In Vallelunga guests of the LCR Honda team, present for the Honda dayswe met the legend Randy Mamolawho the day before had taken to the track on the Honda RS500 (a surprise from Lucio Cecchinello), the bike he raced with way back in 1984, 40 years later.
So many emotions for the American driver who took off with the iconic push start, followed on the track by the watchful eyes of his son Dakota, also a pilot. A journey into the past therefore, but also an opportunity to talk about current events, among the latest sensational market moves. Primarily those of Martin and Marquez, but there was also talk of the future, with the possibility of seeing an American rider again after many years of absence, Joe Roberts, return to the premier class. As always with his usual friendliness and smile, the American pilot begins the interview by singing “Take me home, country roads” Of John Denver.
It’s exactly the right song to start talking about the fantastic experience you had yesterday here in Vallelunga. Lucio Cecchinello brought a three-cylinder Honda RS 500, the bike that you Randy rode in 1984 with the Rothmans colors (Here is the video proof).
“It was between 1984 and 1985, in ’84 it was red, white and blue, with Honda colours. That was the year in which I started the season late because I didn’t have a motorbike, Suzuki stopped at the end of ’83 I was lucky and thanks to Oguma san I participated in the first races like Laguna Seca. Freddie Spencer was injured at an event at Donington and the rest is history, I paid my mechanics, that’s why the team had my colors. Yesterday’s surprise made the day very strange and emotional both for me and for many others because 40 years have passedthe”.
What was it like jumping on a bike like that, a two-stroke? Obviously you haven’t tried today’s MotoGP but you have ridden a Ducati 4-stroke MotoGP. A very different car, with lots of electronics, what was it like taking a leap into the past?
“It’s as anyone would imagine, people who loved the two-stroke era still believe in it. I also tried the four-stroke and I believe in both. MotoGP is having an incredible time this season with everything that is happening. Let’s not forget that though at the time Honda’s three-cylinder was the pinnacle of technology. When Freddie Spencer brought this bike, together with Lucchinelli, he won the title, yet everyone said “three cylinders? Four in the Suzuki, the Yamaha with the V4…” There was a lot of competition back then too. So I came here to Vallelunga at the invitation of Lucio Cecchinello and the LCR team, and you can see on social media the moment I revealed the bike. It was funny because I was wearing the Honda suit that I wore at Goodwood last year, with my son Dakota, because they had brought MotoGP bikes and Gabriele Mazzarolo from Alpinestar had brought it to me. I brought it here because it’s Honda days and it was special because they asked me “can you come in a suit”? And I asked myself why. I put it on, go out and there it is. So I understand that the bike is over 40 years old, with all the moving parts attached, but taking it out on the track and doing that first lap was incredible. It was funny because even though it was hot and with the old radiator, we had to use tape to warm it up. The images you see are the footage of Dakota following me on the RCV213S, it was very funny, even he was surprised because I pushed hard enough in a couple of corners and couldn’t believe it was 500cc with the bends we could do”.
And you were on road tires.
“Yes, obviously at the time we were using 16-inchers, these are 17-inchers. They are Pirelli and they worked well, but I admit I didn’t push it too much to the limit”.
You had respect for the old mechanics.
“I think we were all just really excited about the idea. I told Dakota I was going to do a push start, remember? Me, Haslam, it took two steps. Now that I’m 65 and getting older I needed three!” – he jokes – “All this brings back so many memories – continues the American – with Lucchinelli, Uncini, Kenny Roberts, Barry Sheene, Freddie… that era when they put the bikes together, when you changed the engines, the exhaust pipes to change the character of the bike, there was a lot of technology already in era long before traction control came along. One of the things the three-cylinder did really well was torque and cornering power.”.
You’ve driven both Suzuki and Yamaha four-cylinder engines. What changed compared to the three-cylinder, better handling?
“Agility was another aspect, there was no weight. When you lift the tank and see the chassis there was nothing. As for the four-cylinder in those years, when we were at Paul Ricard, or in Austria… the torque of the three-cylinder between gears it changed gears faster, it was thinner but more powerful The four-cylinder could rev more, but when you changed gears it had a greater gap in the transmission and took longer to find. the limit. When you were with Freddie and Kenny at Paul Ricard, Freddie changed gears and moved forward just enough. For me it was a bike built around Freddie, I had difficulty riding it even though I won on it, finishing second in the championship in ’84 ‘it’s that photo of me with my leg raised from the saddle, because the front seemed narrow and the rear seemed wider and I always felt like I needed to get more out of this bike“.
As Martin does now too. You were at Mugello last week, Marc was announced in the official Ducati team. What can we expect in the rest of the season and in the future?
“It’s like having a book and having to tear out the pages to rewrite what will happen. For weeks we have had conflicting news, but I think there are even now there are many people in the paddock who believe that Martin deserved the official saddle. It is clear, however, that an eight-time world champion attracts a lot of media attention, and he has shown that he can fight. He and we know that GP23 is close but GP24 still has a small advantage. When the news arrived I think Martin thought “ok, I’ll make a decision without waiting and go to Aprilia”. Aprilia will welcome him and as Massimo Rivola said, as soon as the opportunity arose they didn’t let it slip away. Jorge Martin is a special rider, and is leading the championship. To put things back into perspective, when you have an eight-time world champion, who in the past two years has not achieved anything with Honda, without forgetting the operation… so next year? It will be a bomb, everyone knows it. This market operation will go down in history, the next one I would like to see would be Pramac’s move to Yamaha, it would be a more interesting story than staying in Ducati. They would become a team of heroes, approaching Yamaha’s prospect and helping them build the bike of the future. Between now and 2027 they will still have more than 50 races to be able to develop the Yamaha. How many years has Pramac been with Ducati? Imagine these teams working together. We need the Japanese to become competitive again and everyone seems to have forgotten that the Japanese have always struggled against the Japanese in the championship. Stoner won in 2007 but it took another 12 years before Pecco arrived. Now we are in the era of European manufacturers, but Honda and Yamaha are pushing hard.”
Can Joe Roberts, victorious at Mugello in Moto 2, aspire to MotoGP?
“This season he is doing very well. Looking at his overall career he has raced in the championship for seven years, an opportunity that not many drivers have. After all, however anything can happen, let’s think of Quartararo who won a race in the year of his contract with Yamaha and won no others. Two years later he was world champion in MotoGP. So Joe Roberts has the talenthe can beat his opponents at Mugello, always staying in the top positions and that’s positive. The new Pirellis divided the riders, some progressed faster and adapted better and that’s what happened with Joe Roberts. The question is: can Miguel Oliveira and Raul Fernandez push for the top 5? One of them should make way for Roberts. It’s not an easy decision, it’s clear. For Aprilia it could then be an added value thanks to the US market.”
