RANDYMAMOLA EYES EUROPE World title bid planned by schoolboy road racer

Press, 24 February 1977, Page 8

RANDYMAMOLA EYES EUROPE World title bid planned by schoolboy road racer

By

ROD DEW

The American schoolboy road-racer, Randy Mamola, has only just turned 17 years old and he is small for his age. But he could soon become one of the all-time giants of motorcycle sport. The level of his performance in the recent New Zealand $30,000 Marlboro international series indicates that the standard of his riding is already in world class.

Europeans will soon be able to judge for themselves because Randy has set his sights on becoming world 350 champion—this year! It is a tall order for a lad who had never ridden a 350 road racer before he came to New Zealand to ride in the supporting events of the Marlboro series just a few weeks ago. And yet his manager, a former Pan-Am pilot, Jim Doyle, is convinced that he has the ability to win the title at the first attempt. “If he doesn’t get it in his first year then he certainly will in his second,” Doyle, the man who launched Kenny Roberts on the path to international fame, enthused.

He was encouraged in this opinion by Mamola’s performances in the latter part of the New Zealand Marlboro Formula 350 series in which he beat the Englishman, Chas Mortimer (TZ3SO Yamaha), in four successive rides. Doyle is very aware that Mortimer finished third in the last world 350 championship. “The first time Randy beat Chas at Timaru, everybody thought it was a fluke,” Doyle said. “The next time he did it Chas climbed off his bike, shook his head and said:'.. . and he is only 17. Whew’.” Randy might have done even better had he and Doyle not elected to bring a works TZ2SO Yamaha from Yamaha International. When they arrived in New Zealand they realised that Randy could get more racing if he had the bike enlarged to 350 c.c. and they immediately set about converting it. There are no TZ2SO racing bikes imported in America and they were unfamiilar with the modifications required.

It was not until the Marlboro series moved to the South Island that they met Mike Sinclair, the talented Kiwi race mechanic who

toured Europe with Stewart Avant last season. Mike soon had the engine chiming and from that point only Mortimer saw which way Mamola went. The bike was a good 5 m.p.h. faster down the straights than the special Yamaha ridden by Mortimer and even if the Englishman was able to make up some ground on the comers, it was not quite enough to win any of the final four races.

Is Randy worried about ’ being tossed into the deep end as far as the world championship is concerned? “Not after racing Chas. That was real good fun,” he drawled. “Chas is one of the best in the world in the 350 class and I learnt a lot from him. He has offered to help me if I can get to Europe.”

There can be little doubt about Mamola’s ability to ride at world championship level. “He is a natural,” Doyle claims. “His progress has been faster in road racing than that of Kenny Roberts, although Kenny was better at flat tracking.” The one thing which could stop Randy riding in the world championship this year is his schooling. He is still attending Buscher High School in his home town of Santa Clara in California and part of the agreement which Doyle has with his father is that Randy must gain his high school diploma. Randy won’t know until June whether he has passed, and if he goes to Europe Doyle will have to ensure that a tutor goes too.

“It is definitely a stumbling block — but not an insurmountable one,” said Doyle.

Like the American Suzuki GB teamester, Pat Hennen, Mamola has cut his road racing teeth in the New Zealand Marlboro series. He came here for the first time as a 16-year-old for the 1975-76 series to ride in the supporting events with a TAI2S Yamaha and a TZ2SO Yamaha. At the time, his road racing experience was minimal, although he had had some coaching from the AngloAmerican road racer, Ron Grant (who, incidentally, has settled in New Zea-

land). It was Grant who advised Mamola to go to New Zealand for experience.

Doyle agreed. “I expected no results,” he recalled. “I thought that the short, scratchy sprint-type road racing in New Zealand would be an ideal training ground. I didn’t expect Randy to feature at all and yet he won eight of his 14 starts,” said Doyle. His opinions of the benefits to be gained on the awkward little New Zealand circuits were strengthened by this experience and so, after finishing runner-up in the A.M.A. professional novice championship (which involved a high proportion of dirt racing), Randy came back to New Zealand for the 1976-77 series. And if he made an inauspicious start, he finished by pushing Chas Mortimer and the finest collection of southern hemisphere riders ever assembled into the background. “We came back to tune Randy up for the A.M.A. experts events coming up. If you take on those boys, you have got to be prepared. I couldn’t be happier the way things have turned out,” Jim Doyle said. Like most Americans, Randy’s interest in motorcycling started with flat track racing. He was 12 years old when his father bought him a Hodaka 100 mini-bike which he “used to ride over fields and stuff.” Then he moved on to mini-bike races. “I wasn’t doing too well so Dad built a special frame for the Hodaka.”

His big break came two years later when he was racing at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Jim Doyle was there and Randy caught his eye. “His smoothness and the way he

could handle a bike indicated that he had talent,” said Doyle. “I could see he had potential as a road racer, too.” Doyle negotiated a contract with Yamaha International for Randy and overnight he found himself at 14 years of age the youngest rider to be retained by a works supported racing team. In the coming American season, Mamola will be a fully-fledged member of the Yamaha International racing team. His partner in the two-man team will be Kenny Roberts. Both will contest the 250 class events and Roberts will ride in the 750 class as well. Young Randy will have to wait another year before he can race anything bigger than 250 cu cm in the United States—an automatic restriction placed on first year experts. His long term aim is to win the A.M.A. grand national championship and he has pencilled in 1980 as the year he hopes to do it. But his recently modified plans to try for a world championship in Europe might change this. “Anyway,” says Doyle, “there might not be any

A.M.A. grand national championship as we know it now in 1980. There has always been a greater emphasis on flat tracking in the championship but there is a move towards having separate championships for flat tracking and road racing.”

“If I take Randy to Europe, he won’t be

around to do any flat tracking. Inevitably, his form will suffer, but Yamaha are primarily interested in him as a road racer.” The A.M.A. championship did not mean a great deal outside America —that was becoming increasingly obvious. Doyle said. "The factories are more interested in titles which contain the term ’world.’ But the world championships in Europe are really a misnomer. Unless you are living in Europe, it is tough to become a world champion.” But for the likeable, freckle-faced Randy, the future looks remarkably bright. Part of the advantage he has at present over more mature rivals is his weight. He tips the scales at Bst 71b and is only sft ijin tall. However, anybody who puts his success down to this alone is ignoring the obvious. Randy borrowed Warren Willing’s factory 0W29 750 Yamaha after the Marlboro series and turned in six smart laps of the Ruapuna track, near Christchurch. At the end, he was lapping below 46sec—about 2sec outside the lap record held by Pat Hennen. But whatever happens in Europe or in the A.M.A. championship within the next few months, Randy and his manager are sure of one thing—they will both be returning for the 1977-78 New Zealand Marlboro series. And this time Randy will be after the big prize. Yamaha Internationa! has already promised him a factory supported OW3I 750 Yamaha for the next “down under” Christmas-New Year circuit and he will make his debut on this in the first round of the New Zealand series. In the meantime, Randy's attention will be on Daytona in March. It is there that he has his sights set on taking the 250 title. And, short of mechanical malfunction, there are not too many riders about capable of stopping him. Little Randy has made it clear that he is already well on his way.