AMA Superbike

Interview:

Paul Carruthers
The Little Boy Who Joined the Circus

Q: As a child, do you remember the first time you realized that your father wasn't like all your friend's dads? That he didn't go to work every day at a normal job?

A: That's kind of funny because obviously, ever since I was born, I have been at racetracks. I guess my parents took me to my first race when I was just a couple of weeks old. In Australia, I remember thinking at the time that my dad's job was normal and all the other kids dads didn't have normal jobs. He was a racer and he had always been a racer, so it didn't seem unusual to me. Then when we went to Europe, all the other kids I hung out with... well, their dads were racers too. So again, it wasn't abnormal. When we came to the States and I finally started going to regular school with other regular American kids, then it was like, 'God, your dad's a motorcycle racer?' It was kind of strange at that point, but you just went about your business.

Q: What is your earliest racing memory?

A: I first remember being at race tracks when I was about four years old, in Australia. I also have pretty vivid memories of our first trip to Europe. We ended up going over there for the first time on a boat, across the ocean from Australia to Europe. The situation at that time was the only way our family could afford to go to Europe was if two flew and the others went by boat. So my dad and my grandfather flew from Australia to Europe, got the van and the caravan and the bikes, and got everything organized. My mom, my older sister, my grandmother and I took a ship over from Australia to Italy. This was in 1966--I was four years old. It was like a six-week trip. Six weeks on a big ship when you're a kid is pretty cool. I remember being on the boat and being on it for a long time. And you know, six weeks as an adult, what would you do? But as a kid it was great.

I also vividly recall getting off the ship and being picked up by my dad and grandfather in Italy. This was going to be our new home - a little caravan attached to the back of a van. We ended up staying in Europe, with occasional trips back to Australia, until 1970.

I remember races back then. Not vividly, but I remember being there and I remember a lot of the different people.

Q: Such as ...

A: A lot of the racers, the mechanics, the tire people. You tend to remember the ones who were nice to you, especially when you were a kid. Like I remember Jack Findlay-- he's actually the tech guy now for IRTA. Jack was one of the riders of that period and a friend of my dad. He was always very nice, but then again everybody seemed to be back then. That's not to say that they're not now, but it was different because all the riders traveled together and on off weekends we camped together in different places. I played with other kids whose dads were racers. I guess that's where they got the term "the GP circus" from, because that's what it was like. It was just a carnival atmosphere.

I remember guys like Mike Hailwood, Billy Ivy, Phil Read; I remember going to Phil Read's house for parties and we'd do a lot of things with these people because everybody was friendly and they were all friends with my dad. Grand Prix racing was a very friendly atmosphere back then. Sometimes your dad would win and sometimes he wouldn't, but it didn't seem to matter - everybody seemed to stay pretty good friends.

I can remember as a kid, my mom, who was obviously a big part of the whole deal, because a lot of the time in Europe - it was just our family. Early on, my dad didn't have a mechanic and so he did all of his own work. And my mom would pack up the kids while we were at the Isle of Man and she'd take us to Parliament Square and she'd give pit signals to my dad there. We'd be listening to the race on the radio so we could kind of tell what was going on in the race while we sat there and waited for him. Then she'd give him pit signals to let him know what was going on.

It's funny because I can always remember when Mike Hailwood was riding the Honda, I guess it was the four-cylinder 500, the thing was in a constant tank slapper. And whenever he was coming around my mom would push us back a bit to make sure we were safe--because on that bike it looked like an accident could happen at any time. She never did that with anyone else.

Overall, I think I had a great childhood in Europe. I grew up around racers and knew Mike Hailwood and Giacamo Agostini. It's helped me a lot with this job; I don't look up to today's riders as something special because I grew up in all of this. Sure, I have respect for what they do and I think they're very good. I know what it takes to succeed at this level, but there's no hero worship or anything with them. I know Giacamo Agostini for God's sake. Am I suddenly going to be excited over any of these guys?

