Motorcycles At Elkhart Lake
MOTORCYCLES at ELKHART LAKE
Cooley Almost Wins, Then Wins
Peter Egan
John Ulrich
The papers were full of warnings. Two weeks before the first-ever motorcycle road race at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, a state newspaper ran a headline right out of an ad for a teenage horror film. It said, "Cycle Invasion Strikes Fear at Elkhart Lake." The story told of merchants and restaurant owners closing shop and pulling up their sidewalks for the weekend. Several taverns and campgrounds were closing. Extra state and local police would be on hand. Crowd control personnel were to be riot trained and greatly increased in number. There was mention of dogs. The small, picturesque resort community of Elkhart Lake had never seen a motorcycle race.
What they had seen was nearly 30 years of sports car racing.
For racing fans in the Great Lakes region, the races at Elkhart have long been an annual tradition punctuating the beginning and end of summer. Spring arrives with the June Sprints, an SCCA amateur event, and summer has always ended with the Road America 500, and later the CanAm, pro races held around Labor Day. Re-
freshment stands built by local clubs sell vast amounts of Milwaukee beer, Sheboygan bratwurst and fresh roasted corn all around the track. Smoke from the brat stands leaves a blue haze in the air at Elkhart Lake, and on race day the smoke, sunlight, green forests and new-mown hay give the circuit a distinctly Medieval atmosphere; you half expect to find an archery or jousting tournament taking place, rather than a motor race. The first race in June has always been a Rites of Spring celebration, and this year the first race in June was a motorcycle race. An AMA National.
Announcement of the event was good news for Midwest enthusiasts who before this year had to travel 900 or 1000 miles to Atlanta, Pocono or Loudon if they wanted to see a professional road race. We talked to spectators who for years had followed the sport in print without ever seeing a race. Everyone, the regular sports car crowd included, thought the track a beautiful place for a motorcycle race.
The riders thought so too, but with some reservations regarding the track surface. Official practice began on Saturday, but Team Honda had been there earlier in the week, trying the track on for size. A few problems emerged. The track, repaved just two years ago, was so smooth and perfect that motorcycle slicks were having a hard time bedding in. Also, a hard, shiny asphalt sealer had been put down in the lines of corners 2, 3, 6 and 12 to preserve the track against hard-sliding car tires. The sealer worked fine for that purpose, but not so well for cycle slicks with their limited contact patches and more exacting requirements of line. In practice on Saturday Freddie Spencer said, “It’s a beautiful track, but the sealer in the corners is just like ice. It affects your line through the corner and makes it harder to pass.” Team Manager Steve McLaughlin added, “The track management has been really helpful in trying to solve the problem. They were out yesterday with road equipment trying to roughen the surface for us. It’s helped a bit, but some of the corners are still pretty slick.”
On pit row, Honda was lined up with three 750F-based 1023cc Superbikes for Freddie Spencer, Ron Pierce and Roberto Pietri. Kawasaki was armed with two superbikes for Eddie Lawson and Dave Aldana, and Yoshimura rolled out a pair of #34 Suzukis for Wes Cooley, a superbike and an FI bike with an identical engine but a lighter, faired chassis set up to take advantage of FI regulations.
Rich Schlachter was riding a Ducati in Superbike Production and a TZ750 Yamaha in Formula One, as was Jimmy Adamo. Gene Romero, Harry Klinzmann, John Bettencourt and Dave Emde were Yamaha-mounted for FI, and Chuck Parme was entered on a Kawasaki superbike.
The schedule called for practice on Sat-
urday morning followed by heat races in the afternoon, two each for the crowded Expert and Novice Lightweight classes (all Yamaha TZ250s in varied stages of newness and update, except for Eddie Lawson’s KR250 Kawasaki), and one heat for Superbike Production. Expert Lightweight was the only final race slated for afternoon.
