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/702723
VOL. 53 ISSUE 26 JULY 12, 2016 P127 Schwantz. At Laguna Seca in July of '85 Toland's AMA Superbike debut resulted in a solid fifth-place on the Yoshimura Suzuki GS700ES Superbike. At about the same time he was asked to come in at the last minute to do a photo-shoot for Cycle World and that led to him becoming a tester for the magazine. In 1986 Toland was a member of Team Hammer when they won the WERA National Endurance Champi- onship. He was also making decent money club racing and winning a lot of Suzuki GSXR contingency races. Toland was so dominant in fact, that when Doug Polen announced he was coming to race at Willow Springs, the Toland vs. Polen buildup for that showdown was one of the biggest ever for a club race. Toland also got the opportunity to ride for the Vance & Hines Suzuki Superbike squad in select AMA Superbike races and he scored an impressive fourth at Sears Point in May of that year. With the kind of quality finishes Toland was earning in at AMA Superbike events, you would have thought he would have been a shoo-in for a factory superbike ride. Unfortunately, at that point in AMA Superbike, there weren't many rides to be had and even though he scored the occasional factory and factory-backed rides with Suzuki, he never quite landed a full-time gig in the series. In '87 Toland suddenly found himself without a ride. He did some development and AMA 250 Grand Prix races with Ron Wood on his Rotax-based GP bike. "The Wood-Rotax bike was something completely different for me," Toland said. "I was used to nothing but inline fours and being a big single it vibrated a lot in comparison, but it was light nimble and fun to ride, but it was never going to compete with the top 250 two-strokes for a variety of reasons but it was a great experience working with Ron." A magazine feature on a Team Cycle World Suzuki GSX-750 stuffed with an 1100cc motor, racing the 1988 WERA 24 Hours West at Willow where Toland turned the fastest laps, caught the attention of a world endur- ance team owner, who invited Toland over to do the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He did well enough to be asked to race the rest of the year and it turned into a five-year stint of World Championship Endurance racing. His championship came in '93. In a somewhat strange arrangement in World Endurance in that era, points were awarded to riders instead of teams. Toland ran for two squads—his normal French Honda team and, for two rounds, the UK-based Phase One Kawasaki squad. Toland turned into a world title contender when he became the first American on a race-winning team during a 24-hour race July 3-4 at the Spa course in Belgium. In the final race, the Bol d'Or, Toland was back on the French Honda team, riding with Andre Lussiana of France and Peter Linden of Sweden. "With three hours to go, the lead riders dropped out with mechanical problems so all I needed was to finish ninth or better to win the championship. "We were running third at the time and ready to go for the win, but the team decided it was more impor- tant for me to win the world title than the race. We cut back about 1,000 rpm to save the bike and not take any chances. It was a tremendous thing for them to do but that was the relationship the team and riders had; it was like family." Toland came back to America to wrap up his racing career, riding for Erion Racing Honda. He and team- mate Andrew Stroud won the AMA SuperTeams title in 1996. In '97 he scored seven podiums and finished runner up in the AMA Formula Xtreme Championship to Stroud. In '97 Toland joined American Honda and today he's close to 20 years with the company. "I always tried to be respectful and a good listener to everyone I came across in the industry," Toland said. "And I think because of those relationships one thing always seemed to lead to another. It's great, I wouldn't change a thing. Would I have liked to have raced full time in AMA Superbike or World Super- bike? Sure. I got to ride a few of the MotoGP bikes in various capacities and that would have been fun to be able to race one of those too, but I got out of racing what I did and it led me to where I am today and the ride is still going." CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives SPRINGS TO WORLD CHAMP