Q: When you see Ago now is it like, 'Hey, remember ...?'

A: Yeah. And I got to know him well because when my dad went back to Europe as a tuner he did a lot of that time with Agostini. Ago has always been good to me and to my family. I could call him tomorrow and go over there and stay at his house. He's just a good guy. A lot of people have had problems with him, but I could never understand why.

Q: Do you remember your dad winning the Isle of Man?

A: Definitely. We went to the Island every year that we were in Europe and those are good memories for me. I remember always celebrating my birthday there - and I remember getting my first tooth pulled out by a dentist there. Little memories like that. It was kind of like a big carnival there when the bike races were held, and I remember driving go-carts and stuff like that.

I'll never forget the first time dad won there. They give you this huge trophy that you get to keep for a year, in addition to the smaller replica trophy that you keep forever. Dad has a cabinet full of those in his home now and I think those are the trophies he's most proud of. Anyway, the first time he won I remember the whole family posing for photos with it. It was a huge deal for our family because we'd just won the biggest race of the year.

Again, at the Isle of Man it was always that fraternity of people going to this event and being this was the Isle of Man, not everybody always left there in one piece. So I remember going to hospital and visiting friends of my dads who were hurt and there were obviously people who were killed. So in some ways it was the best race, and in others it was the worst.

I think with the exception of when my dad won the (1969 250cc) World Championship in the final race of the year in Yugoslavia, winning that first Isle of Man in 1969 on his first ride on the Benelli... that was a pretty special deal. It's funny because Kenny Roberts is known as King Kenny, but the daily newspaper on the Isle of Man ran a big photo of dad on that Benelli with a huge headline that read "King Kel!" So we always get a chuckle out of the King Kenny thing.

There are certain highlights that will always stand out. It's like now I look at Jett Chandler (Doug's son) and I know that he will look back at these times and it will be special for him. He's at the races now and he's seeing his dad win, doing things that nobody else can do. My father is a World Champion and he'll always be a World Champion. In a way you don't really realize that while you're still a kid, but when I look back at it now it's a pretty special deal--the things that he accomplished. I'm very proud of him.

Q: So the Benelli ride was his only factory ride, right?

A: Back when he raced in Grand Prix in Europe, there were a few factory guys like Mike Hailwood and Giacomo Agostini, and then there was another 20 guys on Manx Nortons. So the big goal of the privateer guys was to get third or fourth place and be the top privateer guy. Then you could get that MV ride. I remember when he got a call when I was a kid to go ride for MV, or that they wanted to talk to him. And he was very close to getting an MV Agusta ride. Back then an MV ride was a license to win races. It was like you suddenly had a ATM machine in your caravan when you got an MV ride. So we were really excited about that - as a family. Dad had the opportunity to maybe get this MV ride. Then we got a telegram right after that said Hailwood had taken the ride. So it was in the end a big disappointment. But then he got the Benelli thing and then the Yamaha ride so it turned out okay.

In 1970 his season was disappointing. He was clearly the fastest guy and he should have won the World Championship. He had some problems with the ignition on the Yamaha - he couldn't get the good ignition that Rod Gould, the factory guy, had and there were a lot of races where the bike just broke. He finished second in the championship. That was disappointing, but you live with those things. Something good usually comes out of disappointments, and if he'd won that second title we may never have made it here.

Q: You have no regrets about a childhood that most some would think of as being a bit different?

A: Absolutely not. It was a pretty good way to grow up. We had the caravan and... well, it was like if you took your family of four camping for six or seven months and you went from racetrack to racetrack and campsite to campsite. We'd drive to the races and if we had time we'd stop and do the tourist-type things. I've seen every museum in Europe and all that stuff. We'd get to the track and we'd set up our home for the week. My dad would start working on the bikes and we'd go off and play. My dad would race and then when the race was over we'd pack back up and be on our way to the Nurburgring, the Isle of Man, or some other race track and do it all over again. It was all based on this little caravan that we traveled in and lived in, and each year it would get bigger. The more success my dad had the bigger the caravan we could afford. In the end we had a pretty good-sized caravan.

