Larry Lawrence | October 25, 2021
Wes Cooley, one of the leading American motorcycle road racers of 1970s and ’80s, died of complication from diabetes at his home in Twin Falls, Idaho, on Oct. 16. He was 65.
Cooley won the AMA Superbike Championship in 1979 and 1980. He also won the Suzuka 8 Hours twice – in 1978, the event’s first year, with Mike Baldwin; and in 1980 with Graeme Crosby. His victories in those early years of Suzuka also made him a racing hero in Japan.
Wes Cooley during AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days in 2016. Cooley was the event’s Grand Marshal.
He was survived by his longtime partner Melody Rose, sister Lisa (Cooley) Cohen, along with son Wes Jr. and daughter Alexis.
Cooley, whose dad Wes Sr., was a racer and West Coast race organizer, was one of the riders that helped usher AMA Superbike into popularity. He was known for his crowd pleasing wheelies, his friendliness and obvious enjoyment in sharing time with fans. It made him one of the most beloved riders of his era.
Looking at Cooley, one would never dream he could handle the powerful and ill-handling Superbikes of the era. His legs and arms were pencil thin and he often taped his hands and wrists to give him extra support. Yet despite his frail appearance, Cooley was somehow able to make those beasts of machines submit to his will.
And Cooley had to overcome the challenges of diabetes. Jeff Cowan, who bult Cooley’s bikes when he turned pro, recalled a hot race at Riverside International Raceway, where Cooley came into the pits and just stopped and was just sitting there with a blank stare.
Wes Cooley races in front of a full house at Pocono in 1982. (Paul Schwab photo)
“His dad immediately recognized what was happening,” Cowan explained it was diabetic shock. “and poured sugar into orange juice and as soon as Wes drank he came out of it.”
He twice won the Daytona Superbike 100 and made history by becoming the first rider to win an AMA Formula One National on a four-stroke. It was 1980, at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin – one of Cooley’s favorite tracks – that he rode a specially built Suzuki GS1000-based F1 bike to a win over the dominant two-stroke GP machines of the era.
Cooley suffered life-threatening injuries in a 1985 crash at Sears Point (Sonoma) Raceway during an AMA National Road Race. He came back and raced again, be never regained the form that led him to 11 AMA National Road Race wins – eight in Superbike and three in Formula One.
“I think physically I was able to go as fast as I had before,” Cooley said in a 2004 interview. “But I lost that mental edge that it takes to run at the highest level of racing.”
Wes Cooley (with arm raised) celebrates his victory in the 1981 Daytona Bell Superbike 100 over Graeme Crosby (right) and Freddie Spencer (left). Standing next to Cooley is Fujio and Pops Yoshimura. Wes and Pops had a close relationship. Wes said he was happier to win for Pops than anything else.
His infamous crash into a steep trackside hill outside of the first turn, was one of the incidents that spurred on safety improvements in AMA road racing.
Cooley was fifth on the all-time AMA Superbike wins list when he suffered the accident in 1985. He was first in career podiums. His 37-career AMA Superbike podiums was the record in the series all the way until 1995, when Fred Merkel finally eclipsed the mark.
Cooley made a gradual comeback after his accident and raced on the national level sporadically, and he also enjoyed success racing in WERA National Endurance and sprint events for Team Hammer and went on to become lead instructor for the team’s riding school.
Wes Cooley, on the Suzuki GS1000-based Yoshimura Formula One bike, leads Kenny Roberts at Laguna Seca in the early 1980s.
Cooley began medical schooling before his racing career took off. After his accident he continued his education and worked in the medical field for the rest of his life.
Cooley was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2004. In recent years he was honored by the AMA as Grand Marshal for Vintage Motorcycle Days in 2016. He was also special guest of honor at several MotoAmerica events in the last couple of years.
Tributes to Cooley poured in on social media after word of his passing spread.
No memorial has been set as of this writing.
Friends Remember Wes
Don Sakakura, of Yoshimura R&D
“Wes Cooley was the very first Superbike racer I had a chance to work with in 1980. While traveling the country together (often in his motor-home) we developed a lasting friendship, and life-long memories. I will always remember his fiercely competitive, yet kind nature. Wes will be missed.”
Steve McLaughlin, livelong friend, and one-time Cooley teammate
“Wes and I were brought up by the first two presidents of the AFM, the road racing club my father founded. So as kids we both did the club chores of being flagmen, signing up riders and sometime ticket takers. Being eight years younger, he was hitting his stride as I was retiring, but we had many adventures together from his teen years on. When he was maybe 17, he rode with George Kerker and me to Daytona. I found out he was diabetic and had to take insulin several times a day, something I learned to do after I turned 50. Even to this day he remembered how I fixed the Yoshimura Kawasaki he had been riding the year I joined the team, as he reminded me at Barber [Motorsports Park] when last I saw him.”
Cooley wheelies his Yoshimura Suzuki AMA Formula One bike out of the final turn at Laguna Seca in the early 1980s. Cooley was the first rider to win an AMA Formula One National Road Race on a four-stroke machine.
Wayne Rainey, Superbike teammate with Cooley at Kawasaki in 1983
“As a flat tracker I didn’t pay that much attention to Superbike racing, but when I started racing in the series, Wes was the one guy I knew about. He was the face of the series. As a teammate Wes was always a gentleman and we didn’t really have a rivalry. Even before we were teammates at Daytona in ’82 Wes saw me going around the banking with my Kawasaki getting into such headshake that the wheels would actually come off the ground. He noticed I was tensing up and knew I was making the problem worse. He knew if I kept doing what I was doing it wasn’t going to end well. Wes came up and told me when the shake started happening to just ease off the handlebars and I’m telling you that made all the difference in the world. The bike behaved so much better. Wes had a big heart.”
