Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

PR0FILE World Champion John Kocinski _ - > l -_ _........e.- By Michael Sco tt Photos by H enny Ray Abrams obody who me t up wit h john Kocinski duririg his first, brilliant Grand Pr ix road race season came away from the experience untouched. . You could call i t the power of genius, th e for ce of personality, or mayb e sheer obnoxio us ness. It was hi s ri vals wh o felt it most keen ly, and German H elmu t Bradl whose comments were most pung ent. " He is a rider wi th out brains," he sa id, h alfwa y th rou g h the year. " Too da ngerous. Everytime you look at h im he has his foo t down. If he carries o n, . he will cause a bad accident. " Well , he did carry on like that, riding abso lutely at the limit, and trying to go faster stil l. And while he did fall off a few more tim es, he o nly ever crashed alone - usually because whe n he was ta ki ng chances , th ere wa s nobod y who co u ld get close to him. T hen h e won th e 250cc World Ch ampionship, u tt erl y brilliantl y. And by the last race of th e seaso n in Aus tra lia, Bradl was reduced to gnash ing his teeth at a photo of Kocinski he 'd p inned o n hi s pit wall , and pointing o ut a truth that was less than s elf-evident. "A ltho ugh Kocinnski is mu ch you nger, he has been racing for lon ger and has more experience than me and most of th e o ther Europea n riders." It wa s easy to forge t that prepubescent dirt-track racer Kocinski had already been through one racing retirement (due to battle fatigue) at the age of 14, before th e competitive spar k was rekindled. More recently, he won the U. S. 250cc title three times in a row, in a class of his own am ong some pat chy but no t undistinguished op po sition; and hi s 1989 GP record was astonishing - he started two 250cc races, and won both, then finis hed o n the rostrum in the rain at Spa in hi s 500cc debu t. , In h is first full GP year, howe ver, he was automat ically seen as a relative novice - a fresh -faced and extreme ly brash kid. just 22, he arr ived uttering scornful remarks abo u t h is elders and wou ld-be bett ers. Racing mainl y on tracks he had never seen before, he swep t th e vetera ns of Europe aside. And at th e end of it all, he gree ted his victory with th e typ ical comment: " Next year , I'll know the trac ks, so it will be even easier for me to dominat e." And who can con tradic t tha t. Other th in gs bein g eq ual, Kocinski' s career will be fruitful for as long as he likes. Repeating hi s mentor Kenny Rob erts' feat of winning a titl e at his first attempt was th e first step towards hi s long-term goal, of beating Kenny's three titles in a straig h t flush. Kocinski's first GP year was, especia ll y in the compressio n of retrospect, simp ly awe-inspiring. .It is likely also to prove hi storic. Kocinski the man seems to su ffer from what I call "the Mam ol;i Syndrome" (Ra ndy once confi ded: " We're emo tio na l cripples. While o ur buddies were teenagers, and da ting, going to parties, learning ho w to ha ve relati onsh ips - we were just racin g every weekend." ). Ther e is little ot he r similarity between th e fren eti c a nd volatil e practical joker Mamol a and the ma verick of modern ra cing" beyond a p recocious coc kine ss, shared al so with th e young Kenny Rob erts. It is an attitude that wins few friends . As Roberts observed during 1990: "People say I was like that when I fir st arrived. No wonder nobody liked N me." Roberts and Mamola both grew o ut of it ; Kocinski will too; But it remains hard to assess his persona lity, beca use he does seem to be genuinely weird. Na tty dr esser, obsess ive hygiene freak, remorseless big-head and motorcycling geni us, he also disp lays a sort of hi ck naivety th at at times goes so far th at i t cannot be entirely genuine. _ ---'~ I do n 't sm ile when I get beat. Am I smiling no w?" January Things 'fell into place before the end of the previous year, when Roberts tied up the Marlb oro millions. His previous sponsors Lucky Strike had been un willing to finance a 250cc tearn, and there Page one of anew history book a relentless barrage of scorn and biting wit. To Kenny, h ims elf a h ick turned internationa l supersta r, th is fresh hick was just the fu nnie st thing that had happened for years. And a good racer, too. Best kick hi m aro und a little to see if he's tou gh eno ug h . Kocinski showed maturity whe n he saw th at " ta ki n g all Kenn y's sh i t" was character-form ing, and part of th e deal. T he team 's