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The year was 1985, it was the Saturday before the San Marino GP, August 31st and Eddie Lawson had just taken pole position on the old Misano circuit. The one that turned the right way. And I was in the box of the legendary Marlboro Team Agostini. Eddie had just come back in, he had signalled to Carruthers indicating the bike that he would have chosen for the next day's race, a small prudent gesture given that - unworthily - your reporter was in his helmet and leathers to get on the 'spare'.
At the time, only a few of us tried out the Grand Prix motorcycles. Nico Cereghini and I in Italy, the great Alan Cathcart in England. Each in his own way, but with respect because with some of them - I'm thinking of the 50s and 125s - without experience, it would have been difficult just getting out of the pits. However that was not the news, but the fact that I was allowed to test DURING the Grand Prix was! Those were other times, with other race directors, other passion of all the characters involved, because passion was the glue of the time. At the time, of course, there was also money, retainers, investments, but when on the other side whoever listened to your request perceived the sacred fire, all difficulties vanished. The waters of the Red Sea opened before you.
That entry onto the track - I don't call it a test - in such a particular and unrepeatable situation, with the grandstands and the grassy embankments packed with fans was a unique experience. Yamaha, Agostini, Carruthers, Lawson and Campana trusted me. All of them. Only this can help you understand what exactly the GOLDEN ERA was. Trackside were Wayne Gardner, Randy Mamola, Uncini, Baldwin, Haslam. The day after Awesome Lawson won the last race of the season. I asked him, returning to my role, to comment on the absence of Freddie Spencer. "They told me that he broke his thumb: maybe it happened while he was sucking it", he answered.
Tonight on BAR SPORT together with Carlo Pernat and Stefano Saragoni, at the time my partner in Grand Prix and then director of Motosprint for a long time, we talk about that period. Don’t miss it
(p.s.)
MISANO - A year ago, just after Eddie Lawson won the world title, Giacomo Agostini promised us that he would let us try the Yamaha OW76, the bike considered, in no uncertain terms, to be the best 500 in the world championship.
Today, a year later, Iwata's half-litre has changed its initials, it is called OW81, after having undergone accurate fine-tuning work which increased its torque, power and driveability, but failed in the objective of reconquering of the title. Strangely, however, and this is rare for a vehicle intended for racing competition, its reputation as a perfect two-wheeler hasn't suffered any cracks.
Kenny Roberts, after riding it at Laguna Seca, said: "I set the time in just four laps. Without touching anything. There was practically nothing to do but open the gas and go. For the first time in my career I found myself faced with a bike that was giving me difficulty: it seemed perfect to me. I didn't know what to suggest to make it more competitive, better. Yet it had to be done, because development must never stop".
At Misano, on the occasion of the last Grand Prix of the season, Eddie Lawson reaffirmed this technical superiority by lapping in 1'20.46 in practice, a time that he easily achieved without rivals able to offer any resistance. It seemed therefore that the defeat suffered by Yamaha at the hands of Honda was considered a hiccup. And now, just imagine King Giacomo, at the end of the fourth practice session for the maximum engine capacity, of the last GP of the season, immediately after getting off the bike, the former champion inviting you to get on it and go...
POLE POSITION
"Three laps", reiterates Giacomo's brother Felice Agostini, while Fiorenzo Fanali, chief mechanic, is preparing to entrust us with the Yamaha OW81 with which Eddie has just set pole position for the San Marino GP. Three laps, just ten kilometres at Misano, are nothing on a racing bike, but the situation doesn't allow for anything else: we are in the middle of the Grand Prix and we owe it to the race director, Giorgio Campana, for the permission to take to the track.
"Don't forget - Ago had told us shortly before taking us aside – keep your head on your shoulders, tomorrow Lawson has to race".
All these warnings made us a bit nervous: after all, the OW81 is a bike like any other, I tell myself. But the fact of finding myself in the Marlboro-Yamaha team workshop tent in leathers and helmet, almost desecrating that place that welcomed riders like Roberts, Crosby and Eddie, makes a certain impression. I try to demystify the moment with a joke: Kel Carruthers is there next to the bike and looks at me as if I'm going out with his daughter.
