Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/314586
CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE T here never was a season like the 1977 AMA Su- perbike Championship and there probably never will be again. You see, that year one of the most improbable things that can happen in racing happened: There was a different winner in in all sev- en races. From Daytona Interna- tional Speedway in March to Riverside International Raceway in October, not one rider managed to win more than a single race. In the end, Reg Pridmore won the title (his second of three straight) by three points over Cook Neilson. And to further the theme of spreading the wealth, Pridmore even used two different motorcycles to win that year's series – the Butler & Smith BMW he started the season on and ultimately the Racecrafters Kawasaki. Superbike racing was still second fiddle (maybe even third) to the more established Formula 750 and Lightweight Expert (250 Grand Prix) classes. But Superbikes were rising fast as fans seemed to be tiring of Yamaha's utter dominance of Formula 750 and it was largely the same in the Lightweight class. Only in Superbike did you have a diversity of machinery that could win on any given Sunday. You still had the sweet-handling European machines of Ducati, BMW and Moto Guzzi, up against the sheer horsepower, but less nimble 1000cc Japa- nese four-cylinders. Fans ate it up. And it didn't hurt that the biggest voice in motor- cycle journalism at the time, Cycle Magazine, was playing up the Superbike class big time in nearly every issue with the writings of Cook Neilson and Phil Schilling. Superbike racing was definitely a 'comer.' Strangely enough fate played a major part in nearly every win that season, making it even more intriguing that the season ended the way it did with seven different winners. The '77 campaign kicked off with Neilson earn- ing a breakthrough victory in the Daytona Super- bike 100. So satisfying was the victory for Neil- son that he decided to retire on top. Only heavy prodding by his beloved tuner Schilling kept Neil- son on "Old Blue,' the pet name for their Ducati 750SS, for the rest of the season. Cooley, on a Yoshimura Kawasaki KZ1000 that could hit a stunning 155 mph on Daytona's bank- ing, and Neilson quickly gapped the field, and as they roared past the tri-oval for the first time it was Cooley in front by 30 bikelengths. But by the time the two hit the apex of turn one, Neilson was right on Cooley's big Kawi. Making up so much ground in such a short distance going into the turn caused Neilson to think under his open-face Bell helmet, "Well now. This is gonna be good." He followed Cooley confidently until he saw a slight opening at the entrance to the second ULTIMATE SUPERBIKE PARITY P106 Mike Baldwin (186) and Reg Pridmore (163) were just two of the seven riders who won in the seven rounds of AMA Superbike races in 1977.