Garry Taylor, whose death was announced today, led Suzuki’s MotoGP team through a riotous era, earning championship success with Kenny Roberts Jr and “team manager’s dream” Kevin Schwantz. He recalled the glory days in an interview last year

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.

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 title — so he didn’t start GPs full-time until 1988, which just happened to be the same year Rainey rode his rookie 500cc GP.

The pair were already bitter rivals from their superbike duels in the USA and at the Match races, so their rivalry became the big story of GP racing for the next six years: Schwantz on Suzuki’s new V4 RGV500, Rainey on his Team Roberts Yamaha YZR500. Many of their duels will never be forgotten — no quarter asked and none given.

“I still watch the Wayne and Kevin thing from Hockenheim,” adds Taylor, remembering the pair’s epic last-lap duel for victory at the 1991 German GP, which ended with one of the greatest overtakes in history. “Kevin’s manoeuvre still makes me smile and gasp. Two absolute masters at work.”

The rivalry was definitely real. “Kevin even disapproved if he found out that any of our crew were socialising with Wayne’s guys.”

And things didn’t only get nasty with Schwantz’s countryman.

“Once at Salzburgring Kevin came back into our tent… Tents?! Remember them?! He was really agitated, so he grabbed me and said, ‘Gardner f**kin’ leant on me at the top of the hill [a 180mph guardrail-lined section] and that’s not the place to pull that sort of shit. In fact I’m going to f**kin’ sort him out’.

“So he piles out of the tent with me following, wondering how the hell I’m going to prevent these two from facing off in front of the world’s press and potentially injuring each other.

“Suddenly, mid-stride, Kevin stops, looks me in the eyes, smiles and says, ‘Of course he’ll probably say I did the same to him the previous lap!’, slapped me on the shoulder and we went back to our tent.

“For the first couple of seasons we were trying to slow him down. He crashed a fair bit because he didn’t just want to win, he wanted everybody else to know they’d lost — he didn’t want to win by one second, he wanted to win by 30. And he had the injuries to prove it.”