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Kevin Schwantz
Rejected by Yamaha



A recent visitor to our fair shores, Kevin Schwantz is one of motorcycle racing’s greats. Terry Stevenson put the hard word on the amiable Texan in this exclusive interview.

Kevin Schwantz remains one of the most popular Grand Prix riders of all time.
His flamboyant riding style won the Texan many fans the world over as he took his number 34 500cc Suzuki to and often beyond the limit.
If he didn’t win, he’d crash trying! That diehard attitude eventually carried the young American through to achieving his goal of winning the 1993 World 500cc championship.
Just out of school, Schwantz won the Houston Supercross in 1982 and ’83 as a professional motocrosser. Without the required dedication the lanky Texan went road racing in 1983 landing a Yoshimura Suzuki ride in 1984, on a GS750 (GSX outside the US), which he was recently reunited with.
In 1986, after posting the highest points score during the Trans-Atlantic match race series on a near standard GSX-R750 he was approached by Barry Sheene. Incredibly, Sheene pulled his 1984 RG500 out of a museum for Schwantz to ride in England plus selected GPs that year, and 1987.
In February this year Schwantz made his first visit to New Zealand to compete in the Classic Festival held at Pukekohe Raceway. Despite not racing a bike for three years, let alone a classic bike of any kind, Schwantz charged to four wins from five starts (he was fifth in a handicap race) on a Ken McIntosh loaned 1962 Manx Norton 500.
Unassuming, open and friendly, Schwantz was a remarkable crowd favourite and I was in for an extraordinary interview!

Would you like to talk about your GP days?
“Yeah, its definitely the highlight of my career. From the first win that I had to the very last one that I got, to the last GP that I did. It was an awesome time, it is one that I cherish every moment of but, if I could ever get back to MotoGP at a world level, not racing but as a team manager, or as owner of a team, that is kind of where my heart and soul is still at.”

What was it like being a GP star in a factory team?
“It definitely has its ups but it definitely has its drawbacks too. I mean, getting to go all these different places, meet all these different stars, is awesome. A lot of the pressure that you get is just stuff you built up and put on yourself. You want to do the best - you want to be at the top. That’s 24/7, 365 days of the year you are trying to figure out how to make yourself a better more competitive, more consistent, faster GP-winning racer.
“It’s tough in a way. The best story I can think of is Phillip Island in 2001 when Jnr (Kenny Roberts) had won the championship and I came walking into the paddock and it started raining. He handed me his helmet he said, ‘Here, you go ride.’ I said, ‘I’m having coffee and donuts, you go ahead!’ I like the relaxed atmosphere.”

What was the best race bike you ever rode?
“It’s a toss up. I think that the most dominant bike that I ever rode was my bike in ’89. We were on pole 11 times, we won six GPs, we broke while winning three, I crashed while winning three – there are 12! And there were only 15 in a season back then.
“My biggest concern racing was for me to actually win a race, it wasn’t a real win unless I could lap the entire field! And that was just kinda the mindset that I had. Five seconds, six seconds, eight, 10 seconds, that’s not enough! It needs to be more!
“And until I crashed in Jerez in ’89 - I went and watched the 250 race and realised (the problem). I had a six second lead on the last pit board I got. So I counted as the 250s went by to see what six seconds was like, and it’s the length of the front straight away! Like, hold on, is that not enough of a lead? I mean, is that not winning enough?”

What drove you to want to win by a lap?
“It’s funny, I don’t know. And I guess I just never really considered it success unless I could humiliate the entire field that bad!”

So you wanted to dominate?
“I wanted to crush, I wanted to kill, I wanted it to seem like I was the only bike in the race! Okay, and at that point (Jerez 1989) I started trying to regroup and started to think about racing a little bit more.
“A lot of it had to do with the team as many of the guys who were working on my bikes were as young and as inexperienced as I was. It was my fault as much as it was anybody’s. I’m not blaming our inconsistency on anybody but myself. I think the bike was always good enough to win but it had to be really, really close on the set up.”

Did anyone come and tap you on the shoulder and say, “Hey Kevin, maybe get second or third?
“Well, there were people who did that but they were guys in my team who had never raced. I’m like, ‘What the hell do you know? Have you ever ridden one of these?’ It is the one place where I think Kenny Roberts Snr would have either been great for me, or we would have fought the entire time and I’d have never got on with him at all.
“But I just needed somebody who was experienced. Who could say, ‘Hey, look at the laps you did. Look how consistent, you’re faster than everybody else, and yet you only qualified by 2/10ths of a second, but every lap you did in qualifying was faster than that’.”

