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In August of 2003, Yamaha had decided to pull the plug on its troubled MotoGP effort. Two factors prompted this shocking decision: money and getting their butts beat. This is the company that won nine world championships with Kenny, me, Wayne...and then couldn't find an apex with both hands. Some very reliable sources told me that the four-stroke changeover to MotoGP ate up over 35% of Yamaha's capital and that the YZR-M1's lack of success had split the company in two. Racers versus musicians.
Mr. Himatsu was Yamaha's president and sat firmly on the side of the racers. Himatsu-san led my team back in the mid-'80s as our top-level engineer and knew more about powerplants and roadracing chassis than anyone I ever met. He believed in the technological advantage of racing Grand Prix and our racetrack success propelled him to Yamaha's presidency. You can ask Wayne and Kenny about Himatsu and they'll tell you the same thing: He knows racing and he realizes that beating the world on the racetrack takes the delicate balance of a million details.
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| World's fastest Fiat? It won the MotoGP title in 2004 and 2005, and currently leads the points, but in 2003 the works Yamaha YZR-M1's fate hung in the balance. |
But Himatsu's enthusiasm slammed up against Mr. Takashima. These two guys couldn't be more different. Takashima came from Yamaha Musical Instruments and was the design engineer who created Yamaha's best-selling grand piano 22 years ago, along with many of the keyboard off-shoots that boosted Musical Instruments to an even footing with motorcycles. When the MotoGP effort began to suck up resources like John Belushi ate Jell-O, Takashima and his group gained momentum.
By the middle of 2003, the skirmish between these two factions within Yamaha finally went nuclear and the plan to quit MotoGP was made...with one exception. Valentino Rossi. If Himatsu's side could convince Rossi to join the team, funding would go through for the first three races of 2004. They hired Rossi, but I don't think they ever told him that the first three races were make-or-break. If Rossi and crew chief Jeremy Burgess couldn't outright beat Honda, Yamaha was out, along with Himatsu. Takashima and his gang would take over…and many insiders doubted if motorcycles of any persuasion would wear the tuning fork symbol in five years.
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| Not a lot of smiles at Rossi's signing announcement. Did they all know what lay ahead? |
I learned all this at the end of August, 2003, because Himatsu arrived at my front door in Lake Havasu. We sat in the kitchen and he let me know about Takashima, Rossi and the first three races of '04. His attitude told me a lot more: He was tired and strung out, but I could see the old fight in his eyes, the same look I knew from '84 when we first beat Freddie Spencer on the Honda. We spent the next three days talking in the house, at restaurants and on my boat. By the end of that third day, Himatsu-san had convinced me to help.
Himatsu made me promise to meet him, Burgess and the team at the track in Welkom, South Africa, on November 1st. He had raved on and on about my speed on the four-stroke OW01 at Suzuka and Daytona, swearing that what I could bring to the table as a development rider would put the team on the right track for Rossi's first ride in January of '04. I hadn't ridden a roadracer in years, but the truth is that the only roadracer I ever want to ride is a GP bike, whether two- or four-stroke.
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| Young Eddie started roadracing on a 50cc Italjet. Who knew that 30 years later and long since retired he would play such a pivotal role in Yamaha's fortunes. |
I started training the next day and by the middle of October I was riding through three tankfuls of gas per day on my YZF450. Racing SuperKarts at a world level over the last 10 years kept me sharper than I expected and if you witnessed the SuperKarts at Laguna Seca during the USGP weekend, you'll know that we ran lap times that rivaled the MotoGP bikes. In other words, my brain and eyes were accustomed to GP-like speeds.
Six days before flying to South Africa, I rode Jason Disalvo's Superstock R1 in Las Vegas at a closed test with only Burgess, Himatsu and two mechanics. Michelin delivered tires (16.5s to match the wheels Burgess brought) and I spent about 10 hours on Disalvo's bike, getting a feel for different tires and adjusting back to a roadracer. An R1 Superbike would have been better, but Disalvo's Superstock bike rivaled the Superbike's lap times all season and provided me with enough performance to wet my appetite for something faster and lighter. My Las Vegas lap times, especially on used and abused tires late in a race simulation, had a lot to do with the attitude Jeremy and I took to South Africa. I think Himatsu-san finally got a full night's sleep.
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| Marlboro Man: Lawson won four 500cc World Championships in 1984, '85, '88 and '89. In all, he totaled 31 career GP wins. |
Jeremy and I talked all the way to South Africa. His briefcase held every stat from Rossi's two years on the RC211V, including setup geometries and details that no one outside HRC had ever seen. We poured over the information, studying everything from ignition timing in gears to development progression of the chassis geometry. But the real shock was when Jeremy's briefcase coughed up development records from my year on the NSR500 with Erv Kanemoto when we won the 1989 world championship. When I asked how those team sheets got into that briefcase, Jeremy looked at me with a guilty expression and said, “Trust me, you don't want to know.”
It was at that moment I realized how much was on the line for the first three races of '04. If the Yamaha didn't win, Burgess was done in GP because Honda would never forgive and forget.
Not many people know how much Kanemoto and I changed the Honda in '89. Wayne Gardner's previous development didn't work. At least not for my style and the pace I had to run to keep everyone in sight. Look at pictures of my early '89 races and you'll see me radically hung off the bike, compensating with my body position to make up for the chassis' hesitancy to turn. And that wasn't the only problem. By mid-season we were on our fifth chassis and fourth engine layout, and running at the front was a whole lot easier. Burgess had all the notes and we began comparing my '89 season to Rossi's '02.
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| Yamaha had high hopes for Max Biaggi and the M1 in 2003, but Rossi took the title by a mile on the Honda, with 9 wins in 16 races. Yamaha then dropped Biaggi and hired Rossi. |
The more we looked, the more similarities in development direction and control inputs were becoming apparent. It was eerie, really spooky. Looking at our throttle and braking data, even though the 500 two-stroke and 990 four-stroke were vastly different, it was like looking at the data of one rider, not two. Just before we landed, Jeremy hit me with this revelation: “Eddie, I've studied these charts for weeks. I told Yamaha that getting you on the M1 before the end of '03 was the only way I'd agree to sign a contract.”
I stared out the airplane window and felt a few more pounds of pressure on my 44-year-old shoulders…
Continue to Part II: Lawson back in the saddle
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