Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 48 DECEMBER 2, 2014 P87 Cooley was a two-time AMA Superbike Champion and started '85 looking for all the world, like he just might be on his way to a third title riding on a priva- teer Honda. He finished second to GP rider Freddie Spencer in the Daytona 200. The endurance ride was just a sideline for Cooley, a way for him to earn a little extra money and keep his racing skills sharp between AMA Superbike rounds. When Cycle Tech showed up at the opening WERA National Endurance round at Indianapolis Raceway Park in April of '85, a lot of the club racers who made up the endurance grid were starry-eyed at getting to race against Cooley and Aldana. All weekend the pair sat in their pits with one rider after another from the other teams coming up to shake their hands, get photos with them and even autographs, not the normal thing you'd expect to see from guys you were racing against. In addition to marquee riders, Cycle Tech also wowed the crowd by running the new Suzuki GSXR750, not yet available in America. The team's inexperience showed in the first round. They had is- sues with the new bike and once ran out of gas. They still managed to finish second to Team Hammer's Dave Schlosser and Russ Paulk. It appeared the battle was on between the experi- enced Team Hammer and upstarts Cycle Tech when tragedy struck. Cooley was seriously injured in an AMA Superbike event at Sears Point. He was in for a long rehabilitation and would not be able to ride for the team the rest of the season. It looked like it might be a fa- tal blow to Cycle Tech's effort, but they rallied in a big way. The team came back and won the next round in St. Louis, with veteran endurance rider Joey Osowski stepping in for Cooley. A former championship-winning endurance rider with Team Hammer, Osowski's addi- tion was a brilliant move for Cycle Tech. Then at the next round the team made an inspired choice of bringing on board a 16-year-old up-and-com- ing racer named John Kocinski. Kocinski would ulti- mately prove to be the fastest rider in the championship and would be a big reason Cycle Tech went on to earn that year's championship. Aldana and Osowski seemed to enjoy teaming with the teenage sensation. In one section at Sum- mit Point, West Virginia, the Cycle Tech Suzuki was going into a high-speed wobble. Kocinski was lap- ping over a second per lap faster than Aldana and Osowski. When a rider from another team asked Al- dana how Kocinski was doing it, Aldana smiled and said, "It's because he zips his leathers up like this," and with that Aldana made a zip-up motion with an exaggerated outward sweep around his groin area. The brand new Suzuki GSXR750 proved to be every bit as good as it looked. It was truly a game changer on the track. But keeping the new bike going in long endurance races with very few spare parts available was a challenge to say the least. At one race a rider rode his GSXR down from Canada. The Cycle Tech crew spotted the bike, found the owner, made him an unbeatable offer and paid him cash for the bike on the spot. In the end the combination of Osowski, Kocinski and Aldana, along with the potent and nimble Suzuki GSXR750, proved to be too much for Team Hammer and the rest of the teams in the series. They went on to dominate and easily clinch the 1985 WERA National Endurance Championship even before the final round. It was perhaps the most talented road racing endurance team ever put together in Ameri- ca, but they were a one-year wonder. After winning the championship in '85 the team disbanded. Not only did Cycle Tech help make endurance racing in America cool, but it inadvertently raised the level of the sport in general. Team Hammer went back to sponsors and got even more support to come back to give Cycle Tech a challenge, and even though Cycle Tech never showed up in '86, Hammer's squad became even more powerful and well-backed over the next few seasons. The AMA/ CCS National Endurance Series was launched and for a decade or so endurance racing was no longer the ignored cousin in road racing circles. Today endurance racing has fallen back to be a niche sport within road racing once again, but those who were around will always remember the mid-1980s when a new team with big-name riders changed the game. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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