Saturday afternoon the Superbike field ran a warmup lap and lined up for the heat race. The 1-min. sign was flopped sideways, warning of a start anytime within 30 sec. Clutch levers were pulled in, gears engaged, bikes inched ahead and engine revs rose to a deafening howl. The flag dropped and the field shot forward, riders leaning over their tanks to hold the front ends down. Spencer outdragged the rest of the front row to Turn 1 and the pack disappeared over the hill behind him. Nothing left but a settling cloud of dust and smoke.
A spectator—accustomed to rollingstart car events—next to us at the start/ finish line shook his head and stared at the grid where the motorcycles had been seconds before. “Now that’s the way to start
a race,” he said.
Spencer held the lead until lap 3 when a hard-pushing Dave Aldana got by. Spencer repassed and took the heat. The other finishing positions mirrored the starting grid, with the exception of Jimmy Adamo who had moved his Reno Leoni/Berliner Motors Ducati from 9th into 6th, displacing Chuck Parme’s Kawasaki one position.
Aldana and Lawson had both suffered fork problems before and during the heat, with seals not sealing. During the heat race both bikes were doing a visible twitch-and-jackhammer through the fast downhill sweep at Turn 11 which opens onto the Armco and tree-lined Kettle Bottoms section. Back in the pits Lawson had shorter, smaller diameter forks installed hoping they would do a better job of keeping the front end on the ground.
Spencer was having problems of his own, with an infected left canine he said was causing a painful headache and toothache, so he headed off to a local Elkhart dentist to see what could be done.
The first full race of the weekend was
the highly-competitive Lightweight Expert, won by Ohioan Dan Chivington on the Chivington Honda sponsored Yamaha. Chivington passed polesitter Rusty Sharp early in the race and held off a challange from Eddie Lawson’s Kawasaki, riding a smooth race, apparently unflustered by the pressure. Lawson retired with engine trouble and Sharp finished second, followed by Gill Martin.
In Winner’s Circle, a smiling, jubilant Chivington was asked how it felt to win the first motorcycle race at Elkhart Lake. “The question is,” he said, “how does it feel to win. It feels great.” It was Chivington’s first victory in AMA Expert. He came in 5th in the Expert Lightweight at Daytona this year, where Yamaha Motor Canada’s Bob Work told a reporter from this magazine that Chivington was an upand-coming talent worth watching. Obviously he was right.
Sunday dawned without appearing to dawn at all. The sky became a slightly lighter shade than it had been at midnight and a steady drizzling rain was falling. Not good for the spectator turnout. We
wrapped up in rain gear and rode to the track with grave misgivings. Morning practice was delayed an hour to see if the weather would clear. It didn’t exactly clear, but the rain stopped and by 9:00 a.m. the track was dry. Low, heavy clouds remained threatening. Practice began and Freddie Spencer was out circulating the track with a Honda windbreaker over his leathers. He came in and reported that his tooth was still bad. The dentist had drilled a hole in his gum, but it hadn’t relieved the pressure. The whole left side of his head and face ached.
Eddie Lawson’s new front forks on the Kawasaki had eliminated Saturday’s front wheel hop, but lowered the bike so the engine cases and points cover were seriously dragging in the corners. Rich Schlachter was getting poor drives out of corners with his Yamaha and was playing with jetting, trying to get it right for the FI event.
Two Formula One heats, five laps each were run before lunch. FI pits the 1025cc four-strokes against the 750 two-stroke GP machines, which are TZ750 Yamahas
with their intake tracts restricted to 23mm to give the four-strokes a fighting chance. This was only the second outing for the new FI class, the first being Daytona, where the TZs finished in the first five slots with Aldana’s Yoshimura Suzuki and Pierce’s RSI000 Honda carrying the four-stroke banner across the finish line for 6th and 7th. It remained to be seen whether the Superbikes could run at the front of the Fl pack and last the race.
Rich Schlachter’s Yamaha was winner of the first four-lap heat. Schlachter passed Spencer—on the Honda Superbike—on the first lap and held the lead. Cory Ruppelt, a Yamaha rider from Eau Claire, Wisconsin was third. Wes Cooley led all four laps of the second heat, his Yoshimura Suzuki followed by Ron Pierce’s Honda Superbike and Bruce Hammer’s Kal-Gard Yamaha.
