Lawson, Rainey, Cooley on Kawi's ?

[Lowe119]

Was there a year when all these were on Kawis? I'm going through old pics and was wondering when we took these at Road America.






Is this Cooley with a Kerker? Wasn't he on the Yoshimira team?

[Lowe119]

I found an article on Wes here:
http://home.ama-cycle.org/forms/museum/hofbiopage.asp?id=315

But I still don't see when they all raced the same bikes... :-/

[Lowe119]

A guy on MSB told me that #34 is Cooley, on an 83 GPz 1100.

So this must've been in or around 83

[Protein Filled]

Odd...I believe the picture of Rainey is from the 83 season, but Lawson went to 500's in 83.

Also, I thought the superbike rules changed to 750's for the 1983 season...

[numbskullz181]

Man, I just think it is so cool to look at those old photos and see what they had to work with. Look at the boots, look at the leathers w/o any armor. Whatever they all were on, that's crazy! Think about the tires they were on!

[Lowe119]

Odd...I believe the picture of Rainey is from the 83 season, but Lawson went to 500's in 83.

Also, I thought the superbike rules changed to 750's for the 1983 season...

We went a couple years, so maybe the pics are from different seasons...... :-/

[the_weggie_man]

No those guys never rode Superbikes for Kawasaki all in the same season.

Lawson rode from '80-'82, Rainey in '82-'83 and Cooley rode for them only in '83.

So Lawson and Rainey were team mates in '82 and Rainey and Cooley were team mates in '83. Lawson and Cooley were never team mates for Kawasaki.

[the_weggie_man]

By the way, see that guy to the left of Rainey in the background with the big Suzuki "S" on his leathers? That's Cooley.

The first pic is of the F-1 race in '82. the second is Rainey on the GPz750 Superbike in '83 and the Cooley picture is probably from the '83 F-1 race. 1000cc Superbikes were legal for F-1.

[G 97]

Awesome pics.  Amazing at how far the sport has come along even at our level.  

[Johnny B]

By the way, see that guy to the left of Rainey in the background with the big Suzuki "S" on his leathers? That's Cooley.

The first pic is of the F-1 race in '82. the second is Rainey on the GPz750 Superbike in '83 and the Cooley picture is probably from the '83 F-1 race. 1000cc Superbikes were legal for F-1.

You're right, Gordon. If my memory serves me right, F1 was a wet race, and Wes rolled out Eddie's old Superbike for something more tractable.
I thought he won the race, but my research says no. He won F1 the previous year there on a Suzuki. His lone 1983 win was in F1 at Sears Point.

[the_weggie_man]

I have some old videos of this stuff and watch them once and a while. The old Superbike stuff was wild.

[Super Dave]

Yeah, and it was physically painful crashing in leathers without all the cool armor of today.

Didn't Wes marry Mr Moriwoki's daughter or something?  Or was that Pops Yoshimura's son?