Q: Then you came to America...

A: In 1970 we came to the states and did Daytona. We had met Don Vesco and we did Daytona with him. Then we said that we'd try racing in the US and just like everything else we've done, it was only going to be for a year or so. We've been here ever since. My dad was fortunate to race here because the purses were real high back then--actually better than they are now. So we came here at a good time and then he hooked up with Kenny. And I think my dad was fortunate in some respects that the Benelli ride was the only real factory ride that he ever had, and then he kind of went away from them. The later Benelli's weren't as good as the private Yamahas, so he went back and rode Yamahas in the final year. I think he was fortunate in that he'd worked on his own stuff for so long, then went on to tune his own Yamahas, and all that experience led to what was a second career when he finished racing. A lot of guys quit racing and you don't hear from them again. My dad was able to have a second career where he helped other riders win World Championships.

A lot of my racing memories are from the period when we were here, in the States. I was older and I was out doing kid stuff. I can remember riding my mini-bike in the pits at AMA races and Bill Boyce (the AMA's then head of racing) coming over to our pit and telling my dad that 'your kid can't be riding his mini-bike in the pits anymore.' I was bummed out because they took my mini-bike away.

I used to hang out a lot with the Rayborn kids. Buddy was what we called him then, but he's Calvin III now. He had a younger brother Jack and we three hung around at all the races and raced mini-bikes together and watched the races. I can remember back then, in the 250 races, my dad would win almost every time out. I remember standing there at the fence, at places like Road Atlanta, and feeling a little bad because I'd be watching the races with my buddies knowing the whole time that my dad was going to kick their dad's butt. And he did. He won almost every one of those races, and a lot of the Nationals as well. And yes, Cal Rayborn did eventually get better because he turned out to be one of the greatest road racers ever. So those kids went on to watch their dad win a lot of races as well.

We were really good friends with the Rayborn family. My dad hung out with Cal a lot and they also lived in San Diego, so we'd spend a lot of time at their house. It was really hard on us when Cal was killed. It was... it was just a bad deal all the way around.

Later I raced with Cal Rayborn III in San Diego. We used to race at this place called Speedway 117 or South Bay Speedway. He had a 250 and I had a 125 and he had been doing it a lot more than me, because he was older. I remember that he was really, really good. In fact, when we'd race mini bikes at the Nationals with the big guys, he'd always hold his own. Watching him race in San Diego may have been what drove me away from racing myself. He was the king of the track there and maybe I didn't feel like I would ever be that good. Much later we got to hook up again when he got the deal to ride Kenny's 250 in the AMA races. I was excited about it because I knew how good he was and how much talent he had. He actually had some pretty good results, but it just didn't work out. He's really talented, even today. He's a very talented racer.

Q: Was it a harrowing experience to watch your dad race?

A: Not really. That's one thing about my dad - I was never scared or worried about his safety. Because he didn't do anything silly and he was always in control. That's not to say he didn't crash, everybody crashes, but I was never worried about him. I knew, especially in those last years he was riding here in the states, and even in the last couple of years in Europe when he finally had good equipment, that he was going to win. Or he was going to be right there. That makes it fun; there's nothing like winning.

Q: It's bone of contention between you and the AMA as to the AMA 250 win list, as your dad's not on it and he won so many of those races back then. But because they were called Lightweight races, they don't count them, right?

A: My dad won a lot of races in that class. But what can you do? I know he won them, he knows he won them and they know he won them.

Q: Was he upset when he stopped racing?

A: Not really because at one point he was still riding and building bikes for Donnie Castro, Gene Romero, Kenny Roberts and others it was this huge team of yellow and black bikes. He was basically in charge of all of them. He had the shop in El Cajon where all the bikes were built and maintained. I think in the end it was too much for him to even think about his racing. I could see that his racing was slipping a little bit so I think he did exactly the right thing.

