Cycle News

VOL. 55 ISSUE 17 MAY 1, 2018 P127 to New Zealand as a 15-year-old and racing in the Marlboro Series where he was quickly recognized as a won- derkid, running with and often beating top riders, like Chas Mortimer, who was winning at the world champion- ship level. Then in 1979 a little-known Mamola was part of the underdog American squad that beat Great Britain in the Transatlantic Match Races. Mamola was the second leading scorer, top- ping even the great Barry Sheene on his home tracks. And keep in mind at this point Mamola had very little big bike experience. So it was really no surprise when Mamola, was an in- stant success when he began his GP career in '79. He scored his first po- dium in his second GP start. He even moved up later that very same year and managed a pair of podiums in the 500cc class in his rookie season. To say Mamola was a hot property after that jaw-dropping 1979 season would be an understatement. Even though Mamola had friends in guys like Kenny Roberts, Kel Car- ruthers and members of his crew, he was still a teenager away from home for the first time for a long stretch and he said at his parents' house, recently he discovered some letters he'd writ- ten home, and the loneliness in those was apparent. In 1980, on the factory Heron Suzuki, Mamola was an instant title contender. His first GP win came at Zolder in Belgium. "It's funny because after I won that first GP I just sat there and thought, 'Man, that wasn't very hard,'" Mamola remembers. "It was just like any other race where maybe I podiumed, but this time I got the victory because maybe I outsmarted the other guy." That year Roberts was coming off two-consecutive 500cc GP world titles and was shooting for a third. Mamola says the relationship between him and Roberts didn't change much, even though they were suddenly bat- tling heads-up for the world champi- onship. "Looking back on it now, Kenny was Kenny and I was who I am," Ma- mola explained. "It wasn't like I had to hate him to want to beat him." In '81 Mamola battled Marco Lucchinelli down to the wire for the championship and again came up just short. His bike seized at a few key races, otherwise he would have won the title, but again Mamola looks back with a glass-half-full mentality. "Even though I finished second to Lucchinelli, I beat Kenny in the cham- pionship and that was big to me." When Suzuki pulled out of racing at the end of 1983 Mamola was left without a ride. He said he practi- cally had to beg Honda to give him a customer bike to compete in '84. When Spencer got hurt early in the year Honda gave the green light to Mamola's effort. He finished runner- up to Eddie Lawson that year in spite of missing the first two rounds of the series. In a remarkable performance, Mamola was on the podium in all but one of the races he competed. He looks back on that '84 championship second-place as perhaps one of his proudest accomplishments. "It was probably the most enjoy- able," Mamola says of '84. "As far as having your own team and mechan- ics." Mamola had one last really good shot at winning the championship in '87 with the Team Lucky Strike- Roberts squad. But that year Wayne Gardner caught fire on the Rothmans- Honda and won seven races en route to beating Mamola for the title. "Wayne and I were a lot alike in many ways, in terms of riding on the edge, coming close to high-siding, stuff like that," Mamola recalls. "Fortunately for Wayne, Honda got it right that year with that NSR500. I remember at Rijeka Wayne won and Eddie and I were on the podium with him and Wayne looks down at us and said, 'That race was really close huh?' And Eddie and I just looked at each other and grinned. Eddie and I would be battling up front and Wayne would just blow by us on the straights like we were sitting still. And he's standing up there saying, 'Man, we were so even!'" When Mamola took the Cagiva ride in '88, he knew his days of battling for the championship were over. So during those three years with the underfunded Italian maker Mamola took satisfaction in the small victories the team managed. Then, after sitting out the '91 sea- son, Mamola came back one more season with a Budweiser-backed Roberts satellite squad. At Hungary that year he scored his final podium, giving him the distinction of podium results in three different decades. At COTA when Mamola was hon- ored, all weekend he talked about others. His mom and dad, his former managers, his mechanics, fellow competitors, his family and fans. Maybe that's why Mamola seems so content as a career as perhaps the greatest GP rider to have never won the title. He understands the impact his career had on those around him. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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