All the Right Moves
ALL THE RIGHT MOVES
RACE WATCH
Two years after his career should have ended, Fred Merkel is just getting started.
JULIAN RYDER
FRED MERKEL HAS A LOT TO BE grateful? Instead of being a struggling privateer burning himself out on local circuits and living in the back of a van, he’s got just about everything a good old boy could want, including an ex-model fiancée, a vast Italian villa, two topclass mechanics, a generous sponsor and two bikes tucked away in their own private bungalow. Oh, and a world championship to his credit as well.
Then, Fred Merkel is the kind of man who makes his own good fortune. When the 26-year-old Californian won the 1988 Superbike World Championship in the final race of the series in New Zealand, it was neither a fluke nor the logical pinnacle of years of a steady program. Instead, it was the result of making the best of all the opportunities available to him. Indeed, the only thing that has remained constant through the years is that Fred Merkel is a great racer. Sometimes that’s been all he's had to hang on to.
Only two years ago he came to Europe a stranger. One would have thought that after a string of U.S. Superbike championships, he would be Honda’s favorite son, but over the winter of 1986 it became clear that he was not going to be offered the prime slot for the following season, that Honda would go with only one rider in 1987 and that rider was going to be Wayne Rainey. Merkel was as good as finished if he stayed where he was. The youngster faced some tough decisions. In Europe, he picked up some sponsorship, collected some meager start money, won the odd race on even odder machinery, and generally lived hand-to-mouth. Looking back now, he can safely say: “I thought my career was just about over.”
The break came when Oscar Rumi, whose uncle owned the Rumi motorcycle company of the 1940s and ’50s, tucked Merkel under his wing. Rumi saw the potential locked inside the Californian and set up a large sponsorship package. And then came the series apparently designed for Merkel: the European Superbike Championship. He was immediately convinced that Superbikes were the way to go, and even went so far as to say that the 500cc GP circus would be finished in a few years as riders and sponsors moved to Superbikes. With the factories bringing out bikes especially for the series, it appears Merkel may just have something there.
Looking at him now, it’s hard to believe his career was so insecure only two seasons ago. Fitting the California stereotype, Merkel is tanned, blonde, muscular, always smiling. Living near Milan in northern Italy, however, he stands out in a crowd more than he would in the U.S. In a country full of dark-haired, sultry people, Merkel gets noticed on and off the track. The two seasons have brought him success and happiness in storybook fashion. He won the Superbike World Championship, the Italian FI Championship, and was third in the Italian Superbike Championship, all this season. Next year, he looks set to capitalize on his success, earn more money and add to his personal standing in Italy, his adopted homeland.
He will continue to live where he does now, in a huge villa on the outskirts of Bergamo, where he has one floor of the enormous residence owned by Rumi. Merkel has the run of the place, along with his English fiancée Lorraine, an ex-model who went over to stay with Fred in March and has hardly been home since.
Sharing the house are the two mechanics, Chris and Norris, who flawlessly prepared his bikes last season. The house is further filled with wives, girlfriends, well-wishers and anyone passing through. It really is like one big, happy family, and a long way from the rather lonely, hard paths trod by the Gardners and Lawsons of this world. The Honda RC30 racebikes even get their own little out-building, where they rest in peace among the flowers when not being muscled round the tracks of Europe.
Merkel is very happy with those motorcycles, now that initial teething troubles are sorted out and the bike is making some decent power. `It's like a Cadillac, with power steering and power brakes. It's just so easy to ride." He suffered a power disad vantage all season compared to the Bimotas of Davide Tardozzi and Stephane Mertens, but his aggressive riding style and sheer determination, coupled with the machine's wide powerband-which gave him a dis tinct advantage over the switch-like power of the Bimota Yamahas in the wet-won him the championship. Yes, Fred Merkel is lucky. He has found the championship and the place that suit him best, but only because he went and looked for it. “I love it here. I like enthusiasts, the crowds are just amazing. My lifestyle has changed, so there are no more drunken hotel brawls. I would never get a sponsor that way. Life is more peaceful here, and I like that.”
His determination was evident all season, even when races went wrong, he ploughed on, picking up useful mid-field points. There were times when more-temperamental riders would have headed back to the pits. But if Merkel were a quitter, he would never have even gotten that far.
All in all, things have gone Merkel’s way of late, but that's because he has taken the opportunities presented to him and stuck with it, slogging away until everything worked out to his benefit. He now has a career and a lifestyle that suits him down to his boots, and he seems to suit the Italians as well. When he’s out on the track everyone watches his show. He wheelies down pit straights, does smoky burn-outs, performs lurid mid-turn slides; all the antics that make crowds, especially excitable Italian crowds, scream and shout.
He knows what he’s doing. “Here in Italy, you get huge crowds just for practice. People have paid good money for a show and I want to give them one. I slide deliberately, pull wheelies and the crowd just loves it. Of course race day is race day-no more fooling around.”
But while life may be good now, Merkel knows he can’t race motorcycles forever. He will continue to race in the world championship for a few years, then he has some long-range goals. “I’m going to go back to the States eventually, say in five or six years time, and buy a fishing boat with my winnings and investments. I’ll set up a business chartering out the boat for salmon fishing and do some fishing myself. That’s what all this is for.”
If that sounds like a far cry from Superbike racing, well, that’s just Merkel’s nature. He has proved that he can take some pretty giant leaps— he’s gone from U.S. champion to washed-up racer to world champion in just a few years. But you can be sure that whatever he winds up doing in the years to come, it will be something he arranged carefully. That’s because while other men wait for things to happen, Fred Merkel makes things happen. El
