Motor Racing / Shav Glick : Strange Cycle: Lawson, a Celebrity in Europe, Little Known at Home

Eddie Lawson is the best in the world at what he does for a living--riding a high-spirited 500cc motorcycle at speeds up to 195 m.p.h. on a twisting highway.

In Europe, where he is as easily recognized as Pete Rose or Larry Bird are in this country, he performs before crowds ranging between 100,000 and the 250,000 who watched in Holland.

In Upland, where he lives in an old stone house that he had refurbished, Lawson is as anonymous as any other graduate of Chaffey High School, class of 1976. No one but a few buddies know he won the world 500cc Formula One championship in 1984 and is leading after seven of the 11 races this year.

When European riders win a world motorcycle championship, they are greeted when they return to their hometown with a parade, the keys to the city and a civic banquet. Or more. They are idolized.

When Lawson returned to Upland two years ago as the world champion, his family and a few friends took him to dinner in a local restaurant. While inside, his car was ticketed for parking in a fire lane.

“One of my buddies told the policeman who I was, that I’d just come home after winning the world championship, and that we were celebrating,” Lawson recounted with a smile. “He couldn’t have been more disinterested. He just kept on writing.

“If that had happened in Europe, he’d have torn up the ticket, asked me for my autograph and had his picture taken alongside me. That’s the difference in how motorcycle racing is accepted over there, and the way it’s accepted here. Here it’s either ignored or people have a negative image.

“I’m introduced to people around here and they say, ‘Why, you don’t look like a motorcycle rider,’ ” continued Lawson, a well-groomed 5-9, 135-pound 28-year-old. “I don’t know what they expect. That old Hell’s Angels image just won’t let go, I guess.”

Curiously, despite the lack of attention to the sport in this country, Americans have dominated top-of-the-line motorcycle racing since Kenny Roberts went to Europe from Modesto for the first time in 1978 and blew the forks off world champion Barry Sheene of England with his daring knee-to-the-pavement style of riding. Americans have won six of the last eight world titles--Roberts in 1978-79-80, Freddie Spencer of Shreveport, La., in 1983 and ‘85, and Lawson in 1984.

This year, Lawson won four races in a row in Italy, West Germany, Austria and Yugoslavia, but after crashing on the first lap in Holland, he leads Randy Mamola, of Santa Clara, Calif., by only 10 points. Following close behind are Wayne Gardner of Australia and Mike Baldwin of Darien, Conn., a five-time national champion, in his rookie year on the world circuit. Spencer, last year’s champion, is out with tendinitis of the wrist.

Lawson also won the Daytona 200, the most prestigious race in the United States but not part of the world circuit.

Lawson, Mamola and Baldwin will all be at Laguna Seca Raceway near Monterey this weekend for the Camel Pro Nissan 200 for 500cc bikes. Mamola, who has been runner-up for the world championship three times, is defending champion.

“I’m really looking forward to racing in front of my friends Sunday,” Lawson said. “I don’t want to do anything stupid and get hurt while I’m right in the thick of the world championship, but I love the Laguna Seca track and I expect to do well.”

Riding a motorcycle like Lawson’s exotic $1-million bike, a Yamaha YZR-500, is like riding an untamed bucking bronco. The power-to-weight ratio is frightening: 150 horsepower for a two-wheeler that weighs a little over 200 pounds.

“The throttle is so sensitive that only a handful of riders can ride one fast,” Lawson says. “If you make the slightest little error with the throttle, the bike has so much power that it can throw you off.”

Lawson knows. He was rolling out of a corner at about 100 m.p.h. during the Italian Grand Prix at Imola when he tweaked the throttle a hair too much as he flattened out for the straightaway.

“All of a sudden, the back end slid around, and before I could do anything, the tires caught ahold and (the bike) stopped. It spit me off the seat. I managed to hold on to the handlebars, but I looked like I was doing a handstand, my head pointed down and my feet up in the air. When I came down, my head went right through the plastic bubble and broke it.

“Luckily, I don’t know how, I landed back on the seat, but the bike was out in the grass, completely out of control. Somehow the tires found some traction, the bike flexed and straightened itself out and I managed to get back on the track. It was a hairy ride for a second or so.”

Lawson lost most of his 10- second lead during the episode, but he recovered in time to win.

Lawson will be riding the same bike at Laguna Seca that he rides in Europe. Following last Sunday’s race in the rain in Belgium, where Mamola and Lawson finished 1-2, the cycle was crated and shipped to San Francisco. After Sunday’s two 100-mile heats, it will be crated and sent back to Marlboro team headquarters in Amsterdam to be overhauled before the following Sunday’s race in France.

“Yamaha calls it a million-dollar bike because of all the engineering that went into it,” Lawson said. “They sell them at $250,000 apiece to teams like mine and Kenny Roberts’ for what they call the material costs.”

Lawson flies from race to race, but the 22-man support group for him and a teammate moves in a caravan that includes three 18-wheel transporters and a bus for cooking and hospitality at the race course. It includes team manager Giacomo Agostini, an 18-time world champion, and chief engineer Kel Carruthers, a former world 250cc champion, plus a battery of mechanics and engineers. There are separate engineering specialists from Japan for the engine and chassis, as well as team engineers for tires and suspension.

“The most difficult time is when we go to West Germany or Austria and we have to cover all the insignias and names on our equipment because if we don’t, it’s an automatic $200,000 fine for displaying any tobacco advertising that could conceivably be seen on television. This includes everything, not only the team name on the bikes, but also the huge names on the sides of the transporters to the little inch-high insignia on my shirt. Everything has to be covered.”

The thing Lawson dislikes most about his career is the 12-hour flight between California and Europe, a trip he makes half a dozen times a year, in addition to the long flights to Japan for testing and appearances.

“If there wasn’t so much money to be made in Europe, and I didn’t like living in Upland so much, I think I’d change one or the other,” he said. “I really hate those 12-hour trips back and forth.”

SPRINT CARS--Brad Noffsinger, who has a substantial lead in the California Racing Assn. season, will renew this rivalry with defending CRA champion Eddie Wirth in the Budweiser American Sprint Car series Saturday night at Ascot Park. Noffsinger leads Wirth by three points starting the second of a three-race series which will conclude Aug. 16.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--Returning home after winning the Overseas Final in world championship qualifying, Sam Ermolenko of Corona will ride tonight on the South Bay Stadium track at Ascot and Friday night at Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. Ermolenko, a member of the Wolverhampton team in the British League, will return to England to ride July 20 in the Inter-Continental Final at Bradford, which is the final world championship qualifier. He will then return to Ascot Park for the World American Budweiser Challenge, on July 31. Friday night, at Costa Mesa, Ermolenko will join national champion Alan Christian and other local riders in an all-scratch program for the Fair Derby. . . . The Costa Mesa track will be closed next Friday, but San Bernardino’s Inland Speedway will hold races Wednesday night.

MOTOCROSS--The Dodge California CMC summer series will continue Friday night at Ascot Park and Sunday at Barona Oaks, a rarely used facility on the Barona Indian Reservation, located between Ramona and El Cajon in San Diego county. Also Sunday will be the CMC Four-Stroke Nationals.

STOCK CARS--Modifieds will be in the spotlight Saturday night at Saugus Speedway with a 40-lap main event. Also on the program will be 30-laps for NASCAR sportsman cars and 20 laps for mini-stocks, all followed by a demolition derby.

MIDGETS--Rusty Rasmussen, who seems to be able to win just about anywhere but Ascot Park, will try Ascot again Sunday night in a U.S. Auto Club western states regional race. Rasmussen has won three straight races, two at Visalia and one at Hanford, and is second to Robby Flock in the USAC standings. Rasmussen’s competition will come from sprint car veteran Brad Noffsinger, who won the last regional race at Ascot. Three-quarter midgets will also be part of a Sunday night double-header.

OFFSHORE RACING--George Morales, winner of the last three world championships and 1983 national open champion from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has been suspended from all competition by the Offshore Racing Commission following Morales’ arrest on charges he conspired to smuggle large amounts of cocaine into south Florida.

SPORTS CARS--The Porsche Owners Club will hold open time trials Saturday and Sunday at Willow Springs Raceway.