Role Reversal
ROLE REVERSAL
RACE WATCH
Michael Doohan is more than Australia’s fastest roadracer. He could be the next world champion.
MICHAEL SCOTT
MICK IS A MAN ON A MISsion." The words come from 1987 500cc World Roadracing Champion Wayne Gardner, known the world over as the hottest Australian export this side of Foster's beer and Crocodile Dundee.
Who is this “Mick" character Gardner is praising? None other than his Rothmans Honda teammate, Michael Doohan, the new Wonder from Down Under, and the rider who just may break America's three-year stranglehold on roadracing.
Doohan has taken over the mantle as Honda's top GP roadracer—from Gardner, no less—and currently leads the series point standings. His three wins in the first half of the 15-race season are backed up with four second-place finishes and one third, giving him a cushion over defending champ Wayne Rainey. Not bad for a 26-year-old in his third GP season.
Doohan is driven by the usual mixture of competitiveness and determination. But the most important weapons in his arsenal are natural> ability and a wealth of riding talent.
His self-taught cornering style is unique—something he brought with him from his youth as a successful motocrosser. He keeps his weight far forward and above the centerline of the bike, actually pushing it downwards with the handlebars as a way of modulating slides. At the same time, the rest of his weight is crouched on the footpegs. shifting from the inside peg (to promote sliding) to the outside peg (to retard it). Many racers never touch the rear brake, but Doohan uses his to adjust cornering lines, wearing out a set of pads every race.
Sit down with Doohan. Praise his performances, inquire about his riding style, and he grows slightly uncomfortable. He's something of a mystery man, keeping his opinions> and emotions to himself, and turning away awkward questions with a goodnatured hut stubborn line of matterof-fact humor. Partly because he is secretive, and partly because he is honest, he says about his techniques, “I don't really know what I'm dointz.
1 just do what feels right.”
Doohan has a modesty that is most becoming in a sports world where egos can inflate in line w ith bank balances. A real down-home Australian who has resisted the superstar syndrome—and who enjoys nothing more than going jet skiing or pow erboating with his old pals—he admits to being shy, and he is quite determined that being quick on a motorcycle in no way makes him better than the next man, whose talents are expressed in a different area. “We're all pretty much the same at the end of the day.” he says.
Doohan talks about how he learned to ride with his two motorcycle-mad elder brothers, hitting the trails and the motocross meetings near his Queensland home. Of how he tried roadracing on a whim in 1984. Of his rapid progress from racing production 250s and 350s to a Marlboro Yamaha Superbike in 1988, and then onto the HRCbacked Rothmans Honda squad in 1989. He describes the difficulties of his injury-plagued first GP season, and shares his surprise that just doing what he enjoys could bring him fame and a jet-set income.
He admits he is a loner, but that he doesn't always enjoy being alone. His new girlfriend, a striking blonde named Kerry, is the first steady company he has had in three years of traipsing around Europe.
Try to get serious and dissect the driving ambition that has taken him so far, so fast, and Doohan heads you ofY What makes him want to win so much? He laughs off the inquiry: “It’s better than getting beaten, isn't it?” Try one last time to get a handle on his oddball riding style—of why he crouches so strangely over the handlebars, and what he actually does with the footpegs to wear out a set of boots each race—and the assertions of ignorance begin again.
Well, if Doohan won't offer any insights into why he's so good, ask his crew chief, an always-smiling fellowAussie named Jerry Burgess. A longtime HRC man who was Wayne Gardner's crew chief during the '87 title-winning campaign. Burgess has been instrumental in Doohan's GP progress.
"He has more natural ability than anybody I've seen since Freddie Spencer." Burgess says. "Mick is the same sort of rider: If there is a handling problem, he will compensate for it with his riding. He has a very fluid riding style. He spins the rear tire a lot. but it seldom looks like it. His throttle control is exceptional."
Yes. but how does Doohan compare to his predecessor. Gardner?
"I'd say he represents a new generation of talent." Burgess replies. "He uses the tires differently. Mainly, he uses the side of the tire more, with higher lean angles. It's the way people have to ride now. But he's also a different character, with a different approach. Gardner needs people to reinforce his performance—to tell him he can go fast. Michael > doesn't seem to need any of that: he seems stronger mentally. I le vents his anger in fast lap times."
And, says Burgess, there are differences in the way the pair go about going fast.
"Gardner was more aware of the way the bike felt, and he liked to make a lot of adjustments. Mick seems more aware of the lap times. He doesn't fiddle with the bike, which I think is right. It should feel like an old friend, and once you get it more or less set up, it shouldn’t need much more than fine-tuning.''
Burgess feels lucky to be associated with a rider of such potential, and sees this year's strong effort as part of a three-vear plan: one year to learn, one to consolidate, and one to go for it. Going for it is the key, certainly, but there's no question that Doohan has benefited f rom the tire problems that have plagued Wayne Rainey's Dunlop-shod Marlboro Yamaha. One could even argue that Doohan's first two wins, in Spain and Italy, were the gift of Rainey’s failed tires.
But the tables were turned in Germany. where Doohan's Honda> NSR500 had the legs on the Yamahas and on Kevin Schwant/?s Suzuki until its rear Michelin started chunking. Schwant/ and Rainey swept past to continue their own battle. and Doohan was lucky to finish third—lucky to have finished at all. But his post-race comments were typically laid-back. What had it felt like as the flailing chunk of rear tread ripped his Honda’s subfender from its mountings, to fly off through the air? “Oh. just a bit of vibration.”
fires weren't a factor at the ultrafast Austrian (if. where Doohan used guts and his NSR's top-speed gallop to fend off a remorseless, racelong challenge from Rainey. He won by less than two-tenths of a second. "On the last run over the hill. I just held it open until I knew he couldn't get past.” Doohan said.
Even when he hasn't won this season, Doohan has been doggedly close. Make the most of what you have, and do the best you can. seems to be his philosophy. His smiling face, with big eyes looking somewhere far away, has been a fixture on the victory podium —lie's the only man who has stood on the rostrum at every race this year.
And what does Mick Doohan himself think of' all this? Well, he just grins. It doesn’t seem to faze him much. He just likes winning races, and if the world title comes along with it. well, so be it. A final bit of Doohan-think sums things up nicely: “It's just a number one that you stick on the front of your bike f'or a year," he says with a laugh.
