Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

I'm going to ride whatever they give me as hard as I can. It 's like Bill y Martin. He's a scrapper. And J immy Connors. H e's using that old T -2000 rac ket and it 's like a trampoline . But he j ust keep s hilling it bac k. Some people compla in that this isn' t righ t or that isn 't ri g h t, but I just give it my best. H o w much rain exp eri en ce did-yo u have before this year? Not much. In fact, I've ridde n less in the rain as a p ro fessio na l than I did as an amateur, so it's been fou r o r five years sin ce I' ve ridden in it and I' ve neve r ridden a 500 in the rain. Today we p u t on inter med ia tes the n rain tires a nd I tr y to ride as much as I ca n in th e ra in to get used to it beca use I need more experience. Beca use you' ve go t guys like Boet , Kenny, Barry a nd Middelburg that are going to be good in the rain . Dry , rain, snow, sl eet , it doesn ' t matter. What do yo u do in th e off season? Well , October, Novem ber and Decem ber are my off months. Oc to ber I get everyth in g organized for th e next seaso n as far as con tracts. I'm incorpora ted. I have an accountant, a la wyer , a nd I have boar d meetings once a m o n th . It's kind of fun. I own so m e lan d and different things in Shrevep ort . I have, up un til now, done most oj it with Perry, m y attorney. No vem ber is like an off m o n th an d December , of course, is fu ll of birth days an d Christmas. My birth day is December 20. And January is like an off month for most of us . Bu t we go to J apan , mostly in October. And the n I'm a seaso n ticket holder to the Los An geles La kers so I go to a lot of th ose basketball games. You must have been pretty happy about th e L a kers winning th e cham pionsh ip this year. I' m a Bost o n Celtics fan at h eart. I li ke the Sixers a lot beca use of the Doctor. H e deserves to win . I rea ll y wanted the 76ers to win this year. I h ave some of the ga m es o n tape. How much input did you h ave in designin g th e NS500? The first ti me I kn ew abou t it wa s last August. I saw th e en gi ne. That was a ll that th ey had fin ished. I sa w the fin ish ed bike for the first tim e in October, in J apa n . T h ey didn't have it complete enough to run. Then I rode it for the first tim e in December. And I moved th e engine forward, changed the gas tan k, a few things , th e style of it. Then it was p retty much in its complete stages. We tested it two times. We tested in Brazil the first of February. T he weather was good there and Mich elin wanted to tire test th ere. They'd tested th ere the yea r before and it's rea ll y a good race track for tir es. Which of the race bi kes is yo ur fav orite? Of all of the bikes I've ever ridden, I'd say the Yamaha TZ250. I really lik e th a t bike. I'd say I enjoy raci ng bi kes. I like dirt track. If things go right I might'go bac k to racing at the Astrodo me in a year or so, but - th a t's beca u se it' s the first race of th e year a nd most of the guys aren' t sorted o ut. You don't want to jump in with those -guys a bout halfway th rough the seaso n. If I ha d time to prepare in the winter, maybe I'd do it as a one sho t thing. I do u bt very seriously if I'll ever do it again. But I ki n d of miss it because I grew up doing it. I m iss r idin g the super bike. I rea lly li ke ridin g th e su pe rbi ke. I'll be riding it a t Laguna Seca. It'll be grea t. Ir'Il be fun gelling back in there wi th th e guys again. What's it like ra cing against these riders? Who are you the most comfortable with? Kenny and Barr y are the eas iest to ra ce with beca use they both h ave di stin ctive styl es. T hey both always ride the exact same way. It 's all th e yea rs. tr. d [.~r. >; I~: r'I'-l.} _ };I:J I Kenny a lways sets u p wide for a la te apex . It 's good for h is machine a n d the way that his bike is set up he has a lot of the wei gh t back a nd h e likes to steer with the rear end. H e couldn't really go in low and bank it over. It's kind of like m ine and it comes from dirt tracking. Sq uaring the turn ot£. Barry, on the o ther hand, drives in deep. If I'm go ing to pass Barry, I usually like to do it coming off the turn maybe, or brak ing, rather than before. Because Kenny sets up wide, if you outbrake hi m it's easier to pass before you get into the turn. With Barry that's very difficult to do because he sets up for the in side so if I pass him it's by ge ll ing a drive out of a tu rn beca u se