‘Working with Schwantz was a wild ride and an unbelievable privilege’

We are very sad to report the passing of Garry Taylor, team manager of the last British-based team to win the MotoGP world championship.

Taylor (74) was a flamboyant team boss, who fitted well with a wilder, more colourful era of motorcycle racing.

What follows is an interview we did together last summer, recounting his glory days with 1993 500cc world champion Kevin Schwantz and 2000 world champion Kenny Roberts Junior.

Motor Sport would like to extend its deepest condolences to Taylor’s family, friends and loved ones.

In 1993 Kevin Schwantz secured his one and only world championship. The fast but oft-floored American won 25 grands prix, so he should’ve won more world titles, but he raced at a special time, when 500cc GP bikes were evil things and you had to go through Wayne Rainey, Mick Doohan, Eddie Lawson and Wayne Gardner if you wanted to get anywhere.

Just one title, but there’s no doubt that Schwantz was one of motorcycle racing’s most naturally talented exponents.

“Everyone involved with Kevin owes him a debt because he was very, very special”

Schwantz spent his entire GP career with Suzuki. He was signed by factory stalwart Martyn Ogborne and new team manager Garry Taylor, who worked with the British-based factory team from the late 1970s, when Barry Sheene was in his pomp, all the way through to the new four-stroke MotoGP era.

Taylor still can’t believe he was lucky enough to work with one of the sport’s all-time greats, who wasn’t only crazy-fast but also hugely popular. Fans adored Schwantz for his never-say-die attitude — he crashed a lot and got hurt a lot and seemed almost superhuman in his ability to bounce back from injury.

“Kevin was a team manager’s dream,” says Taylor, who became Suzuki team manager in late 1987. “It was a wild ride and an unbelievable privilege to work with him. His whole crew would have died for him. I still would! Everyone involved with Kevin owes him a debt because he was very, very special.”

Suzuki GB first got to hear about this wildly talented young Texan from Suzuki race chief Mitsuo Itoh’s brother who worked for Suzuki USA. Schwantz had only recently started road-racing in the States, where he was soon snapped up by Yoshimura Suzuki and was doing amazing things with its supposedly uncompetitive GSX750 superbike.

“Itoh’s brother tipped us off about Kevin in the winter of ’85/’86, when Suzuki didn’t really have a GP programme. We were desperate to get him anyway, but there was a bit of wrangling between the factory and Suzuki USA, because they didn’t want to lose him. Kevin first came over for the Transatlantic Match races in Easter ’86, when he blew everyone away with his riding. Then he came to race with us at the Dutch TT.”

Schwantz was already committed to US superbikes in 1987 — when he fought Rainey for the…