Q. And as if things couldn't get any better, you leave Florida with the Daytona 200 win to start your first Grand Prix season at Suzuka. 

A. Suzuka was my first time on a real works GP bike, first stab at a full season, first chance to really go somewhere and test one and go back there and race at the same place. The three GPs that I'd done in '86 and '87 were just one-off deals and tracks I'd never been to, and the bike was not a rocket. 

Most of the practice at Suzuka, if my memory is correct, was almost all wet. We ended up third, started in the middle of the front row. Maybe we had Sunday morning warm-up dry, but more or less that was what you had to get the bike working --20 minutes in the dry.

I think the fact that we'd tested there before really was a big advantage. There were some Hondas there testing when we were there too, but maybe they didn't take good notes or something, and our bike just came out of the box Sunday morning and worked really good from the start. 

I got a decent start, I remember going under the bridge the first lap second behind Gardner, who led, thinking 'this is good, if I just stay here I'll be happy'. 

I remember coming across the line about five laps into it and looking back and thinking 'where's everybody gone?' I think at that time Christian Sarron was behind me, I'm thinking man, he really hadn't been anywhere in practice, I'm surprised he's third. I just remember seeing that group dwindle behind me. 

I really remember going into the hairpin turn and then going into that next big fast right-hander thinking, 'where the heck are all these guys? What are they doing?'. 

Q. Gardner was the world champion then; you were this kid from Texas. That you were there was huge. 

A. Pretty much the whole time I was just telling myself, follow him, follow him, follow him, the guy's been here millions of times, he's won the 8-hour, he's world champion, had the big intimidating number one on his plate, and I just told myself 'you finish second behind Gardner at Suzuka you've all but won'. 

I remember the first turn, right back it in left, right, and I remember getting off in that left a little bit hot one lap, he was in front of me. Wayne was always real intentional about getting the bike back up and making the next right from right on the inside. 

When he did this to get back, I had gotten in hot. I'm thinking, 'shit, you can't pass there'. It was purely luck that I made it. I don't know if that had something to do with the fact that maybe he was expecting me to try something like that on the last lap and was just over-riding the thing. 

We came out of the hairpin and I'm still riding on his back wheel, come up over the hill go around you can just about see the Spoon Corner, and Wayne's in big trouble: like feet over his head, wham, lands back on the Honda in a huge near highside. He rides off the track. 

I think 'Holy shit! watch the track, don't watch him'. I get into the first part of the Spoon and look up and he's getting the thing whoaed up. I think there's a helicopter pad or something there, and that's I think what saved him, because I know how wet everything was, and if it'd had just been grass he probably would've come back out on the track on the other side. 

And I think that that's one of the arguments that Marlboro had, and Eddie, was they protested that he cut the track, because if he'd had to go back and come back on where he went off, it would've cost him a ton of time. 

I'm leading. I just remembered thinking all the way up that back straightaway 'Holy shit, I'm going to have to talk to the press, and everything'.  I was gob smacked. 

I did probably the slowest cool-off lap I've ever done, thinking of stuff I was going to be able to say, should I say this, should I say that? 
 

Q. Undoubtably with your first Daytona 200 win and then winning the Japanese Grand Prix a few weeks later, this had to be the most signifigant month of your entire career. 

A. It was most definitely the most significant month of my racing career.

It was one of those things that if you'd asked me at the end of '87 what the '88 season was going to start like, that would've been up in the corner in the dream section. The reality section would've been run good at Daytona, hopefully win, possibly a top ten at the GP.

It was really neat coming back to America after that and seeing all the stuff in the papers: 'Japan to Schwantz', etc. 

I remember hearing Wayne Gardner and Eddie Lawson in the press conference saying 'Yeah, he might've snuck up and won this one but he's not going to win any more.' And being able to tell how bad Wayne Rainey felt. 'You bastard, you won a 500 Grand Prix before I did.' And I forget where he ended up that day. It was respectable, by all means.

Q. It must have changed your life. That month.

A. After that month, I'm sure there was some difference in how I was treated, but I think what it did is it kept me from changing. Kind of my approach to racing has always been 'dang it, I'm doing it, I like it, it's fun, it's a real buzz to do it', to go over there and do that the first full season of Grand Prix racing, just kind of hey, we can do it if we get things right. If not, we're just going to take what we can get and not really worry about the politics of it or to let it really get to you that much. 

Q. It really was the defining period of your career, early on. 

A. I felt that if nothing else ever happened in my career, to win the Daytona 200 and the Japanese Grand Prix, two consecutive big races in three weeks, nothing else really mattered. Everything else was just going to be a bonus. 

I guess maybe I tried to carry that approach all through my career until about late '91, the first part of '92, when I said if I am ever going to win what I feel like I need to win­the next step was the World Championship­I'm going to have to do some re-thinking. I'm going to have to get some guys working on my bikes that really, really focus every weekend and can give me something good and consistent all the way across the board, not that'll build me a rocket at one place and build me, I don't want to say a piece of shit, but an ill-handling bike for the next weekend. Something that we can take and make it work everywhere instead of having peaks and valleys and peaks and valleys like we'd had up to that point.

Q. What's one of the first things that come to mind when you think of that period? Something not everyone would know. 

A. I remember what Bob MacLean said when I walked in to qualify on Thursday at Daytona, with my arm the same size from my elbow to my knuckles. I showed it to him and said 'How's that look?'. 

He goes, 'Dang, that thing's all swole up: you should've landed on your dick.'

ENDS