I feel that hurts his drive a little bit. H e's making up his time going in whe re Kenny doesn ' t. H e likes reall y h ig h exit speeds. I try to do a little of both . G et in as good, but co me out as good. I ha ven 't rea ll y been wi th Uncini that much because I raced with Kenny and Barr y a t Ar gentina, an d then at Aus tr ia a li tt le bit with Ken n y and Barry both , a n d Uncin i came up la ter. At Assen I was at th e ba ck of th e bunch of Ken ny, Barry, Franco and Middelbu rg, just kind of wai ting to see what was going to h app en . It rained. What a dea l. I said I wo u ldn't even drive m y car in weather like tha t. But Franco do esn 't reall y have a di stinctive style lik e Barry and Ken ny because their's have been th a t way for years. Franco go es whe re he feels he's the mos t co m fort a ble going fast. Is his bike really that much faster than anyone else's? H is bik e's pretty good. H is bike, is reall y good an d it 's good o n power, it handles good, and he 's riding it good. Everything's kind of going hi s way . And Roberto Gallina deserves a lot of cre dit. He's smart. I don 't agree wi th everyth ing that he says, but h e's got th e fastest bikes. H e really thinks a n d he organizes and he does everything for hi s rider. And I think tha t h elp ed Ma rco a lot last year. , How long do you think it will take yo u to become World Champion? Did you expect it this year? You always hope, but if we hadn 't had those few proble m s . .. yo u ex p ect maybe one DNF or one p roblem ,maybe in Austria. Spain or Assen .. : if we hadn 't had those two, we' d be right in th e thick of things. j u st one race out maybe. And th e wa y that it is n ow we' re going to have to ha ve a t least two or three DNF's from Kenny and Barry and Franco to win it. It could happen. I really feel tha t I' m still im pro ving, th e bik e's st ill im provi ng .and n ext year. we'll be really read y. Were you surprised at how well you did in the first GP of the year in Argentina? I was su rp rised, but bo th Erv and I felt that if the bike worked good and I ro de good we'd be in th ere. I'm not saying that we thoug ht we'd blow everybody away, but we felt inside tha t it was possi ble to be in th ere. The main thing th at I was shocked abou t was how the bike ran. It was good, but that race trac k favor ed us a little bit. Well, it didn 't favor us, but it' s lik e ap p lyin g a bandage to a bl eeding wo und. It sto p s it for a litt le whi le. That race track was lik e a bandage for us beca use it covered up some of the problems tha t we had , the deficiencies in powerband, a nd just outright power where it's showing up at Assen. But I have to p ick the line that suits the bike, beca use it's like I was behind Kenny in practice and there are a couple o f lines that I feel would be fas ter, and I cou ld m ake up more time, but I ca n' t 'do i t because my apex speed wo u ld be too slow and I'd be out o f the powerba nd. And if I gear down or~e. p~ar I' d be that much ,. ,- , t, ~ .' ;' ., I (Above) Erv Kannemoto (right) discusses a point with Freddie . (Below) Spencer, at age 20, is the youngest rider to win a 500cc GP . slower because it 's a wa y up above the powerband so I'm going to be that much slower. It 's kind of like a happy medium that you have to pick. And then when yo u get in there and you 're ra cing with Kenny a n d those guys, th ey can ma ybe ru n up behind somebody a nd h ave to back off. But th ey can get off th e thro ttl e and still be in th ere wh ere th at throws me off because it d rops off th e power or th ey ge t ' a jump and you jusr id o n ' t m ake up grea t dis ta nces . T he se guys a re good. . Are the tracks safe over here? Yes, th ey rea lly are. Assen was a really sa fe race track . T he tracks are pretty , \ I t I \ ) ,I ) ~ l ' good. I really like this track (SpaFrancorchamps), because the faster turns are where you make up your time. I enjoy high speed corners better than I do slow ones. Slow ones you just brake into them and accelerat e out. Anybody can do that. Not anybody. I don 't mean it that wa y. I mean it 's eas ier and those slow turns don't favor us . Like th e end of th e straightaway a t Assen. That 's a no-no for us . What's the firs t thing that you'll do when you go back to Shreveport? , I'm going to go up to the lake and have a nice big hot dog and a Dr. . ~epp~r. • -, ( I " ~} ) " i" ~ ~ i ~;\ I I t -\ \ ) ~ \ ( \

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