Q: The entire time you were in Europe you were what we would now term home-schooled, right?

A: Yeah, there were certain years when my sister Sharon and I did correspondence courses and the work would be sent to us in Europe from Australia. We'd do the work and send it back. Then there was one year where we had a tutor there and he was a friend of the family from Australia. He was actually part-time tutor and part-time mechanic. Yeah, it was good. I feel that being in Europe for all those years, I learned a lot more than I was going to learn at your basic elementary school. It's like anything else: you learn how to read and if you know how to read you can learn anything. And the fact that I traveled around Europe and got to see all those things and experience everything over there was great. As a kid growing up in racing you spend a lot of time around adults anyway, so I think that accelerates your learning.

I don't have any regrets as far as my education goes. When I did finally go to school in the states, they put me back a grade because of my non-typical education history. Then halfway through the year they bumped me up because I was smoking the other children in the class.

Q: Did you know Miguel DuHamel in that early-1970s US period?

A: I would like to say that I did, but to tell you the truth I was older and only remember him being in a stroller. Unfortunately, I'm a little bit older than him. In fact, I probably remember Mario (DuHamel) more so, but even he was a little young. I was nine years old at that time and they were a bit younger. I do remember their dad and mom being at the races though. My dad raced against Miguel's dad quite a bit back then.

Q: Your grandfather was the Australian Speedway champion, your father is the 1969 250cc World Champion. You raced for a while as an amateur but never took it any further. Why?

A: It wasn't so much that I was pushed away from racing by my parents, but I kind of was. I think it was because they just didn't want to go through all of that again. My mom especially... you can imagine what she has been through over the years in racing. So they didn't really steer me that way. I started racing a little bit ... mostly when they were in Europe in the summer months that I didn't go with them. And one summer when they were gone I started racing a bit in San Diego. It was more like I was sneaking down there to do it with some other buddies, but when they found out about it ... it was no big deal. They never really sat me down and told me not to race, but I could tell that's not the direction they wanted me to go in. They really wanted me to have more of a normal life where I'd finish school and go to college. Looking back on the way things have turned out, I thank them for leading me down that street.

I never really took my own racing that seriously. And I didn't like to lose. I have a real problem with losing and I still have a real problem with losing today - so it's probably a good thing that I didn't ever try real hard at racing. And getting beat by Cal Rayborn III didn't help.

Sometimes I look at riders and I look at the success they've had and sometimes I think, 'God, that could have been me.' But those guys are really the minority. The majority of them don't have that success. So I don't really have any regrets about it. In a way I like the racing so much, and I always have, that I really feel blessed to have fallen into the perfect job. I get paid to go to the races and to hang out with racers - something I've done my whole life. I've always had kind of a bond with racers because I've grown up with them ... I sort of know how they think.

Q: Your dad's relationship with Kenny Roberts was a good one, but I think there was also some animosity there as well on one level. Agree?

A: Maybe on some level, but I think Kenny probably has that relationship with most people. The bottom line is that my dad doesn't take any shit. If he's guilty of anything it's maybe that he didn't feel like he had to baby these people along. He raced, he was World Champion and the rider's job is to go out there and do what he's supposed to do. He probably doesn't feel like the rider should be coddled.

He and Kenny have a good relationship. They accomplished a lot together and I think Kenny would admit, and has admitted, that without Kel things could have been a lot different for him. In the end they just went their separate ways and had no problems. Kenny wanted dad to go with him when he got the Lucky Strike team with Randy (Mamola) and Mike Baldwin, but dad wanted to stay with Agostini's team... mainly out of loyalty to Eddie (Lawson), who had a two-year contract at the time.

Q: When Roberts left AMA racing do World Championship in 1978 you and your dad went with him. What was that like?

A: Probably the coolest memories I have of Kenny were from that season... that period. When I got out of school I went over there and spent the whole summer with them. That was the year he won his first World Championship and really... we had a great time. We probably had more fun that summer than Kenny has probably ever had since in racing.