unprecedented testing program had started in 1989, with an exploratory run on a 1989 bike on Mi ch elin s, wh ich th e team had switched to from Dunlops. Kocinski eq ua lled the Laguna lap record. Then in j anuar y he tested aga in at Golan ia' in Brazil , riding the 1990 YZR250 works Yam aha for the first tim e. Everyone expected him to say that it was too slow - racers always do. But rather more worrying was a tendency to seize up. February A coup le of years ago, wh en asked if he would be using the sam e money manager as Kenny, Eddi e Law son and Wayne Rainey (Gary H oward, lynchpin of the " Evil Empire" ), he ga ve the classic reply: "Well , I ai n 't go t but $40." His brashness and disingenuity are part of the mask behind which he can build up the fearsome concent ra tio n he . needs to ride the, way he does. A sim ilar camouflage is a tendency towards impenetrable remarks. Continual tales circu la te the GP pressrooms abo u t his latest baffling or absurd stateme nt , T o me, about hi s two successive race cras hes in Fran ce and Britain: " I don't bla me myself it was my fault," T o o thers: "I just have to be carefu l not to have a ny bad lu ck," (in Australia, befor e tyin g up the titl e); and, poker-faced after wi nning the Hungar!an GP: "People say had been a serious danger that his protege Kocinski may have to look elsewhere for a GP ride. This was undoubtedly a factor in bringing about the sponsorship coup that created the biggest and most charismatic team in racing. T he kid from Arkansas had join ed Roberts at 18, not so mu ch talentsp otted as actually forcing h imself o n the master's atten tio n. KR liked wh at he saw, and soon Kocin ski had moved from Littl e R ock , Arkan sas , to Modesto, California, wh ere Kenny has hi s ran ch . There, th e acolyte dr ank at th e fount of road-racing wisd om, and (mo re to the point) practiced o n the great man 's oval and mo tocross tracks. Ver y mu ch Kenny's apprentice, Kocinski immediately became star of Kenny's dom estic 250cc team . He also became the butt of Kenny's endless wisecracking, fall gu y for o ne of racing's major humorists, target of The testing con tin ued, while tuner Bud Ak slund st arted a yea r -lo n g program in search of top end and a facility to o ver-rev. The team went to j erez at the start of February, and to Phillip Island in Australia, two weeks later. In betwe en times, Kocinski 's Modesto sojo urn included ki cking around not o n l y with big-timers Lawson and Rainey, but o thers like 250cc vetera n jacques Cornu. He learned little respect. His low opinion of the world's best racers had been formed over a couple of years of spasmodic international experience. His first GP outing, in 1988 in japan, saw him tussl e with the leaders before dropping to fifth; and he was in a close fourth in th e U,S.A. Later, he had two abortive races on a carbon-fiber TZ;but the landmarks in his extrao rdinary progress were still to co me, The first was in 1989, with his wins at Suzuka and Laguna Seca. Both were tracks he knew well , th e latter intim ately , a n d th e Europeans drew comfort from this, and the kn owl edge that he could afford to take risks, while they had a full season 's campaign to think about. Next tim e he turne d up was o n a 500, riding with a convalescent wrist, at th at most daunting of all circuits, Spa Francorchamps. In the rain, The race was twice sto pped, and a collisio n wi th Michael Doohan 's H onda meant that the rank rookie had to com plete the thi rd leg o n Kevin Magee's spare, wh ich he had never ridden befor e. The results were screwed up by prote sts, but in terms of actua l racing miles covered, Kocinski fini shed th ird , on the rostrum in hi s first 500cc GP. Along the way, he had caught, challenged and over taken , Eddi e L awson . L andmark number two. March More tests, in japan this tim e, both at Yamaha' s own test track and at Suzuka. Chief mech anic Trevor Tilbury (li ke Akslund a veteran of Robert's own racing da ys) totall ed up 260 days spe nt away from home during the year . Then the real th ing - the japanese GP. Kocinski quaifi ed on pole, then was clouted from beh ind after a muddled start, folding over a ta ilp ipe. He-toured into th e pits right at the back of the field for a quick rebend then rejoined with gusto miles behind. vfor what a lesser rider mi ght have th ought a hopeless task. Never letting up, pi cked off the backmarkers in two s and threes, pa ssing six on the last lap to finish

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