Lunchtime. The crowd of 12,500 sat comfortably on the wooded hillsides or wandered around munching on bratwurst. People watched over the pit row fence as mechanics worked on the bikes, or strolled around the fields of parked motorcycles, examining the ordinary and exotic machinery ridden to the track by other people like themselves. There was a relaxed atmosphere of curiosity mixed with common interest. An SCCA organizer who helped staff the corners told us how polite everyone had been. If there were any riots at this race, they were extremely well hidden, or so subdued the police were mistaking them for picnics and barbecues.
Freddie Spencer sat on the pole for the Superbike Production race. Moving down the grid in a mixture of Honda silver, Kawasaki green, Yoshimura/Vetter Suzuki white and Ducati red were Aldana, Cooley, Lawson, Pierce, Adamo and Parme.
Spencer was first off when the flag dropped, Aldana and Cooley at his heels, closing in on the line through Turn 1. Pierce moved into 3rd, past Aldana, on lap 2 and then slowly backslid his way into 5th, the victim of a 3 V2 cylinder engine. On lap 4 Spencer’s Honda came screaming up the hill on the main straight .with Cooley tucked in just inches off his rear fender. As they passed pit row Cooley pulled out of the draft and blew past, taking the lead into Turn 1. Aldana held down 3rd until lap 8 when Lawson got past. It was Cooley, Spencer, Lawson, Aldana, Pierce and Pietri coming around like clockwork for seven more laps, and each lap saw Cooley with a stronger lead. Farther back, the non-factory Kawasaki of Chuck Parme and the Reno-Leoni Ducati of Jimmy Adamo were doing heavy battle for 7th.
Holding down 2nd place, Freddie Spencer had other problems besides his toothache. The exhaust pipe he’d selected before the race because it had better power coming off turns was dragging in right hand corners. He also had moisture in his front brake line, and the bubbling fluid
wasn’t doing much for brake response. Lawson continued to have ground clearance problems with the short forks on his Kawasaki, which caused some exciting moments when he overcooked the hilltop Turn 6 and slid through the corner dirttracking with one foot down.
To watch the leaders come over the hilltop and smoke through Turn 6, you’d never know there were problems. Cooley first, knee to the ground and appearing to go so all-out there was nothing left; Spencer canted forward and inside on the saddle, so smooth and quick you could almost miss him going by; Lawson, more upright on the seat, drifting through hard on balance and body English; Aldana attacking the corners more aggressively than anyone, elbows and knees out, low and forward on the bike; and Pierce laid over right to the pavement, whistling through on his deadly inside Bakersfield line in one perfect arc. If there were any problems with engines and suspensions, rider effort was undiminished. The bikes were flying.
On the last lap Cooley appeared to have it wrapped up. Then the second of two things went wrong for him. The first problem was on lap 3 when he’d smacked his knee on a concrete speed bump hidden in the tall grass on the inside of the fast downhill at Turn 11, causing great pain. Then on the last lap, less than a mile from the finish line, he ran out of gas while accelerating out of Canada Corner. A surprised crowd saw Spencer streak up the hill and under the checker. Lawson was 2nd, then Aldana, Pierce, Adamo, Parme and Rocky Phoenix.
Spencer came around on his victory lap and gave the limping Cooley a ride back to the pits. Cooley, worried about fuel, had topped up with gas on the starting grid just before the race. With the usual Superbike race running about 50 mi., the 16 lap/64 mi. Elkhart event had been just a little too far. The FI race, originally scheduled for 20 laps, had been cut back to 18 because of fuel problems.
The 10-lap Novice Lightweight, held between the Superbike and FI races, was handily won by Californian Thad Wolff whose Neil Sorensen-owned-and-tuned Yamaha surged into the lead on the first lap and was never challenged.