We went over there and it was pretty low key - we both had our own motorhomes. That was pretty funny because Kenny ... well, he didn't know where he was going in Europe and was petrified of getting lost. My dad knew everything about Europe. So anytime we were driving somewhere, to a race or someplace else, Kenny's motorhome would be just tightly tucked in behind ours. We would laugh because our windshield would always be plastered with bugs and his would be clean and clear because he was trailing us so tightly. He was so scared of getting lost. Now look at him. He spends most of his time in Europe, probably showing other people around.

That year the Europeans just thought he was great. And he is. He's a great guy. Sure he has points where you just want to strangle him because he's driving you insane. I remember, as a kid, I was a surfer from San Diego and I would surf twice a day if I could. I had longish hair and Kenny was kind of a redneck from Modesto. So he would give me grief about it... 'Why don't you get a haircut?' Stuff like that. After a while I just wanted to kill him, then I just started dishing it right back and him and he started leaving me alone. We had a lot of fun together. Now I see him and he's got long hair... maybe I should call him up and tell him to get a haircut.

I've always had a good relationship with Kenny and have always had a lot of respect for him. In all my years of being around racing, I have never seen anybody do the kind of things that he can on a motorcycle. I was at the Indy Mile when he won on the Yamaha four-cylinder and I've seen him do some pretty miraculous things. He's given me a lot of grief and I give it right back. That's all you have to do with him - just give it right back. He respects that and leaves you alone.

Q: You were associate editor of Cycle News when that whole late 1980s split between Eddie Lawson and Yamaha occurred. You were in an unenviable position: you were friendly with Lawson and of course the other guy in the situation was your father.

A: I would say that in all my professional career that was the most difficult time for me. I was in the middle and I was obviously involved in the whole thing because it was my family and it was Eddie. At the time Eddie was like my brother, the brother I never had. We were close. We used to do a lot of stuff together and I used to go to Europe when he was there and we had some real good times. I'd go to his place in Upland and go out on his boat with him or go out riding Jet Skis together.

That was real difficult because it wasn't so much that he was leaving the team, things happen in racing, it's a fact of life - riders switch teams. But he went about it the wrong way and he pointed some fingers in some directions that he shouldn't have. He made it seem like it was almost my dad's fault. And there was no way that it was my dad's fault. Maybe that was just Eddie's way of getting through it and not taking the heat for just wanting to go ride a Honda. I don't know. There was probably some stuff going on behind the scenes that even Eddie didn't know about.

It's a shame because I saw how my family treated him. My mom treated him like she treated me, better in some ways. The same for my dad. They used to make meals for him and my mom would do his laundry. It was just like if I raced on that team, that's how they would treat me. And then for him to do what he did, it hurt them a lot.

Q: Someone saw your dad in San Diego right after it happened and said he was acting like somebody died. Like a member of the family had died.

A: He was upset about it... about how it was handled. To them maybe Eddie Lawson died that day. I don't know. I just know that it wasn't handled very well.

Dad had received phone calls from other journalists and suddenly their angle of the story was that 'Eddie says it's your fault'. I guess they were saying that my dad wanted Kevin Schwantz on the team and that they were trying to get rid of Eddie, which is a crock of crap. My dad never had any say as to who would be on that team. It's no different now. The people who make the decisions on who rides for what team are people like Marlboro and Lucky Strike. It's not a crew chief. If they wanted Kevin Schwantz, what does that have to do with my dad? Maybe they did, maybe they didn't, but I think that Eddie felt... hey, I don't know what he felt.

Right after that I went to Eddie and... well, I wanted things to be normal as they could be. I still had my job to do. I wanted to be professional about that. We talked, but it was never really the same. And, of course, he wasn't around much after that so it didn't become a problem, at least professionally. All in all it was a shame. Everybody was good friends and then suddenly they weren't. It's too bad, you know? I can see even now there is no reason we shouldn't be able to go Jet Sking together or go out on his boat. But it'll probably never happen. It's a closed chapter I guess.