What was your best year in racing?
“Probably the most fun that I had was ’89. You know, great bike, a 25 year old, travelling all over Europe, living the life, making great money, not really realising the pressures of racing, yet. By far ’89, just happy-go-lucky, who gives a shit, let’s go race, watch this, I’m going to destroy you guys - oops I crashed, so what?”

So you really did need a mentor back then, didn’t you?
“Yeah, it would have been great!”

Who would it have taken then?
“I referred to Kenny (Roberts) Snr, maybe him. It’s kind of a position that I put myself in now. I’m working with Red Bull Rookies Cup (US) trying to help Suzuki and their support teams.”

But Kenny then, was Mr Yamaha, as you are Mr Suzuki.
“I used to see him around the edge of the track watching Wayne Rainey and I’m convinced that is why Wayne was as good as Wayne was. Wayne had a ton of natural talent and two tons of motivation but he also had somebody on his side who had just recently gotten off the motorcycle and knew most of the tracks, a lot about the bike, the tyres, and a lot about what it took to go fast. The experience that he had was just, invaluable.”

The only guy that you would take advice from was working with someone else.
“When I used to ride around the track, the first couple of laps at practice and I’m like, ‘What’s he doing out here?’ and I’d go back and I’d think about it at the end of the race meeting and I’d be like, ‘He was sitting in that spot in those three corners where I was just killing Wayne in the first practice sessions. He was sitting and watching the segment that I was fast in!’”

Why did you stay so long at Suzuki?
“I tried at the end of ’89 to go ride a Yamaha. I signed the letter of intent with Ago (Agostini) if he could get me a written letter from the boss at Yamaha saying we were going to have the same equipment as team Roberts. I got a phone call from a Japanese guy at Yamaha who said, ‘Kevin you know that we are really honoured that you want to ride for us but we really like the state of GP racing right now, we’ve got Wayne and Eddie, Honda has got Wayne and Mick, and Suzuki has got you. We think it would be more detrimental to racing by signing you. Thank you’.
“And I said, ‘Well, you know, all in all its probably not a bad thing’, because at that point in my career I was making a very rash decision as I wanted to be on exactly the same equipment as Wayne Rainey and I wanted to beat him head-to-head.”

I was at Phillip Island in 1990 and I said to my mate, “Kevin is going to win or crash”. You had a bit of a reputation for either winning or crashing?
“I remember the race in ’89 and the race in ’90. And in 1989 I crashed and Gardner won and I heard him saying after the race, ‘The only chance I ever had of winning was the first lap when I saw Kevin laying on the ground.’ And I thought, ‘Wow, now I’ve got a chance’, and he was the only guy in front of me in ’90 and I thought, ‘I’ll be dammed if I’m going to let him win again’. He benefited from my mistake last time, it’s not going to friggin’ happen again, and it did.
“I take personal vendettas probably a little further than I should have. I should have just gotten the best out of the bike.”

Wayne Gardner told me recently that his motor home was parked next to the Suzuki garage in ’89 and through mirrored windows the Honda people spent the whole day taking rolls and rolls of film to compare the geometry to make their bike better.
“I’ve got all the respect in the world for Wayne Gardner and especially for the guys at Honda. If that is something that they did or needed to do, and we weren’t smart enough to keep them from it, that doesn’t bother me. I guess what I might say back to Wayne if he had told me that was, ‘We knew you couldn’t f’***n beat us anyway so we just left it there dangling. Actually, we put a re-jigged bike out there for you guys to photograph!’”
 
Who was your greatest rival or toughest opponent?
“Wayne Rainey by far and when he was gone winning a race didn’t mean nearly as much. The first season of GP racing, it didn’t really matter who I beat in ’88 I just wanted to win. In ’89 his and my rivalry had got that little bit further shoved down the road from how we raced each other in ’86 and ’87 in Superbike racing, and at the match races. That just carried on into GPs.”

Who did you like racing the most?
“There is not much doubt about that, Rainey was the toughest guy that I raced, he was the hardest guy to beat but he was the guy that if you needed some space he would give you some.”

