Niall Mackenzie: The Autobiography. Stuart Barker

a thirty year old – at that age you’d be more likely to back off and accept second place.

      You could almost draw a chart with a line for bravery/stupidity and a line for experience and where those two meet a rider should be at his peak. Before that point the rider’s too gung-ho and after it he becomes too cautious. That’s the best way I can explain it and if you understand all that I’ll be impressed! It’s not an easy thing to explain.

      My performances on the 500 Suzuki had been good enough to attract a lot of attention and for the 1987 season I had lots of offers on the table. Armstrong offered me a ride again but I wasn’t going to be caught out as I had been the year before by signing a contract before I’d even spoken to other teams so I declined to sign there and then. They had been really good about letting me ride for Suzuki in three GPs so I was very grateful to the team for all they had done for me.

      Suzuki offered me a contract worth £50,000 after the Swedish Grand Prix to ride their new V4 and that was a lot of money compared to what I had been on so I signed a letter of intent to ride for them. But I was still open to other offers if anything better came along. I tested the Cagiva just after the final GP in Misano and the firm seemed impressed that I was as quick as Kenny Roberts Senior had been when he tested it.

      Anyway, my times were good enough for me to be offered a ride on the Cagiva as well but I still wanted the Suzuki more than the relatively underdeveloped Italian bike, which handled nicely, but the engine just wasn’t strong enough so I didn’t commit. We never really got round to discussing money and I suppose if they had offered me a mental sum of cash I might have been tempted but things never got that far. At that time I had no idea of how much I should be paid – all I knew was what Suzuki had offered and that sounded pretty good to me!