Q: Is he happy now? Your father?

A: Yeah, he is. I think he misses bike racing to a degree because he had been in it for so long. I still think a lot of teams could use him, in Grand Prix or even here in Superbike. You see some of these teams and the bikes run out of fuel or the chain falls off. Those are stupid things that shouldn't be happening at that level and that never happened on any bike my dad was taking care of. I've never seen anybody willing to work as hard as he does... sometimes I wish I had his energy.

Q: Would he have any desire to work in Superbike, here in AMA?

A: A few years ago, I thought there was a good chance of him doing just that. And I think if given the right opportunity, he'd think about it--sure.

Q: 1998 will be your 13th season of covering the AMA road race series. In your opinion, is the series healthier now than it was 13 years ago? Factory participation is higher than ever, we have television, but the purses are ridiculous and some of the venues we go to are questionable. Your thoughts?

A: I really don't believe the series has ever been healthier than it is right now - what with 16 factory rides available for next year. But when I started doing this I was fortunate to do so right at the time when the Wayne Rainey/Kevin Schwantz rivalry was getting started. That was intense racing between two guys who really didn't like each other. And I happen to like both of them. It was almost like you didn't want to be seen in Schwantz's company in case Rainey saw you, and vice-versa. All those two guys cared about was beating each other. I remember when Schwantz was hurt at Brainerd. He crashed in turn one at probably 150 mph and was pretty banged up. We played tennis there at the Holiday Inn that night and he was limping around - right until Rainey opened his motel room door. At that point, Schwantz was running around like he was in perfect health. Simply because he didn't want Rainey to think that he was hurt, which he was.

I think that kind of intensity is lacking in a lot of the AMA riders today. It's almost like they like each other too much. They play golf together and they're real buddy-buddy with each other. I think that's great, but I wonder when push comes to shove out on the track if that changes how they treat each other? I saw the Rainey/Schwantz thing played out and it was very hostile. It also made for great racing.

As far as the television thing goes, it's really good right now. I can sit at my house and just flick around the channels and can usually find some kind of motorcycle racing. Ten years ago, that wasn't the case. Not all of the programming is great, but I'm still glad it's there. At least now my neighbors kind of know what it is I do, because there's a chance they've seen it on TV.

Some of the venues the series goes to are dangerous, but they continue to go there. I know this is frustrating to most of the riders, but I can also see where the AMA is coming from. It's a fact of life right now that the AMA Superbike Series isn't popular enough to make too many demands with track owners. It's almost a beggars-can't-be-choosers deal. If they were bringing in 30-50,000 people at every race, they'd be able to make more demands than they can be making right now. The AMA has to find 10-12 race tracks that want to host an AMA Superbike race, and sometimes that puts them in a position of going to places that aren't very safe. I would think the track owners would do their best to make them safe, but apparently not many of them want to spend the money to do so. I think it'll end up getting better.

Q: There are two sides to the issue of factory riders participating in Supersport racing. Which side are you on: Do factory Superbike riders like DuHamel and Picotte belong in 600 Supersport?

A: That's a difficult question to answer. I'm kind of on the fence with it. The 600 market is really important to the manufacturers, so naturally they want to win. In order to win, right now they need a DuHamel or a Picotte--unless of course neither of those guys, or the other top guys, were there. I guess I'd like to see the top teams fielding young, up-and-coming riders in that class instead of the top Superbike guys because it would give us more opportunity to groom young riders. I think the racing would still be really good at the front, it would just be with different guys. You know if Muzzy had Hayden, Honda had the Bostroms, and Suzuki had some young gun, it could be good. There's also the argument that these young guys can find out how good they are by racing with DuHamel, Yates, etc., but if I start racing stock cars tomorrow, I don't get to race with Robby Gordon. I'm not really sure how it should be handled. It's a difficult subject. There's also the possibility that seeing the top guys race in a support class earlier in the day lessens the impact and importance of seeing the top guys race later in the day in what is the top class--Superbike.