You run a riding school. How can a guy who rode the way you rode ever teach a road rider anything?
“I start my schools by saying, ‘Do as I say, not as I did’. I feel like had somebody been there to tell me, ‘Hey, back up, slow down, think about it just a little bit’, I’d have been more consistent. In the end I would have been faster and I’d probably have won more races and maybe won more world championships. I don’t know.”
Schwantz runs a road rider training school in the US, which has just shifted to Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama.

Super Schwantz Stories
Schwantz is widely regarded as one of the more colourful characters to grace the GP paddocks around the world, here a few examples of the things he’s got up to over the years.

“Oh, there are all kinds of funny stories to tell. Probably the funniest of all GP stories that I’ve got is when Wayne Rainey wrote his book and launched it at Donington, 1995. Me and Lawson and Rainey, pretty sure Gardner, Doohan, Roberts Snr, Roberts Jnr, we all sat in the bar together telling stories.
“And then Eddie and Wayne and myself starting to poke fingers in each other’s chests, ‘Oh you are lucky you friggin didn’t do that to me at that race because I would have f***n run you off the track. I’d have beaten your arse afterwards!’
“Or when Wayne and Eddie one time almost fighting in the back of the car that drives around the track at Salzburg in ’89. I won the race, Eddie was second and Wayne was third. They were over each other’s shoulder, I was waving and smiling at the crowd, and they were ‘ra ra ra ra’ friggin yelling at each other. I was like, ‘Hey what’s going on?’. ‘You f***en pole punting little arsehole, you better get out of my f***en way or I’m going to knock you down’ and I’m like, ‘Hey! Easy, you guys were team mates last year, ease up!’.
“But there was the time when Lawson and I put the car in the ditch after Salzburg one night, trying to get back from dinner trying to race people on sidecars so that they couldn’t follow us back to our motorhome!”

Shcwantz also went Wayne Rainey’s house to take Rainey’s sister out back in the ’80s?
“I think it was ’87 and Renee and I had kind of met and started talking at some of the Superbike races. It was the middle of summer and we didn’t have much racing for a couple of weeks and she’s like, ‘I’m going to Lake Havasu’, which is right between California and Arizona. And she is saying, ‘I’m going to out there with some friends and I’m going to go jet skiing’. And I’m like, ‘Oh that sounds fun’ and she said, ‘Do you want to come with us?’ and I’m like, ‘OK, great.’.
“So I had a truck at the time and I went and bought a jet ski and called her and said, ‘Hey I’m going to come and pick you up. I’ve got a trailer and we’ll drive out to the lake together’, and she said, ‘That sounds great.’.
“Well, I went to the house. Back then the Mum and the Dad still lived with all three kids, Rodney, Wayne and Renee, and I showed up at the house to pick up Renee and knocked at the door, and Wayne answered.
‘What the f*** are you doing here?’ And I said, ‘I’m here to pick your sister up, we are going to the lake’, and the door just instantly slams in my face and I hear him yelling behind the door, ‘Renee, get here!’. And we wound up her jet ski and rode off together into the sunset! Her and I definitely went to the river together and he probably has never forgiven me for that.”

You were dating a Playboy Playmate in 1988 when you crashed at Daytona, you were admitted to hospital when your ‘playmate’ showed up wanting to make you feel better.
“I was in the emergency room, I had an IV in my arm and they were getting ready to – the doctor said, ‘Well, the best thing to do is to cut the finger off, it’s not going to be any good to you’, and I was like, ‘Well, why don’t you just clean it. I’m going to go back home and get a second opinion’.
“So I was just sitting in the emergency room and she came walking in, she was working for Suzuki at the time. She’d just been signing autographs at the Suzuki tent and she came in to see me. My uncle was guarding the door because the race had finished and there was all kinds of people coming to see me, team guys and stuff like that.
“And when she walked in she was like, ‘Hey, guard the door for a minute’, and she came in and she jumped up on the gurney and kind of just sat on top of me! And I, of course, had my little operating gown on which wasn’t like a nice pair of pants so she sat there for a little while and the doctor walked in and was somewhat offended by the fact that she was up on the stainless steel gurney! He asked her to leave.
“But I remember that her and I hadn’t really started dating yet and when she came in and kind of exposed herself to me like she did, I was just kind of ‘Wow, this f***n being hurt isn’t all that bad!’”