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RACE WATCH

Saturday night fever

Seven-time AMA Supercross Champion Jeremy McGrath relaxed in the mirror-lined inner sanctum of his new $1 million semi-truck, quietly chatting with a few close friends. It was three days prior to the season-opening round of the 2001 EA Sports Supercross Series at Edison International Field in Anaheim, California, and McGrath was feeling good.

Having just finished a press confer ence announcing his brand-new race team, McGrath was both anxious and excited to get the season under way. That's when The Question was raised: Had McGrath heard that a number of motocross insiders believed that 2001 would be the year that one of the sport's young lions would wrestle away his highly coveted number-one plate?

"People can say what they want. It's the same stuff every year. I can use stuff like that as motivation," retorted Mc Grath, visibly agitated by the railbird flap-jaw. "At this point in my career, it's not the money or fame that motivates me. I have all that. I just want to keep winning. I want to win races and win championships. I get motivated by the people who talk too much or discredit me. I think those people are funny, and I don't really have a comeback for them anymore, except to just keep winning."

Which is exactly what the Team Mazda Yamaha rider did before Edison Field's supercharged, sold-out crowd. Calling upon his brilliantly precise, electricsmooth riding style, McGrath checked out, winning the event by approximately 8 seconds over Honda-mounted Ezra Lusk and third-place Kawasaki rider Ricky Carmichael.

So convincing was McGrath's win that as the fans began filing out of the pits, the talk of a season-long white wash had already begun. But then came the San Diego Supercross. Held at Qualcomm Stadium, just two hours south, the second round saw more than 61,000 fans on hand to find out whether The Man could do it again.

The answer this time was no, due to the efforts of defending AMA 250cc National Champion Carmichael, who might just be the fastest motocross rider in the world today. Carmichael had been working on his supercross technique all winter, and this was apparent in San Diego. When the checkers flew, Carmichael flashed over the finish line with his second 250cc stadium victory (he won his first last March in Daytona). Honda's Mike LaRocco came in second and McGrath third.

Meanwhile, 125cc outdoor motocross champion Travis Pastrana made his de but in the 250cc class amidst much fan fare. Probably the second-most popular rider in the field, the 17-year-old Suzuki pilot finished an impressive fifth in the first round only to DNF in San Diego af ter a gnarly over-the-handlebars get-off. The jury's still out on whether Pastrana will continue contesting 250s. Says Team Manager Roger DeCoster, "He has the speed to be up there with the front guys, but he has to get a better start and stay calm."

DeCoster added that he wants to give Pastrana time to become comfortable in the 250s, and doesn't want to pressure him. "You have to give him a little bit of time,” he says. “I don’t know at this point if he’s going to stay in 250s. I don’t want to say, ‘If you’re not in the top three, you go back to 125s.’ I want him to race these races and then decide, not just on results, but also on how he feels.”

With Pastrana absent from the early 125cc West rounds, the big excitement was Ernesto Fonseca’s big win and big loss on the new YZ250F Thumper. At the bike’s Anaheim debut, the Costa Rican positively spanked his two-stroke counterparts. But the subsequent round saw the Yamaha of Troy rider stall the bike and experience difficulties restarting. Result was a lackluster, back-of-the-pack finish while his YZ125-mounted teammate, Justin Buckelew, took the win.

As for the overall mood in the pits following the San Diego event, well, spirits were high. Carmichael, basking in the glow of beating, straight-up, the world’s best supercross pilot, exclaimed. “Man, this feels so good. Hope I can do it again.”

And just a few semi-trucks over, McGrath was talking to friends and fans. “You know, I had so much fun out there tonight,” he said, leaning over an aluminum barrier to sign an autograph. “Yeah, he beat me. But, hey, there’s a lot of races left.”

In other words, buckle up folks, ’cause it’s gonna be a wild ride. -Eric Johnson

Titled Fight in World Superbike

For a country with a Constitu tional aversion to all things monarchal, the U.S. is sure sit ting high up in the global Kingmaking stakes in the Court of Roadracing. Not only is there King Kenny II shimmering through the purple haze of two stroke fumes, but Cohn Ed wards took the crown in the four-stroke realm of World Su perbike racing.

And certainly on an updated Castrol Honda RC5 1, Edwards is a strong favorite to retain his title in 2001, despite a relative lack of pre-season testing. Sharing a pit box with the number-one plate-holder will be a new signee, former 500cc Grand Prix star Tadayuki Okada, the man who has displaced the longest-serv ing WSB rider of them all, Aaron Slight. The New Zealander's future, mean while, appears not to involve a factory Superbike ride.

