John Kocinski races the Cycle Tech Racing Suzuki GSXR750 through a turn in the woods at Blackhawk Farms in South Beloit, Illinois, during a WERA National Endurance race in August of 1985. Kocinski was a little known 17-year-old from Little Rock, Arkansas, who was consistently the fastest rider in the WERA National Endurance Series that season. He came in as a replacement rider for Wes Cooley, who was injured in an AMA Superbike race at Sears Point (now Infineon Raceway) early in the season. Kocinski, along with Joey Osowski and David Aldana, ultimately won the 1985 WERA Endurance Championship on a GSXR, a year before the motorcycle was available in the U.S. Kocinski went on to become a two-time world champion – once in 250cc Grand Prix with Marlboro Yamaha in 1990 and then in World Superbike with Castrol Honda.
John Kocinski races the Cycle Tech Racing Suzuki GSXR750 through a turn in the woods at Blackhawk Farms in South Beloit, Illinois, during a WERA National Endurance race in August of 1985. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Same Larry from Ben Davi?
Comment by Patti — July 27, 2010 @ 11:39 am
nice sliders….
Comment by Bill Prodoehl — July 27, 2010 @ 11:50 am
Bill
You’re right. That’s a lot of duct tape!
Comment by admin — July 27, 2010 @ 11:53 am
I was sitting here wondering if I was there on that weekend. I couldn’t imagine how I wouldn’t have been, living onlt 10 minutes away in Beloit. So I turned around in my chair to look at my meager collection of trophies. Lo and behold my only second place trophy August 25 1985. WERA trophies from that era do not say what class, so I do not know what class it was. I can only imagine that it was a rather small grid. In ‘85 I had a pair of used leathers I bought from a racer with the last name of Schmidnick(sp?) with of course no knee sliders I had a shoe repair man attach shoe leather pads to the knees. It was a bad idea the leather was too sticky. I rapidly went back to taping on pieces of plastic cups from the food stand. This is an idea I stole from Gary Gibson.
Comment by Ed Gray — July 27, 2010 @ 12:23 pm
I remember this endurance race well. I rode for a little team out of Milwaukee, WI., Bill the Cat Racing on a 650 Kawasaki superbike. I also rode another bike in this same race, a 1974 BMW R90.
We, Ed Key, Bob Patten and myself, won the Middleweight Superbike class that day and took 3rd overall in the race. Thanks to my crashing in turn 6 we were out a few laps for repairs or we would have had 2nd overall.
Just this past June I rode that old ‘74 BMW again in AHRMA competition at Road America. What a blast from the past that was!
Comment by Gordon Lunde — August 3, 2010 @ 10:18 am