Today in motorcycle history, October 2, 1977

  

  

  Armed with a Pops Yoshimura Kawasaki, Wes Cooley wins the final AMA Superbike Series race of the season at Riverside, California.

  Wester Steven Cooley was a young, balls-to-the-wall rider who helped bring Superbike racing into the modern era. Before Cooley, a lot of the riders in Superbike Series were older, more conservative stiffies who rode European twin-cylinder "cafe racers." Suddenly, was it no longer en vogue to ride with a smooth, European style. Cooley came in with four-cylinders flamin', rear tire smokin' and the front wheel in the air. He became the face of the new Superbike class.




   Bike-mad and with an understanding of how engines worked and what to do to improve them, Pops Yoshimura arrived in America in 1971 and five years later, in 1976, he put the "cat among the pigeons" in the newly formed AMA Production Superbike Series. 

   While Yoshimura could coerce obscene amounts of power out of an eight-valve, four-cylinder Kawasaki, the rest of the bike he wrapped around the massive power plant couldn’t handle it, it didn't help that the handling of the big KZs was already notoriously bad.

  "The tires back then?" said Wes Cooley with a laugh. ‘Ha, they were really different. Nothing like they’ve got now, that’s for sure. When I started riding the Kawasaki 900 it handled better with street tires than with slicks. It would hook up too good with the slicks, which would make the frame torque. I could get away with running plain old road Dunlops and make it slide better. With slicks it would just wobble all over the place."

  In the very first AMA Superbike Series race at Daytona International Speedway in March of 1976, Wes rode the Kawasaki to a fourth-place finish despite the machine's propensity for trying to shake him off his saddle at top speed around Daytona's high banks. A year later, Kawasaki returned with an improved bike, one with tires that handled marginally better and Cooley made it to the podium for the first time with a solid third-place finish.

  The final AMA Superbike race of the 1977 season was at Riverside, California. Wes Cooley rode the Pops Kawasaki to his first victory that day after a good battle with the Ducatis of Cook Neilson and Paul Ritter.



  Pops Yoshimura died in 1995, leaving a legacy as a master craftsman, tuner and fabricator and was one of the pioneering personalities of Superbike racing. In 2000, he was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame, Wes Cooley would be inducted in 2004.

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Today in motorcycle history, October 1, 1999

 



  

  Seventeen year-old Toby Jorgensen dies from injuries he receives after crashing twenty days earlier during the 1999 AMA Grand Nationals in Dallas, Texas. 

  On September 11 Rookie Expert Toby Jorgensen, of Stockton, California, crashes through the inside turn two guard rail during the AMA Grand National Championship main event on the mile oval at Lone Star Park in Dallas, Texas. 

  The seventeen year-old had a distinguised amateur career with numerous victories at regional and national races dating back to 1989.  His professional debut was in the 1998 Hot Shoe Series, where he won the 600cc Pro Sport race at Spokane, Washington.  Jorgensen entered the Grand National Series in 1999 where he earned the respect and admiration of both fans and fellow riders, with a runner-up finish at the Peoria, Illinois, TT.

  Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD). www.nabd.org.uk

Today in motorcycle history, September 30, 2014

  

   
  

  The new Ducati Scrambler will be presented today at Intermot, International Motorcycle, Scooter and E-Bike Fair, at Cologne, Germany.  

  The original Scrambler, for those unfamiliar, was a bare-bones, single-cylinder which Ducati made from 1962 until 1974, with engine sizes ranging from 125cc to 450cc, with the largest-capacity versions sold as the Jupiter. They were cheap, simple, easy to ride and nothing like the Ducatis we know and love today, which half explains the cult following they've picked up along the way. And it's that image which Ducati hopes to tap into with the new Scrambler.

  The production of the new Ducati Scrambler in 2015 is a salute to the American Berliner Motor Corporation.




  The 1962 Diana 250cc Mark 3 Super Sport had a top-seed of 104 mph.

  Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD) www.nabd.org.uk

Today in motorcycle history September 29, 1930

  

  

  What will eventually be known and loved as Brno Circuit, the inaugral race at Masarykuv Okruh (Masaryk Circuit) takes place.

  Located close to the city of Brno (Bir-no), Czech Republic, the original street circuit was on public roads made up of asphalt and cobblestones, and at its longest measured nearly 19 miles (31 km). From 1930 to 1937, fabled events such as the Masaryk Grand Prix attracted the days top teams and drivers.