Okada, meanwhile, is no stranger to the RC5 1 and may well be competitive right from the start. His history sug gests ample speed, as he's a previous GP and Suzuka 8-Hour winner. Unfor tunately for the series, Okada will do little to make up for the lack of coun tryman Noriyuki Haga-and indeed the entire factory Yamaha team, which has turned its attention to 500cc GPs. Say onara, boys...

But despite the inevitable gloom sucked into the series by the postHaga/Yamaha void, the 2001 WSB season will likely still offer spectacle aplenty-particularly because two longtime Superbike heroes can once more make a realistic play for the ultimate four-stroke prize.

Everyone’s favorite underdogs, Aprilia and Troy Corser, almost bit off more than their rivals could chew in 2000. Now with a significantly improved RSV Mille Twin under the command of his swift and smooth inputs, Corser is no longer an outside bet for the Big Win.

Neither is suave Suzuki veteran PierFrancesco Chili, who went obliteratingly fast at Jerez, Spain, in pre-season tests. If Hamamatsu can squeeze out more than the single 2001-spec bike it had manufactured by mid-January for the team (albeit said to be complete with a traction-control system), then Chili may just have a brace of machines that suits his style.

Both Corser and Chili will be joined by new teammates this season: Corser by another GP refugee, Regis “One GP Win" Laconi; Chili by the Alstare Corona Extra team's promotee from within, 1999 World Supersport Cham pion and former supermotard maniac Stephane Chambon.

Kawasaki cannot claim to have had the best season on record during 2000, but it must have felt the basic ingredi ents were right anyway-because the same pairing of Akira Yanagawa and Gregorio Lavilla returns. Added this year is a factory placement, Hitoyasu Izutsu, winner of both Sugo races last season, who will join the Green Team sters for half a dozen selected meetings.

Any full set of WSB factory partici pants would not be complete without the Kings of Crimson: Ducati. And if pre-season tests are anything to go by, its preeminence as Superbike's win ningest manufacturer could soon return to wipe out the memory of its seemingly never-ending cataclysms in 2000.

Back in from the cold and into the Desmo factory fold is former AMA Superbike Champion Ben Bostrom, who will be equipped, like former British Superbike top-dog Troy Bayliss, with a new Testastretta 998cc machine. This revamp of a proven theme has already demonstrated itself to be a veritable missile, with semi-automatic FormulaOne-car-style paddle gearchange levers on the handlebar and lots more engine than the addition of 2cc would suggest. And with both riders having a full season of “worldly” experience behind them, well, look out.

Just to spice up the ketchup-coated Ducati effort even more, Spaniard Ruben Xaus, the hottest-tempered tamale in the World Supersport class for the past two years, will join Bayliss (with Bostrom in a semi-autonomous full-factory team) for his first year in WSB. Fast and spectacular, Xaus has at least one somewhat influential fan in the WSB paddock-Carl Fogarty, whose four titles lend his opinion a rather strong degree of credibility.

Add 2000 race-winner Neil Hodgson (a former WSB rider re-born if ever there was one) to the mix, and despite some obvious blows to the YamaHagaless series' allure, the world's four stroke landscape could be just as seis mically active as ever. -Gordon Ritchie

"Little girl" takes on the big boys

Jennifer Snyder is 17. She's a she. And normally, you'd probably call her a "girl." The first time you hear her speak, you might even be inclined to call her a "little girl," because her voice is high and gentle, which makes her sound even younger than she is. But can you; call somebody who’s lined up against the likes of Chris Carr and Jay Springsteen in a national dirt track event a “girl?” Perhaps we can settle on “young woman,” or even better, especially in her mind, just “dirt-tracker.”

But at this point you’d actually have to call her a factory Harley-Davidson dirt-tracker, because this young woman landed one of the most coveted seats in all of circle-track racing, riding alongside Rich King on the orange-andblack team.

How did this happen? By riding well, foremost, although she’s certainly aware that gender had at least something to do with her being hired. “They saw an opportunity with me as a female rider to get them a lot of publicity,” says Snyder matter-of-factly.

Snyder, like most racers, got an early start. Her first ride on a motorcycle was at age 10. A year later, she started racing and says her progress toward becoming a Pro was steady. “I started at the bottom and worked up,” she says. “I raced an XR80. It was totally underhorsepowered, but it made me ride harder in the corners to keep up, and that helped me a lot.”