During the Novice Lightweight race the pits had been busy getting ready for FI and the confrontation between four and two-stroke. Schlachter, whose TZ was still not running right, took his plugs to Bobby Strohman of Champion who suggested he check his timing. He did and it was off about 1mm on the dial indicator. With the timing corrected, he took a chance on richer jetting without an opportunity to practice with it. Spencer’s Honda was getting its spongy brake fluid changed. Pierce’s Honda got a different engine, unfortunately with the same malfunctioning carb installed on the new one. Wes Cooley was applying ice to his dam-
aged knee (he later turned out to have a fractured tibia).
As the bikes made their pace lap and lined up on the grid, it was Cooley on the pole. Pierce, who was supposed to be next to him, pulled into the pits after his Honda’s new engine still ran on three cylinders for the pace lap.
Cooley launched himself into the lead as the flag dropped and could be seen headed into Turn 1 doing a sort of onelegged deep knee bend as he tried to get his bad leg bent up onto the footpeg. Spencer and Schlachter trailed in hot pursuit until Spencer retired after two laps with a loose headpipe.
The order remained Cooley, Schlachter, Adamo, and Baldwin at the front, while just behind them Mark Jones, Harry Klinzmann, Rich Chambers and Bruce Hammer were in a tightly-knit pack battling over 5th. With six laps to go, Miles Baldwin got past Adamo and began to press Schlachter for 2nd spot, despite the fact that Baldwin’s helmet was fogging badly on the inside. Miles had forgotten to wear his usual forehead sweat band, so perspiration was running down into his eyes and swirling onto his face shield in the air stream. To make matters worse, he caught a June bug on his helmet visor, right over his right eye, and with worsening vision had a hard time staying on the track.
On lap 16 Baldwin finally passed Schlachter for 2nd, but on the start of the final lap Schlachter out-braked Baldwin going into Turn 1. “I saw him go by and said ‘So long, have a nice trip, you’re going into Lake Michigan,’ and he made it,” Baldwin said after the race. Schlachter, fanning the clutch in the corners to clear his still-rich running engine, held onto 2nd. Wes Cooley flashed across the finish line in a strong, well-deserved win, especially after the injury and disappointment of the Superbike race. Schlachter led Baldwin across, followed by Adamo, Jones, Chambers and Hammer.
A jubilant, limping Cooley was relieved to be drinking champagne in Winners’ Circle. “I wore through my front brake
pads on the 14th lap, and thought ‘Oh no, here we go again. First it was running out of gas, now it’s brakes.’ I rode the last three laps with no front brakes, but I had enough of a lead to hold on.”
Cooley’s win made his Yoshimura Suzuki the first four-stroke machine to win an AMA 750 Road Race National in eight years. The last was Cal Rayborn’s 1972 win at Indianapolis Raceway Park on a Harley-Davidson. Cooley said good power out of the corners and light weight had helped him win. “You’ve got to get the weight out of the 1025cc four-strokes to make them competitive. My FI bike only weighs about 5 lb. more than a stock Yamaha.” He said his knee had bothered him before the race, but once the flag dropped he didn’t think about it any more.
Looking toward the rest of the season, Cooley said, “Superbike is really important to me now. It’s a competitive class and it’s good for the spectators because they can relate to the bikes better. The motorcycles on the track look like the bikes people are riding around on the street.”
The Elkhart race weekend ended with the eight-lap sidecar final. Pete Essaff and Ken Harrold in their very clean white and yellow Kawasaki powered rig won the race handily after taking over the lead from George Fisher and Mark Nowicki early in the race. Fisher and Nowicki, also Kawasaki propelled, finished 2nd, and the Winfried Hopp/William Alston sidecar was 3rd. After some early dicing and lead changing, the field became somewhat spread out, but spectator interest ran high. Down in Turn 5 there was much discussion over the relative merits of passengers and how they were hanging off, mixed with a lot of “You’d never catch me doing that,” and “I’d drive, but I’d never be a passenger.”
Hundreds of motorcycles fired up after the race and fans began to roll out onto the highway. The police had a lot of radar set up—our detector was going off every few minutes—but there weren’t many customers. The cycle invasion was going home, and no one wanted to ruin a good thing.
