8th Place ... Michael Doohan

8TH Place ... Michael Doohan

Under pressure

TRY, FOR JUST A MOMENT, TO imagine the pressure that Michael Doohan must feel. There are only so many factory motorcycles on the GP trail, and there’s a whole world of fast riders. Out of them all, he’s the man Roth-man’s Honda chose to be teammate to current World Champion Eddie Lawson and former World Champion Wayne Gardner for 1989.

But if anyone can handle pressure it’s Doohan. The 23-year-old Australian doesn’t seem to let anything bother him. Example: Just before the USGP, he happily walked through the pits, talking to his old friends and making new ones. This was despite the minor fact that he probably should have been in a hospital. “I

crashed in Australia and my hand got caught under the handlebar. Ground it right down to the bone,” he reported casually as he waved a positively grotesque hand. “I’ve just cut a leather glove to go over a surgical glove so I can ride here.”

And ride he did. In his second complete race on a GP bike, Doohan cruised to a credible eighth place, sidestepping the pitfalls and disasters that were happening all around him. “I mean to ride as hard as I can this year. I won’t call it a learning season,” he said before the race. It’s quite apparent that Michael Doohan already knows a great deal. It’s only a matter of time before he shows what he knows to the rest of the world.

Ron Lawson