One thing was clear: “From the beginning, my goal was to be a Pro motorcycle racer. As soon as I started, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

That goal was realized at the beginning of the 2000 season, when at 16 she started campaigning a 600cc Rotax tuned by her dirt-tracker father in AMA Pro Sport events, then switched over to the Formula USA Pro Singles class.

She finished sixth in the latter series without even contesting all the rounds, and really turned some heads when she qualified for the national main at the Fort Worth Half-Mile at Texas Motor Speedway and finished 13th. What was it like lin ing up against the likes of Can and Springsteen? "I tried not to think about it, but just focus on the race," she says.

The buzz built from there, - and eventually made it to the ears of one Bill Werner, the man in charge of King's factory Harleys, not to mention Scott Parker's before that. "People kept telling me I ought to see this girl race, but I was usu ally too busy," Werner says.

At Manzanita Park in Phoenix, Wern er finally met Snyder and her father, Joe. The elder Snyder came in search of a lit tle advice on setup, since Jennifer was having trouble getting the bike to hook up. Werner lent a hand with the bike, gave them a softer spring ("I mean, she only weighs 100 pounds!") and tweaked the damping. "Since I helped with the bike, I made sure to watch her races," says Werner. "In the heat she got a terri ble start, but came up through the pack. It was the same thing in the main, anoth er bad start, and then she cut through the pack like they were cordwood. I thought, `Well, she races pretty damn good.' And I won't say she was on infe rior equipment, but.. ."

By the final round of the series at Del Mar, California, Werner had told his bosses about Snyder, and the Harley brass came out to have a look. They, too, were impressed. Werner adds, "From our perspective as a com pany, we're trying to get younger riders involved with Harley-Davidson, and female riders involved with Harley Davidson, and here's a young female that would be racing our motorcycle. What could be wrong with that?"

So this isn't just a PR move? "I guar antee she can ride a motorcycle," Wern er insists. "She's not just a piece of fluff. Take Del Mar: It's a rough track and she was in there mixing it up with some re ally talented people. I mean, the track's rough as hell, and she was fast on some thing that scared a lot of the good uvs."

That performance sealed the deal, and Harley made the offer, which Snyder obviously accepted. It appears to have been the right choice. "Fans love it," Snyder says. "I'm surprised, but they go crazy over me at the races, especially when I get on the microphone and start talking-I sound like a little girl, and they just start cheering."

So for Harley next year, she'll once again concentrate on the Formula USA Pro Singles class and will contest select AMA short-tracks and TTs. Rides on an XR-750 V-Twin will wait until later in the season, and even then these won't likely be in competition.

"It created a big stir for me to get on the factory team," says Snyder. "As they say, I haven't proven myself yet. And, yeah, I'm a girl, but that doesn't mean I can't go out there and win races."

Sounds like the heart of a racer.

-Mark Hoyer

Kanemoto sculpts future 'Stones

Those of us who follow Grand Prix roadracing know that legendary team operator/tuner Erv Kanemoto gave last season a miss, having been unable to assemble a satisfactory package of sponsor, rider and bikes. This man, with his 35 years of racing experience, never has any shortage of interesting offers, but is highly selective-for ex ample, favoring trackside tuning over management or R&D activities.

When I spoke to him recently, he offhandedly mentioned that a test team might be especially interesting, as it offers a high density of what one might call "discoveries per unit time." Racing is a kind of Easter-egg hunt in which occasionally a bright, rewarding gem of knowledge is discovered. Another way to look at racing is as a complex wager, in which rider and engineer gamble that their chosen chassis setup, tire combination, engine spec and so on will top the "cards" that the other teams are holding. In racing, both are diluted by a lot of numbing dirty-dish es work of machine preparation and travel, repeated endlessly. In contrast, the whole job of a test team is discov ery and innovation.

Now comes a press release from Bridgestone Firestone, announcing that Kanemoto will indeed operate a tire-test team consisting of experienced Japa nese riders Shinichi Itoh and Nobuatsu Aoki, mounted on available Honda fac tory NSR500 two-strokes. Four-stroke GP bike testing will have to wait until such machines exist outside sealed fac tory R&D centers. Akira Inoue, VP of tire development at B-F, heads the $6 million test program. The aim is to de velop tires for 500/990cc GP racing for the 2003 season. Bridgestone has been involved in 125cc GP racing successfully for some years already.

Tire testing is a demanding activity in which riders are called upon to rate each tire tested in all aspects of its performance such as side-grip, braking grip, turn-in response speed, straight-line stability and so on. To give these ratings credibility, the riders must be running at race-competitive speeds on machines whose power and other qualities are equal to those in actual events. This is really GP racing, but without umbrella girls, trophies or Michael Scott. Kanemoto’s experience in understanding the racing motorcycle as a whole package will be invaluable.

