2nd Place ... Kevin Schwantz

2ND Place ... Kevin Schwantz

His mind lingers on points, but his heart lusts for speed

FREDDIE SPENCER'S PIT CREW leaned over the wall and stared in disbelief as Kevin Schwantz slid both wheels of his Suzuki to the outside of Laguna Seca’s sharp Turn Eleven. As Schwantz twisted the throttle, the

bike skidded closer to the haybales on the outside of the track, shook its head and roared past the pits, its front wheel waggling a foot off the ground. “He’s a maniac,” said one of the crew members.

In his second full season of GP competition, Schwantz has become a more aggressive rider than ever, but he has also become a more intelligent racer. So when questioned about his dramatic—though some say erraticriding style, Schwantz calmly replied, “That’s how you have to do it if you want to go fast.” And his secondplace finish this year at Laguna bore that out as much as anything. Once Wayne Rainey took off and ran away from the rest of the field, Schwantz pressed hard, running to the limits of the track in just about every turn. “I thought I could catch up and put

some pressure on Rainey, and make him make a mistake,” said Schwantz. But he eventually realized that was not to be and so cooled it a bit, following along about 1 1 seconds behind Rainey. “I remembered getting too excited last week at the Australian GP, where I fell,” he said, “so I decided to run a steady race and finish in the points.”

That attitude is different from the Kevin Schwantz of just a season ago, the Schwantz who would keep pushing as long as the machine was on two wheels and running. And that’s the kind of attitude he will need for the rest of the season if he is to chase down and catch Rainey for the championship. “Sure, I always like to be on the pole,” he says,“ but at this point it’s better to finish strong.”

Camron E. Bussard