he didn't look dangerous and me an . Well, maybe the fireworks would co me when I got into the · questioning. Just what was this about Hansen refusing to give a racing crankshaft to Kevin Cameron, resulting in his last minute ma chine failure as Cameron 's rider, Cliff Carr, lead Ontario? "The truth of the mailer is, I gave Kevin a crankshaft. I didn 't make a big deal out of it, b ecau se I couldn 't give everybody a cran k. So I just slipped him o ne quie tIy ," answered th e man of my stery . But Aha!, thought I. A very reliable source had cautio ned me that althou gh Hansen had given Kevin a cran k , it Was rumored that he had taken it ba ck after qualifying at Ontario. This same sourc e told me to ask a man he described as a " disin terested third party", namely Hu rl y Wilver t, Smart's tun er for 19 72 and a man " in the know". Since 1 alw ay s heed the advi ce of reli abl e sources, 1 sough t o u t Hurley , an d as ke d him about this. It seems that it was Kevin Cameron who decided he would run his own crank instea d o f a Kawa saki racin g crank. This decis ion was not forced b y an y ac ti on or in acti on by Bob Hansen. Say s Hurley , "He came o ver and as ke d me wh ether he sh o uld leave it in be cause he had 300 mile s on it and he didn't know if it w ould last for Ontario. I said, leave that thing in be cause we've had so me last for 700 miles. H e just went awa y scratching his head, and th en la ter h e chan ged it. As far as I know, nobody ever took the crankshaft from him." So goes the IITst evil deed of Bob Hansen to really raise th e shackles of that endangered species, the American privateer. It just is not true. The publication popularizing th e rumor stands guilty of printing a bl atant lie without making any effo r t to verify it s substance . Tsk, tsk, tsk, But that' s ju st one of Hansen's reported misdeeds. One acquittal does not a devil an angel make. One acquittal does not get a mass murderer o ff the hook. So it was HI HO T APERECORDER AND AWAY WE GO! Proceed with the questioning, Mr. District Attorney! Mu ch of th e controversy surrounding Bob Hansen conc ern s his tr eatment of privateers. No m ailer what ce r tain elem en ts of the motorcycl e press say, evidence in T eam Hansen's files indicates that Hansen tre ats privateers very well indeed. Fro m engine sp ecs to fairings, scores of privateers ridi ng Kawasakis ha ve ben efited from th e knowledge accumul ated by T eam Hans en and Kaw asaki. " Peo ple see m to fo rget tha t I was a privateer longer than most o f th ese guys hav e been interested in racing". When Bob worked fo r Honda in \Viscon sin running a parts wareh ou se, he u sed to be at h is emplo yer 's ra ce teams with hi s Matchlesses at weekend meets. An interesting sidenote on Bob 's time at Honda is that during that period of time he gave Jess Thomas his famous Honda 350 and the parts he needed to make it competitive. to ride a mach in e o the r th an a Kaw asaki at 1m o la . Smart h ad told Han sen he would be ridi ng a Triumph road racer that the Triumph fac to ry ha d given him . Ho wever, it seem s that while Smart was in the U.S., th e T riumph peopl e rem o ved th e bik e fro m Paul's fa ther's garage in a Sherlock Ho lmes type adv enture, n ever forit to be seen b y Smar t again . He wrangled a last -min u te Du cati rid e - and wo n. Anoth er item culled from th e recen t Cycl e New s ar ticle o n Paul Sm ar t is that "the fact th at Paul didn 't 'cras h en ough' m ean t th at he wasn't riding it as fast as Hansen th ought it could go". H owever , witnesses agre e th at the o rigin al co nve rsa tio n fr om which thi s little gem eminates has been sligh tly altered in t ranslat io n . As Hans en tdls it , and Wilvert and others support, "Paul was comp laining that he was not selected as on e of th e two rid ers that I had positions for this year. He cited th e fac t that h e had the best finishin g record of any o f my rid ers from 1972. I told him it was strictly my business who I ch ose for my two riders. The fact th at h e fini shed more ra ces was not ne cess aril y becau se of hi s ability, it wa s his me chanic 's ability to mak e th e motorcycl e run the di stan ce , and th at may be th e rea son that Yvon fell off was because h e was going fast er. If you ever expect to win a race Yvon has to fall off becaus e you have never be en ab le to run as fast as he has within tw o or three seconds ." Out of th at cam e th e n o-crash-n o t-fa st -en ough story prin ted in Cycl e News. Yet a no th er fav o rite anti-Hansen sto ry is th e allegation th at he threat en ed to fir e Smar t an d Nixo n because th ey weren' t go ing as fast as DuHamel. "I d on 't thin k th at even deserves an answe r" , says Bob. "I co uld n't fire him if I wan ted to . I had a co n trac t with h im. I th in k th at DuHamel is th e fine st road racer in th e w o rld. If he's n umber one, the n any b ody ca n b eat h im. He 's th e only o ne wh o can go th at fas t. I could n't p o ssibly expect the others to go th at fast. I never said tha t". Hansen has a few com ments on th e wh ole mes s wi th Paul S mart. " It see ms strange to me tha t Paul Smart h as ridden fo r Triumph and n ow Triumph do esn ' t w an t to kn ow hi m. He rod e a Du cati, and Ducati told him they we ren ' t going to race. Now Ducati is going to race, giving a ride to Mick Grant. T hey didn't w ant to know Pau l. He also rode a Yamaha, slightly supported by Yam ah a in Europe. Now they're looking for riders, ye t th ey don 't look fo r him. It seems to me th at he ha s an ex cellent personality as far as the press is concerned, bu t so me th ing happens between him and the people he ri,s:Jes fo r. 1 don't know what it is. I o nly know what it was with me, and that was his failure to live up to the con trac t he signed." So ended my meeting with' Bob Hansen the infamous. Somehow, as I rode off into th e sunset, it didn 't seem quite right. Bob Hansen represents a giant international corporation, and perhaps that is what draws the arrows of others towards him. It is easy to depersonalize someone you or others think of as "enemy". That is how a moral person can live with war. But if you go out and meet th e "enemy", real or imagined, sometimes it is harder to think kindly of the bombs fallin g on his doorst ep, and harder to th ink of the men delivering those bombs as heroes. They are, after all, human just like everybody else . So it is with Bob Hansen, much maligned macho. You go o u t and meet him, and he doesn 't seem like the bad dude in the magazines a t all. By God, he's actually human! z ~ w W ...J U >- U

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