  The original layout ran anti-clockwise on public roads west of Brno, including the villages of Bosonohy and Zebetin. The renamed Czechoslovakian Grand Prix in 1949 was run clockwise on a shorter 11.1 mile (17.8 km) layout around Kohoutovice. In spite of a crowd in excess of 400,000 people, this would be the last Grand Prix for cars on the old circuit.


  Beginning in 1950, the circuit played host to the Czechoslovakian motorcycle Grand Prix, which became a World Championship event from 1965 to 1982. The circuit had been again reduced in length to 8.66 miles (13.94 km) in 1964.

  The legendary Jawa racer, Antonín Vitvar won the inaugral Czechoslovakian motorcycle Grand Prix.




  DYK - The Track was named after "The Great Old Man of Europe", Tomas Garrigue Masaryk - the first and three-time president of Czechoslovak Republic. 

  Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD) www.nabd.org.uk

Today in motorcycle history, September 24, 1972

    

  

  

At Cadwell Park the 750cc British champion, Dave Potter, riding a Gus Kuhn Norton, needed to be in top form to win a hard-fought 750cc race from two-time Northwest 200 champion Derek Chatterton.

  A Yorkshireman from Hovingham, Dave Potter moved south after only his first road race. A friend went to work for Paul Dunstall and told him there was another job available. Dave up and quit his job as a car mechanic, broke his Gold Star into bits, packed it into the back of his car and headed for London.


  Potter started his road racing career riding his beloved BSA Gold Star in 1969. Within three years he was crowned the 1972 750cc Class British Champion riding a Gus Kuhn-Norton. He raced for Vincent Davey and Willie Ryan before filling the gap with Ted Broad left by Barry Ditchburn who had won a Kawasaki works contract. Potter was second in 1978 and won the British Superbike Championship twice in a row in 1979 and 1980, riding a Yamaha for team Mitsui.  


  Tragically, Dave Potter died at Oulton Park on August 31, 1981. On the last lap of the second heat of the event, he lost control while approaching the Cascades bend and crashed into a guard-rail at 95 mph.  He had been racing for Ted Broad for six years and the death of one of racing's most-loved riders was such a blow that Ted withdrew from the sport.

  Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD)  www.nabd.org.uk

Today in motorcycle history, September 23, 1972

    

  

   The Yamaha factory wins its first-ever 500cc Grand Prix race when Chas Mortimer rides to victory in the Spanish Grand Prix held at Montjuïc Circuit in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The Spanish Grand Prix marks the end of the 1972 GP season which began on April 30 with the West German Grand Prix.

  Mick Grant, seven-time winner of the Isle of Man TT, finishes the 1972 GP season ranked 17th. 


  Mick began his racing career as a privateer, entering his first Manx Grand Prix in 1969 on a 500cc Velocette, and his first TT in the following year, again using the Velocette and placing 18th in the Junior Class on a Lee-sponsored Yamaha.

  Showing great poise and the ability to twist the throttle at the right time Grant quickly became a works Norton rider alongside Peter Williams and Phil Read.  In 1972, he teamed with Dave Croxford to win the Thruxton 500 endurance race on a 745cc Norton Commando, and finished second to Williams in the 1973 F750 TT.

  In 1975, it was Mick Grant who finally broke Mike Hailwood's Isle of Man TT lap record, which had stood since 1967, raising the average-speed of one lap to 109.82 mph on a Kawasaki two-stroke triple entered by the Boyer of Bromley team headed by the legendary motor-man, Stan Shenton.

  Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD).  www.nabd.org.uk

Today in motorcycle history, September 22, 1949

  

    

  

  The September 22, 1949 issue of "The Motor Cycle" covers the 1949 24th International Six Day Trials (ISDT) in the wet and rocky Welsh countryside.

  

  

  Page after page of pics of Champion riders like Jim Alves, Fred Rist, Murray Walker, Ted Usher, Johnny Brittain and Tommy McDermott on classic marques like BSA, James, Sunbeam, Rudge and Matchless. Scaling the old slate quarry Blaen y Cwm, ridng to the summit of Bwlch y Groes (aka Hellfire Pass), breaking an ankle on the rocks at Waen y Gadfa or trying to keep it straight crossing Abergwesyn Splash. All this for just a shilling.

  Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD).  www.nabd.org.uk