Throwback Thursday: Wes Cooley’s Last Win

Larry Lawrence | February 18, 2016

Photo by Dale Brown/Cycle News Collection

Wes Cooley helped usher in the era of AMA Superbike racing in the late 1970s. He twice won the championship – in 1979 and ’80 – but by 1984 things were on the downside for the former champ. The team he rode for, Yoshimura Suzuki, was barely in the series at all, only running a few west coast rounds and Cooley hadn’t earned a victory in the series in three-and-a-half years.

But Cooley managed to find his old magic once again in August of 1984, when he took the Sears Point AMA Superbike National victory over Honda riders Sam McDonald and Rueben McMurter.

Not only was Cooley’s win a boon for the reputation of Yoshimura, it also kept Honda from clean sweeping the AMA Superbike Series that year. When it was said and done the mighty Honda won 12 of the 13 AMA Superbike races, with Honda factory rider Fred Merkel earning the championship, but for one magical weekend in Sonoma, Calif., Yoshimura Suzuki and Cooley showed they could still be a winning combination.

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