"Well Kel, why don't we talk a bit about signing me for '86?"
Trained by the fierce irony of the Martian, Carruthers does not allow himself to be taken by surprise.
"Sure, let's talk about it! How much do you have in your pocket to give us?"
The atmosphere lightens, even if I continue to feel warm in the heavy winter Dainese leathers. We have to confess: we always get on GP bikes after the championship is over, but we start to do a bit of running-in ourselves with slightly less demanding calibres. Meanwhile Kel continues to speak, halfway between serious and half-joking.
"I swear - he says insisting on the same subject - in our team we are open to everything: if a rider shows up with a billion, we let him try".
So that's fine with me, because my leathers don’t have any pockets; and that of Giacomo, Kel and their companions is a great demonstration of friendship; we forgot, even of trust: Susumo Doi, the chief engineer of Yamaha, watches us smiling from behind his famous glasses. Meanwhile, Fiorenzo is talking to me. We are good friends: during the winter Fanali is Hubert Auriol's mechanic at the Paris-Dakar.
"You can push hard up to 12,000 rpm - he explains - and you never have to worry about power delivery: it's almost a street bike".
Felice, on the contrary, continues in his intimidation: "Don't open the gas all of a sudden, otherwise you'll put the bike on its head".
We take a quick look around: Kel smiles slyly, Felice has a foxy little smile, but Fiorenzo has a completely reassuring expression.
ON THE TRACK
All four of us pop out of the tent. The public in the paddock watched the OW81 go out with the number 1 and the engine running, skilfully kept perky. It's a scene I've seen other times: Floppy, already wearing his helmet, his gait a little hunched over, thus heads towards the track for the practice sessions. The crowd opens up to let us pass. I can see their legs. By now the vital space, that of the moment I'm living, has shrunk to a radius of just two meters. The entrance gate to the track opens wide. It's the same old circuit that I know too well, but the moment is magical. More than observing what is happening around me, I can only see the colours. I perceive the movements, but my universe is a two-tone white-Marlboro red.
Now I hardly hear what is being said to me. I observe the tyres, I touch their roughness that transmits safety and grip. Then I look at that bike in its entirety that I have observed and photographed during the course of the season and I am amazed at the fact that I have a helmet and boots. And that I am sitting on it.
I've never dared so much, yet probably Kel and his companions wouldn't have gotten angry over me if I had asked to measure myself up to the bike. I didn't, though, so the pleasure of the first time is fully intact. With the OW81 motionless on the stand, I let my body absorb the sensations: Lawson is taller than me and the riding position is relaxed. Nothing exaggerated, just enough so that you don't feel the foam of the saddle pressed firmly against your backside. However, my knees comfortably penetrated the large flares of the tank: as always, the Yamaha is the master in terms of riding position. I would need very little modifications to fit the OW81 to my physique. The position of the clip-ons used by Eddie is comfortable, and the foot controls are also in the right place. I make up my mind and nod to Fiorenzo. The tripod is removed and Fanali joins me pushing the OW81 by the tail with the usual ease of a familiar gesture.
OFF WE GO
I let go of the clutch and open a trickle of gas. The square four-cylinder grumbles. I reduce the opening and it starts. The noise, from above, is the classic one of a two-stroke full of horsepower when under torque. Almost an animal noise. The breath of a tiger. In second gear I enter the esses after the pits, I turn the throttle gently, as Felicino warned me, but now first contact between me and the OW81 has taken place. Two wheels slide on the track, I’m not riding a runaway buffalo, but rather a vehicle in which Yamaha has invested billions and technology to make it a perfect war machine for that battle that we call the world championship.
