Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

· E yR Carruthers· J ADW ON '.' B Paul few w eeks ago I was going through the drudgery of putting the Christmas decorations back into the at tic, hen I came acr oss the box of h olid ay ards that my wife insists on saving each nd every ye a r. All the while cu rsing der my breath, I started sifting through he cards, when I came across one from ohn and Toti. It was a nice card wi th a handwritten . lutation, wishi ng me and my family the est for the Christmas seaso n and for the oming year . Reading the card made me onder... What exactly was John Kocinski lanning to do in 1995? App arentl y, not a lot. And he's not an easy man to get aho ld of w hen th ings aren't going well. There were rumo rs earlier in the offseason about Kocinski joining up with Sito Pons' Honda team, racing NSRSOOs as a teammate to Alberto Puig . I didn't buy into that one for a min ute. The main reason Pons gets money from .Spanish companies such as Repsol (petroleum), Fortuna (cigarettes) and Fan ta (soft drinks) is because he's a former Wo rld Champion fro m Sp ain; the sec ond reason he gets sponsorship is because Puig also carries a lot of weig ht with those very sa me Spanis h compan ies and with those who ultimately pay the bills - Spanish consumers. For Kocins ki to join Puig's team, it wo uld more than likely be w ith the ap proval of Puig. This is unlikely. Who in their right mindwant s a teammate they know can beat them? . And there was th e usu al talk of John riding a Honda for Erv Kan em oto. Th is would make sense, except for one thing money. One of the sadder sides of Grand Prix racing these da ys is that it seems you have to be European, Ja panese or South American to attrac t spo nsorship d ollars. John is an American w ith a bad repu tation. Those two things don't bod e well for anyone trying to w restle dollars from the hands of sponsors w ho are interested mainly in ma rkets in Europe, Asia and South Am e rica . Thu s, Kanemoto has joined forces with Brazilian Ale x Barros for the coming season. Then there's the sto ry that John w as to be reunited with the Castiglioni brothers as a member of their Ducati World Superbike team. This one mad e a little more' sense, but again, I can ima gine the ranting and raving that must have come from Carl Fogarty when they passed tha t one by him . No one wants a teammate they know w ill beat th em. I ha ve li ttle d ou bt th at John Kocinski could beat Carl Fogarty. There wa s also sp eculation tha t while . one of the Castigli on i brother s .favo red having Kocinski around, the other balked - perhaps rem embering Kocinski 's parting shot immediately following wha t would be Cagiv a's fina l SOOcc Grand Prix: "I'm just real .disappointed . I hate losing battles . Cagiva just d idn't com e up with a bike that was fast enou gh ." It wa s just anothe r in a long line of times when John Kocins ki seemed to be John Kocinsk i's own wo rs t enem y. The match with Cagiva was one made in heaven for both parties. So just when the team starts to make pro gress , John continues to say bad things . Cagiva is gone, an d for now so is John. Is there anything left for Kocinski? The latest word is that he spends most of his tim e ri ding d irt bikes, water skiing an d driving his high-horsep ower boat around some isolated lake in No rthern California. He's keeping qu iet: This all makes sense for now, but you can 't help but wonder for how long? How long can you keep John Kocinski out of Grand Prix racing? How long will it be before somebody realizes that there is someone o ther than Michael Doohan, Kevin Schwantz and Luca Cadalora w ho is capable of winning a 500cc GP - an d that someone is sitting in a boat in Northern California? Okay, so he has a bad reputation. So does ba sketball player Dennis Rodman. The last time I checked, Kocinski didn't dye h is hair green and red. He's never da ted Mad onna . An d he hasn ' t carved things in to his skin. Rodman s tays emp loyed in the National Basketball Association beca use he plays defense with the best of 'e m and is at the top of the league in rebo unds year in and year out. He's no t in the NBA because his employers, coaches and fellow players like him. He 's in the NB A b eca use he ca n play, because he helps his team win games . John Kocinski can race. Plain and simple. If yo u tak e a look at who has wo n 500cc Grands Prix in recent years, there's not a lot there . Since 1985, there have been 139 500cc GPs held in the World Championship Series, and