Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/146704
INTERVIEW Doug Polen right deal. There's possibilities there. Everybody kind of figured that the Cagiva thing would be a natural progression, but they had already sewed up their team already. They did that real early in the deal, so that wrote off doing anything with the Cagiva team. Why would you compete in races in the Japanese series? Financially, only doing the American series wouldn't be a show stopper, so being able to run the Suzuka Eight-Hour race and also some selected Japanese events will allow me to gain fairly good financial backing' from a sponsor in Japan. That will definitely help subsidize my income and make it- more attractive, Despite the rumors of you leaving Ducati, it's hard to picture you on anything other than the red V-twin. Is it important for you that you stick with Ducati? It would be nice to continue working with one manufacturer if you can. But if it works out that you can't, then you obviously make the switch. If it's possible to work something out that's reasonable, then for sure it's the best situation to stay with them. So far, Ducati seems to be willing to do the same. I'm willing to work something out with them, more so than going elsewhere. Were there any other offers to race in the AMA series? I don't know who all Sam (Yamashita) talked to, but I talked to Rob (Muzzy) and By Paul Carruthers Photos by Henny Ray Abrams t's almost become a given that a road racer who does well in the AMA National Championship Series promptly packs his.bags and heads elsewhere. The list of defectors is lengthy, beginning with Kenny Roberts and going right through to this year's National Superbike Champion Scott Russell, who will attempt to win the World Superbike Championship in 1993. Texan Doug Polen is about to reverse that trend. I Believe it or not, the two-time World Superbike Champion is staying home in 1993 with a goal of winning the title that has eluded him - the 1993 AMA Superbike National Championship. Is it true that you plan on staying in the U.S. next season to concentrate on the AMA series? Right now, I'm just waiting to hear from Eraldo (Ferracci). I guess he's over in Italy right now. We haven't reached an agreement yet, but we're getting pretty close. It looks like I'll be doing the American series as well as some selected Japanese series races along with the (Suzuka) Eight-Hour. And some World Superbike races too, but that's kind of up to what's left on the schedule. ' We'd also heard that there were some offers to go Grand Prix racing. Any truth to that? That Yamaha thing, I don't know what the deal was with that. That came out of left field. Even Sam (yamashita, Polen's manager) didn't know what was going on there. That was really interesting that was a good laugh. We've talked to, and are still talking to at least one factory. We were talking to two at the time, but one of them wasn't going to be the Terry (Vance). But we didn't really talk about them offering me any kind of a deal. They were more talking about what I was thinking of doing next year. I think maybe that they gathered from the conversation that things maybe weren't good to go ahead and make 'any kind of offers. They probably figured they wouldn't be able to make an offer that was as good as I was already talking to people about. I could tell in the conversation that they were just kind of searching to see if I was going to be available or not. In 1991 you won the World Championship easily, but 1992 was much closer. Was it a lot more difficult to win your second title? I don't think it was any more difficult, but there were some factors that were different between this year and last