The dull rumbling turns into a clean whistle while the rev counter needle levitates from 9000 to 10500 rpm. The layout of the Misano circuit flows under the wheels of the Yamaha which has the N°1 on the fairing almost as if Lawson's weapon, at the end of the tests, had learned the trajectories and was able to retrace them by itself. Whoever the rider is in the saddle. But I'm not Eddie Lawson and I'm pulling the reins of the OW81 on the first sighting lap. The Tramonto curve, which ends the main straight, is full of filler just to the right of the optimal line, and the Brutapela looks like the surface of a cake dusted with icing sugar.
On corner exit I decide and finally open the gas. Two years ago, at Paul Ricard, in France, Sonauto let me try Marc Fontan's OW76. A bike apparently identical to this one, with the same 'V' engine but with rotary disc instead of reed valve. In two seasons the progress has been enormous: the OW81 is not only more ready, its engine pushes vigorously with every opening of the gas. It's difficult to explain the sensation: it seems that the throttle grip is directly connected to the rear wheel. The slightest glimmer of gas moves the big Michelin radial slick but, and here's the best thing, the thrust is only forward. There is no uncomfortable sensation of feeling the tyre walk sideways. In a word: the traction is excellent, as if instead of a motorbike you were driving a racing car with a limited slip differential.
Half a lap is already almost done and I'm full in the Curvone. I don't even touch my personal limits, let alone those of the Yamaha OW81, but the feeling between me and this battle tool is almost perfect. I open wide, observing the tachometer like a viewfinder, aiming it to see beyond the transparent fairing. At 11,550 rpm my heart is gone and I shift into sixth gear while the surrounding landscape seems sucked up by a powerful vacuum cleaner hidden in the tail of the OW81.
The rev limiter in my wrist cuts and closes the throttle before it's really needed at the 200m sign. How many revs will I have done in sixth gear? I've never asked myself that on the second lap of a test, but this isn't, and there’s only one lap left.
LAST LAP
It is impossible to familiarize yourself with the Yamaha to the point of looking for the trajectories you would like, braking well and throwing down the gears in bursts tilting it with a single fluid and decisive movement. We feel that the OW81 responds to our requests, that it's light and docile in our hands, but when - who knows what happened to our personal limiter at that moment? - we open wide at the exit of the Quercia and the OW81 raises the front wheel, while we are still inclined, we understand that we have loosened the reins too much on this thoroughbred's neck. However, the bike does not get out of shape at the front or rear, a sign of perfect weight distribution.
We know from experience that whenever the steering has a reaction under acceleration it is because the front tyre has lost contact with the ground. We seem to see it, we imagine it because we've photographed it countless times, this moment: the front slick, while the external curb runs and ends at the Brutapela exit, hovers over the asphalt. It is as if entering the corner we had pulled a large rubber band along the entire trajectory, which is released on the other side as soon as the bike has realigned itself.
Acceleration eats up the short straight. We have a very colourful view of the line of people watching from the pit wall; the red-shirted Marlboro men are a blur but visible. One more lap, once again the semi-curve that precedes the Carro, the hard first-gear braking.
The Brembo braking system bites hard and the OW81 squats, docile. The rear brake is almost non-existent. Its job is only to keep the bike in line when braking from 200 km/h makes this racing car wander around like an F1 car.
"When Eddie stops his rear disc is almost cold." Fiorenzo Fanali told us at the start. This thought robs us of the memory of the two semi-curves that lead to the Curvone.
FORCED STOP
Maybe still two kilometres to go. We let the four 'V' roar, but time flies on this space-eater. And already we see the pit-wall again. It's a split-second decision: we'll steal one more lap. But someone is in the middle of the track and beckons us. Under full throttle we pull the butter-smooth clutch. The engine shuts down immediately. For a few moments there is only the hiss of air on the helmet and the heat flowing from the water cooler in the fairing. Everything is still again. Only Fiorenzo runs towards us as he does with Lawson. But then Eddie leans to one side as he takes off his helmet to listen to him.
"Are you okay mama-san?" Fanali usually joked. But we just don't hear it. Our heart is beating too hard.
(This article was published in Motosprint n°36 of September 1985)
