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/609129
VOL. 52 ISSUE 48 DECEMBER 1, 2015 P87 mentioned when riders were asked what track was their favorite. Road America was the second highest-speed circuit on the AMA calendar, with average lap speeds just a tad slower than Day- tona's superspeedway road course. Coming up over the blind front straight at top speed; master- ing the brake pad-obliterating downhill entrance to Turn Five; finding the nerve to hold on the gas full lean in the back of the track at the Carousel and infamous back straight Kink. The track's four miles had it all—the high speed as well as the technical. The downside was the toll some riders paid by making mistakes, or having their bikes blow up at inopportune moments. Before the track and the AMA got serious about safety improvements for motorcycle racing in the 1990s, the circuit had become in many ways one of the most frightening. The start of AMA racing at Road America really couldn't have happened at a better time. By 1980 Superbike racing (which was launched nationally in 1976) was really coming into its own. Honda had finally entered the fray and put young racing phenom Freddie Spencer on its CB1000F. Honda brought tons of resources to bear, and it was a great battle between Honda's massive team of Spencer, Ron Pierce and Roberto Pietri and the smaller more established squads fielded by Ka- wasaki with Eddie Lawson and David Aldana, and Vetter Yoshimura Suzuki with Wes Cooley. Cooley had the very first AMA Superbike race at Road America in the bag when his bike ran out of gas on the final lap. "Just a half mile more was all I needed," Cooley said in Cycle News. "A beer can full of gas and I could have made it. What a bummer." Spencer won the race over Lawson and Al- dana, and Freddie was nice enough to give Wes a lift back to the pits on the cool-down lap. Turn- about was fair play in 1981 as Lawson took victory when Spencer crashed with a 10-second lead in hand. A rock had gotten into the carburetor of Spencer's Honda causing his throttle to stick wide open coming into a turn. Lawson became the first two-time Superbike winner at Road America when he made a spectacular come- from-behind charge on his factory Kawasaki to beat Cooley and the Yoshimura Suzuki. Lawson had crashed in his heat race forcing him to start in 33rd position. Road America has consistently been one of the best-attended events on the AMA calen- dar. Perhaps the biggest AMA crowd ever to fill Road America's wooded hillsides was in 1993. That year Harley-Davidson held what it called its 90th Anniversary Homecoming. Part of the weekend's celebration was a ride on Sunday to Road America. This was during the height of the Harley-Davidson Sportster 883 Series and the Hog riders had a great excuse to come to the races. Part of the attraction for the Harley-Davidson Homecoming was being able to ride your Hog around the four-mile circuit during the lunch break. A crowd estimated at 65,000 flocked to a sunny and warm Elkhart Lake that day. It was an amazing sight to see. The start of Sunday's races had to be delayed. So many Harley riders showed up that it took over two hours to get all the bikes on the track for their parade lap! The Harley faithful rode home with a smile on their faces. Not only had they toured Road America, but Milwaukee's own Scott Zampach won the Sportster 883 final. To this day sitting in a lawn chair under an old shade tree on a scenic hillside overlooking the track with a Milwaukee brew in one and a famous Johnsonville brat in the other, watching motorcycles race past en masse at triple-digit speed is one of those things every enthusiast should have on their bucket list. CN MOTORCYCLES ARE COMING! Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives