Eddie Lawson
EDDIE LAWSON
BACK HOME AGAIN
"RIDING THE HONDA WAS LIKE RIDING DEATH.” Exclaims Eddie Lawson. “In every corner on every track, when I would flick it in, I didn't think I would make it out. It just doesn't compare with the Yamaha."
Lawson makes no bones about how thrilled he is to be off of the Honda he rode to the 1989 world championship and back on a Yamaha. He also feels better about the kind of moral support he'll be getting now that he s riding for Team Roberts. “Kenny is great," he says. “He keeps things low-keyed and relaxed."
That’s quite a contrast to his experiences last year with Honda. “Everywhere we would go, there would be two or three Japanese engineers watching every move. They never smiled the whole time. If I tried to joke around, they’d look at me as if I were crazy or something."
On Team Roberts, however, Lawson the joker fits right in. And that’s a good thing, because Roberts himself is the royal court jester, so much so that he can be a pain in the ass to anyone with an underdeveloped sense of humor. But his antics do help ease the anxiety in the paddock. “I already feel at home with these guys," Lawson says. “We’ve all known one another for a long time. Kenny took me to Europe in 1983 as his teammate on the Agostini/Marlboro team, and tried to teach me the ropes."
Of course, the big question now is whether or not the 32-year-old Lawson can win his fifth world championship. Many people believe he can, especially now that he s back on a Yamaha. His supporters also point out that he won the championship last year despite being handicapped by a bike that never handled as well as the others, and by the attitude of his sponsors, Rothmans Honda, who apparently were more enamored of his teammate, Australian Wayne Gardner. “After I had won the championship for them." says Lawson, “they didn’t seem interested in me. Their offer was so far below other deals that there was no way I could stay with them. They even wanted me to do four-stroke testing," he says, alluding to his well-documented disdain for streetbike-based racers. So, it’s no wonder he was eager to sign with Roberts, who had secured the Marlboro sponsorship and an agreement from the Yamaha factory to get its best racebikes.
Lawson foresees no conflict in being on the same team with Wayne Rainey, even though he believes the only challenge to his bid to repeat as champion will come either from Rainey, Suzuki’s Kevin Schwantz or Honda’s Wayne Gardner. “Only three or four riders will be going fast this year," he says. “You can't count Rainey or Schwantz out at all. Schwantz rides in full-maniac mode all the time, and he's great in traffic."
But the safe money has to be on Lawson. Although he was the fastest qualifier only once last season, he wound up on the victory podium in all but two races. “I wait until it counts to push really hard." he says.
Lor Eddie Lawson, it counts every time the green flag drops.