th ose 139 GPs have been won by 15 men. Fifteen men. And that's counting Pier-Francesco Chili 's win in the 1989 GP of Nations in Misano, Italy, a race where the top factory rid ers boycotted and Chili beat one Simon Buckmaster. John Kocinski is one of those 15 men of which only seven are still active in GP ra cing. Si x of those ra cers - Michael Doohan, Kevin Schwantz, Alex Criville, Daryl Beattie, Luca Cad alora and Alex Barros - will be racin g factory 500s in the coming season. One of them will likely be stuck on a lake in Northern California. But there are those who say that while Kocinski can win races, he can never win a World Championship . Perhaps th ose same peopl e don 't rem emb er way back to 1990, the year Kocinski won the 250cc World Championship. He only wo n seven GPs that seaso n an d earned only eight pol e positions in 15 races. . But th en thi ngs started to go wron g. He finis hed fourth in th e ope ning 500cc GP in Japan in 1991, end ing up only .556of-a-second behind race winner Schwan tz. But it w as easy to see that his rid ing style and racing lines were mu ch different from Schwantz, Doohan an d Rainey - the top three in Jap an . Ther e was no point and squirt. It was more of a classic, high-corner-speed style used in 125 and 250cc GP ra cing. Th en Kocins ki finished third in Australia and came home to the U.S. GP full of promise in his first fu ll 500cc GP season. Laguna Seea didn't belong to his teammate Wayne Rainey, Kocins ki said. Laguna Seca was ready for a n ew King and tha t King was going to be John Kocinski. The threa t ended with Ko cinski sprawled out on the exit of turn two, the • Marlboro Yama ha violen tly high-si ding him as he a tt emp ted to ru n d ow n race leader and ev en tu a l winner Wayne Rainey . Up se t and probably emba r rassed, Kocinski quickly dressed, jumped in his car and sped away, br eakin g th e law in the process as he tried to leave the Northern California facility in haste. He was stopped by police on o ne of La guna' s access roads. But he was John Kocinski, he voiced. Who gives a damn, they respond. ed . John Kocinski went to jail. From th en on , Kocinski became the bad boy of road racing. You either hated h im or loved him, cheere d for him or berated him. Just like tha t, John Kocinski had been labeled. He finished fourth in th e championship in 1991, but a long the way he caused a stir with rumors of him being too clean. He was just too methodical in ho w he undressed fro m his leathers while standing on the step of his motorhome; in how he cleaned his helm et visor until it gleamed ; in how he refused to use the r es tro om or shower in h is o wn m otorhom e. The man was a kook, they said . He need eda shrink. He wasn' t like the rest of them, and on top of everything else he d idn 't know wha t he was do ing . He rode the 500 like it was a 250 - it was all wrong. This couldn't work. In 1992, Kocinski finished third in the 500cc World Championshi p and again he won the fina l Grand Prix of th e season, this time in South Africa. But in 1993, he was a cast-o ff for the first time, replaced in the Marlboro Yamaha tea m b y Italian Luc a Cadalora . H is management team told him it would be best if he returned to the 250cc class for a se ason, and he was pla ced in the 250cc Lucky Strike Suzuki team - exiled to riding an underpowered, still-developing motorcycle. This was his punishmen t for not doing what he w as supposed to d o. The Suzu ki rid e laste d throu gh th e Du tch GP at Assen in Jun e. Again the seaso n ha d sta rt ed we ll eno ug h. Kocinski rode hard to finis h second in Aus tralia and fifth in Malaysia. Then cam e a ninth in Japan, a fourth in Spa in, a seventh in Austria and 12th in Germany... and then it all came to a head in Holland. Kocinski h ad long been sayi ng th at the Suz uki mechanics d idn 't listen to him, team management responded th at Kocinski w as dogging it, and was no longer tryi ng. At Assen , Kocinsk i finish ed third af ter a hard-charging rid e. Kocinski didn't come ar ound at the end of the cool-off lap . Instead, he'd stopped on the back side of the track and walked back to his mo torhome, refusing to go to the podium celebration in a race spo nsore d by Lucky Strike. Bad move. Then it was rumored that he'd purposely blown the Suz uki up by repeatedly slamming his foot on the shifter in an effort to destroy the gearbox. He said if wasn't so. Suzu ki said see ya later, yo u' re fired. Enter Cagiva . Th e Italian company stepped 'in to rescu e Koci nski's ca reer