Q: Which is your all-time favorite of the following: all-time race; AMA Superbike race; U.S. venue and foreign venue, and why?

A: Two races that really stick out in my mind that I saw in person are the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard in 1988 and the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island in 1989. Those were two really good battles between some of the best riders ever. I was shooting photos at Paul Ricard and every lap was different. It was Lawson, Gardner, Christian Sarron, Schwantz, Rainey... really good stuff with guys at the limit on 500cc GP bikes. That's what it's all about. And Mamola was there on the Cagiva when he was using Pirellis. He wasn't' with the lead group, but he was putting on a good show behind them. He was really good that year. He'd basically tell the photographers where to stand and then he'd go out and throw the thing in full-lock slides--right in front of us.

The following year, the Phillip Island race was really good. That one was won by Gardner after a great battle with Rainey, Sarron and Kevin Magee. Schwantz crashed out early, or it would have probably been even better. It was really good because it was the first Australian GP and the place was just going nuts - and then Gardner won the race to make it even better for them.

This year's AMA Superbike race at Mid-Ohio was really good. And I think it could have been even better if Doug (Chandler) wasn't already trying to protect his points lead. Almost all of the 600 races are very good right now. I also remember that the Superbike race at Road Atlanta in 1987 was a good one: Schwantz vs. Rainey. With those two, it didn't even matter if there was anyone else on the race track. You really knew they were giving it everything they had and that made it even more special.

There are three or four race tracks that stand out as being my favorites here. I really like going to Road America, Mid-Ohio, Laguna Seca and Brainerd - well, except for that damn drive from Minneapolis. As far as foreign races go, Paul Ricard is hard to beat because of its location in the south of France. And I've always liked Italy so any track in Italy is fine with me. Misano is a good track and it's in a good location--at least if you like the beach and good food.

Q: You and me have to do the rounds after each Superbike race and hear many a tale of woe from certain riders. It's almost like they have their excuses rehearsed before the green light flashes. Are you ever tempted to look up from your notebook and say: "Here's a tip: shut up and ride."

A: Well, I'd much prefer a guy just being honest with me. I guess it's part of their makeup that if they don't win, then something was wrong with the bike, the tires, or something. To admit that they just weren't quick enough on that day may do something to their psyche, who knows? There are some riders who will just tell me: "Hey, I didn't have it today." But those are few and far between. Some of them, obviously, can't ride through their problems as well as the others. The really good ones--they just race hard and it doesn't matter if things aren't perfect.

Q: You did some television work a few years ago. Did you enjoy it? You don't ever seem to be in the crowd criticizing broadcasters for gaffs and the like. Is that because you know first-hand how hard it is?

A: Yeah, I did some TV work a few years ago. It ended up that I was kind of thrown in the deep-end without a lot of help, but I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't very good at it. I still think I could do it in the right format, with the right amount of help - but who knows? I do know that it's not easy. It doesn't matter how much you know, you can still come out of it sounding like an idiot. The whole time you're doing it, you're thinking, 'Am I sounding like an idiot?' I think if you could get beyond that and just have fun with it, it could be a pretty cool gig.

It's like Kevin Schwantz; I'm convinced he could be really good at the commentary, but I can tell he was thinking the same way I was. It's like if he could ever get truly comfortable with it and just say what every he wanted without thinking about it first, he'd be really good. He knows his stuff and he's got a really good personality. And he's funny. More than anything, I think those shows need a bit of humor. I think everybody tends to be a little stiff once they know they realize they're talking to an audience of people watching at home on their TVs.

So to answer your question, I know what those guys are trying to do and it's not that easy. It's easy to be a critic, but until you've actually tried to do it... well, you just don't really know. But by doing it and getting paid to do it as a professional, you set yourself up to be criticized if you do it poorly.