In F-i racing it is said that in order to design this year's engine, you have to have designed last year's engine. This is not quite the way things work in the tire business. When Firestone returned to open-wheel car racing in the U.S. re cently, it became competitive very quickly. Tire engineers all know the same basic technology and materials. Making it work in racing is a matter of quickly sorting through the wrong pos sible answers to zero in on something that works.

Kanemoto said that this might at last be his opportunity to “learn something about tires.” Doesn’t he already know plenty? Maybe not: Tire company secrecy-even with contracted users of their products-is legendary. You may have heard the one about the burning tire R&D center: The fire department arrives and rushes toward the blazing facility. “Stop!” say the owners. “Let it burn. Better that knowledge be lost than be exposed to outsiders. Security must be preserved.”

Before secrets can be kept, they must be created, and new knowledge is the goal of this team. A fresh entry into the GP tire game is always welcome.

-Kevin Cameron

Schwantz, Kevin Schwantz...

The schedule of a retired World Champion is a demanding one. Public-relations appearances, autograph signings, consultations with current racer types, not to mention flying all over the world for various racing events. Hectic, yes, but exciting and kind of glamorous, too.

Such is the life of Kevin Schwantz. The 36-year-old former 500cc Grand Prix racer has become that elusive but highly sought figure: The Consultant. And for his former sponsor, no less. What this means is he currently divides his time between his home outside Charlotte, North Carolina, and sundry Suzuki functions.

But first, some background: Schwantz officially retired in April, 1995, with a nagging injury to his left wrist that ultimately made it impossible to ride competitively. Not so coincidentally, this was shortly after the paralyzing accident of rival Wayne Rainey. Schwantz recalls, “I think seeing Wayne get hurt was the biggest part. Just realizing how many more times I had fallen off than he had, and how lucky I was.”

And so Schwantz spent the remainder of the ’95 season as a Suzuki spokesperson, and offering the benefit of his expe rience to then-factory riders Scott Rus sell and Daryl Beattie. "I still wanted to be racing, but mentally and physically it wasn't possible," says Schwantz. "I loved racing and I still do."

Needing to break away from the GP scene but still craving racing, he gravi tated toward NASCAR. He raced in Australia and even invested in his own team in America. "At the end of `96, I bought into a Busch Grand National Team, but the guy was an absolute crook. Not a pleasant experience," says the Texas native.

Although he ran in the top 10 for a few races, Schwantz admits that managing his own team wasn’t an activity he enjoyed. He’s quick to point out, however, that if the opportunity to drive a car presented itself, he wouldn’t turn it down. But that hasn’t happened.

In fact, it was Suzuki that came calling, with an offer for Schwantz to be The Suzuki Guy, if you will. The one who puts in appearances at new-model intros and rides with journalists or offers valuable advice to the factory riders during pre-race testing and throughout the AMA season. Says Schwantz, “At the end of last season, Suzuki wanted me involved in their effort. Seeing as Suzuki is where my heart is, and them giving me some decent money to do it... It’s a great opportunity to get back into the sport.”

Meanwhile, it’s also a great opportunity for Schwantz to get some track time without the added pressure of competition. Like at Phillip Island, where he turned laps aboard the RGV500 of reigning 500cc World Champion Kenny Roberts Jr.

Of course, competition isn't all bad. It's just a matter of degree, as in Schwantz's participation in last sum mer's Australian Rally. Not quite Paris Dakar, it covers roughly 3000 miles of Australia's Northern Territory in 24 stages run over eight days. Schwantz finished 13th overall on a mostly stock Suzuki DR-Z400E. He maintains that his part in the rally was just for fun. "Hopefully it won't turn into something that gets me hooked," he laughs. "Then I'd have to go back again, and then go off chasing the Dakar. Trying to win the thing would take the fun right out of it."

And fun, at least right now, is what Schwantz is all about. He enjoys his work for Suzuki, at least in part because it allows him time to do the cool things he likes to do: go to races, ride his mountain and road bicycles, not to mention develop his new line of clothing appropriately named “Brand 34.”

But the coolest thing of all is that Schwantz realizes his good fortune. He understands that he’s had, and is still having, experiences most people just dream about. And he doesn’t take it for granted. The Life of Riley, then? Maybe, but the Life of Schwantz sounds even better. -Wendy F. Black