with the season nearly completed . He finished fourth in the Czech Republic Grand Prix, fourth in the Italian GP and then he d id the impo ssible - he won the U.S. GP at Laguna Seca, just two years after being tossed in jail at the sa me locale . He the n grabbed po le position at the FlM GP in [a rama, Spain , and very likely would have won th e race if Shinichi Itoh hadn't crashed under his wheels. Apparently, despite what seemed to be outright blackballing from some teams, Kocinski was back in the saddle and his career was about to be rekindled. He was Cagiva and Cagiv a was Kocinski. But that too soured. The '94 season started brightly with a win in Australia . He was flyi ng hig h, and so was the Italian team. But as the season wore on, things started to fall apart. A crash here and a b reakdown there, and suddenly high hopes fo r a World Championship were das hed . Again, Jo hn ended up openi ng his mouth a t ti m es w hen it should have stayed sh u t. He is a ma n who is nearly unbeatable when everything is in order, but when thin gs fall out of place he seems quick to point a finger and lay blam e elsewhere. Perha ps the reasons why Kocinski may end up sitting at home in 1995 are of his ow n d oing. As even his closest friend s say, he is his own worst enem y. It's true that when you s tu dy his pa st you fin d that in all Kocinski's problems, he is the common denominator. But he sho uldn' t be sitting on a lake in 1995 - he should be racing a 500cc Grand Prix bike. Love him or hate him, 500cc GP racing needs him. It needs an other American who is capable of winning, especially with the U5. GP trying its hand at Road America. Dennis Rodman brings fans to NBA games beca use he's di fferent. There's also a mys tery to Kocinski an d people love a good mystery . I don' t have a 500cc GP team, nor do I hav e the sponsorship needed to form one. But if I did, I w ould n't hesitate in signin g John Kocinski to race for me. I, like others , have h ad m y sh are o f problems with Kocinski - amo ng ot her th in gs, he w as upset w hen Cycle News ran photos of him in handcuffs after his arrest at the Ll.S, GP. Yes, there are times when it is difficu lt to like h im , bu t racing is n't abou t being liked . Racing is about winning. I LOOKING BACK;.. 25 YEARS AGO... March 3; 1970 ik e Payse, " all d eck ed out in hi s star-stud ded Captain America suit," leap t his Triumph Tiger at the H untington Beach MX - ",' and onto th e cover of Iill.! Cycle News...Bob Grove won the Saddleback Trials in Orange, California...Tom White " flat pu t it to them" in the 250cc Amateur Main at the Adelanto TT...Gunnar Lindstrom topped the Open division at the mud-plagued Houston MX...C and S Publishing announced the addition of Decatur, Georgia's Dixie M ------J National Ch ampions hips and th en do it Cycle News to their list of publications again to prove I deserve it...Then I'd move (which formerly includ ed jus t Cycle News). to the 250cc class and win that twice and Dixie Cycle N ew s lat er b ecame Cycle N ews ~~Pf~~~:::al m ayb e win the Open cla ss a co u p le of times. " Needless to say, he later backed Eas t. ..J.N. Roberts . up his predictions...The Oakland Superswitch ed to a Rickm an cross w as ca ncelled due to to r rential Westlake fo u r-s t ro ke rains ...Jim Holl ey, Mark Lawrence and an d still w on the Little Steve Rhyan wrapped up the 125, 250 'l[Id Bear Hare Scrambles in 500cc Pro classes, respectively, at the CMC Lucerne, California. Golden State Series finale in Valencia, Californi a. 15 YEARS AGO... February 27, 1980 variet y of tools were . shown on the front cover. The photo went along with a ·techni cal quiz on th e inside...In an interview, a bold Jeff Ward stated, "I'd like to win the 125cc A 5YEARS AGO... February 21, 1990 J eff Stanton won the San Diego Supercross, and earned a cover shot for his efforts. Also on the cover were shots . f; if •f ;J." IG of the factory bikes of St anton, J e ff allllo ""'"'00.0";,; Ward, an d Damon Bradshaw .. . Larry Roeseler w o n fo u r out of five classes at the Adelanto GP...We tes te d the Team Mo tor Sport Yamaha FZR750R...Greg Zit· --"':;:;':::::~~-~-!5!!J terkopf scored a win at the National Ch ampions hip Hare Scrambles Series opener in Crane, Texas...Greg Searle was the fastest rid er at the snowy Gold Strike Hare & Hound in Las Vegas. Included in the report was a photo of "one of desert racin g's hottest up-and-coming m riders," runner-up Danny Hamel. . _._. . ~ ~ 55

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