Larry Lawrence

Wes Cooley stood pondering Roger Hayden’s Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000. “I don’t even think I could’ve ridden one of these bikes,” Cooley said, shaking his head. “I see these guys nearly dragging their elbows. I had a tough time just getting my knee on the ground.”

Then Cooley added with a grin, “But I doubt any of these guys could’ve ridden my Superbike.”

Cooley, who now lives in Idaho, was a fairly easy four-hour drive away from the Utah Motorsports Complex, so he and his companion, Melody, made the trip. It was the first MotoAmerica race that Cooley has seen in person and he was impressed by what he saw.

“It’s amazing to see the transporters and equipment the teams have today,” Cooley said. “I remember when we had a motorhome and we pulled a trailer with the bikes and everything in the back. We’d get to the race and Pops [Yoshimura] would get out a little hand file and be filing away at something. Things have really changed.”

Another major difference he noticed is the racing gear today. “I don’t think I would have broken nearly as many bones as I did if I had the suits they wear today,” Cooley added.

Cooley won the AMA Superbike Championship in 1979 and 1980. He also rode to victory twice in the prestigious Suzuki 8 Hours endurance race. He’s heading back to Suzuka this July to commemorate his 1978 victory that he took with co-rider Mike Baldwin on a Yoshimura Suzuki. It was the very first Suzuka 8 Hours. This year with be the 40th running.

While today’s riders have infinitely better racing machines, riding gear, and safety standards, one thing Cooley can boast that none of the riders today will ever experience is racing in front of 300,000 fans. That’s what the Suzuka 8 Hours attracted in its early years before restrictions were put into place to reduce that to a manageable and safe number of spectators.

“I knew there were a lot of people there,” Cooley remembered. “They lined the track the whole way around. It was an amazing experience to be a part of what might have been the biggest motorcycle race ever.”

Cooley walked around the pits and was largely unrecognized by today’s fans. It has after all, been 37 years since he won his last AMA Superbike title. But he did meet several of the riders and was invited to come up to the announcer’s booth by MotoAmerica PA Announcer Brian Drebber.