Eddie Lawson, who had an epic and sometimes bitter championship battle with Cooley in 1980
“When I came into Superbike with Kawasaki in 1980, Wes and Freddie [Spencer] were the guys to beat. We had some great battles and it was always fun racing with him. He was always a real nice guy and it always seemed like he was having a good time. We were competitors for sure. Every time we raced it was a battle and we raced real close and you could race right next to him and it was always safe. Same with Freddie. You could race right next to those guys and no one ever did anything dirty. Wes was always such a pleasant guy, and someone told me he was sick, but I hadn’t seen him in years and didn’t know how bad it was. And then when I heard he passed it was such a shock, I couldn’t believe it. It was sad to hear.”
Denis Torres, TV racing announcer who called many of Cooley’s races
“Wes was not only a great rider, but an even better person. Egoless Superbike pioneer.”
Cooley, who was being honored by Suzuki, signs autographs at Road Atlanta in 2018 alongside Yoshimura Suzuki’s Roger Hayden and Toni Elias.
Ron Pierce, Yoshimura Suzuki teammate
“I was really sad to hear of Wes’ passing. He was a good man, and I really loved the guy. We raced each other from the time he was 13. Once we raced the Bol d’Or 24 Hour together with Yoshimura. We were fast, but with his diabetes Wes had a tough time keeping it together physically in those long events. It was raining and I got the lead and then Wes took over and crashed going into the first turn. Then we got the bike back and I got us back into the lead again, then Wes went out and crashed on his second lap out. Later the bike blew up while he was on it. I joked that he intentional over-revved it on the back straight because he didn’t want to have to finish the race. It was amazing to watch him grow from a kid to go on and become the great rider that he was. I’m really going to miss him.”
Jeff Cowan, tuner for Wes when he turned pro
“Wes and I traveled the country together as he was launching his pro career. It was the ‘70s, Wes was in his early 20s and with that shaggy hair and his great personality and it seemed like he had a new girlfriend in every town we visited. I worked with him right up until he signed on with Yoshimura. We spent countless nights working on his bikes sometimes right up to the time we had to leave for a race. And he would stay late at the races talking with fans. He knew it was fans who made everything in racing possible. And it wasn’t just the fact that he was conscious that he was racing because of them, it’s who he was. He was always friendly and approachable in his day to day life. I worked in aviation where I oversaw contracts worth tens of millions of dollars and there were a lot of very driven, high-level, type-A personalities involved. It was the same in racing, but Wes was not like that. He was just so talented and could focus on getting that extra tenth of a second a lap, but I never could quite figure out what in his personality gave him the kind of perseverance it takes to get to the winning level of the sport. I don’t know what it was, but there was something different in him, something very special.”
The battles for wins and championships between Eddie Lawson and Wes Cooley were intense in the early 1980s, but Lawson said the two were always friendly off the track and he always trusted him when they raced close on the track.
Harry Klinzmann, friend and fellow racer
When I started racing Wes and Pat Evans were my racing heroes. They were the fast guys in the Southern California club racing scene. We became good friends. He would come to our restaurant and have his Bailey’s on the Rocks and sit around and talk with people. He was like family. Not many people know this, but Wes was my boss at one point. He was doing work for Continental Tires and he had me testing tires for them. One day after work we were heading down from his house in Ramona to San Diego in his BMW. We were coming up on traffic slowed on the interstate and Wes wasn’t slowing down. At the last minute I yelled for him to stop, but he didn’t, and we hit this pickup. I looked over at Wes and he was just staring straight ahead. I asked him if he knew what happened and said he had no idea. Then he gets out and to exchange information with the other driver and he took his driver’s license out of his wallet and dropped it. The wind caught it and blew it into moving traffic and Wes started walking over to get it and I literally had to grab him and knock him down to keep him from walking straight into the oncoming cars. That’s how bad he could get with diabetic shock.”
Dave Despain, well-known TV personality who covered Cooley career
“Wes was an enthusiastic member of those packs of early AMA Superbike wild men, hurtling around the high banks of Daytona in the mother of all tank slappers. Wes did a lot to put Yoshimura on the American racing map.”
John Ulrich, who reported on Cooley for various publications and later hired him to be lead instructor at the Team Hammer Advanced Riding School
“When I was starting out as a race reporter Wes was perfectly willing to talk with me, where some of the more established stars were less than cooperative. I always appreciated that, and I tried to help him when he needed help. He was a good guy, and he was a humble guy. He didn’t even realize that he was famous and was surprised when he came back to the sport that people wanted his autograph. May he rest in peace.”
Graeme Crosby, who was Yoshimura teammate to Cooley at Daytona and the two won the Suzuka Eight Hour
“Wes came down to New Zealand with a small group of USA racers including Phil McDonald, Randy Cleek and Pat Hennen. Towards the end of the 70’s Wes had made a couple of trips down under to compete in the Aussie Castrol Six Hour and take on the infamous Bathurst. Thereafter an acquaintance become a good friend and together with his association that he had developed with Pops Yoshimura culminated with us joining forces to take on the Suzuka 8 Hour. He recently recalled the trip to the Pub with me in a little known town of Timaru. I always said that having a few beers was a good thing, but with Wes, racing with a hangover only served to encourage him to ride harder to get the race over with as quickly as possible! Point being he came away with the best race results after our night out. We had the opportunity to retrace our steps at the same Pub a few years ago, and the memories came flooding back. Luckily, I had plenty of Panadol. He was the best co-rider I ever had.”
For more MotoAmerica news and results, click here
