Motor Racing / Shav Glick : Two Years After Terrible Crash, Cooley Returns to Competition

The last time Wes Cooley Jr. rode in a professional motorcycle race, he ended up crashing head-first into a dirt wall, breaking his neck, the femur--the large bone in the upper leg that connects the hip and knee--in each leg, five vertebrae and two fingers. He also gave his lungs and kidneys a severe shaking.

It was May 18, 1985, at Sears Point Raceway, in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco. The question at the time was whether Cooley would live, not whether he would ever race again.

This weekend, in the EBC Brakes 24-hour event at Willow Springs Raceway, Cooley will return to professional racing, riding a 150-horsepower Suzuki 1100 for Bruce Hammer’s team in the Western Eastern Roadracers Assn. national endurance series.

“I’m addicted, I guess that’s all I can say to explain it,” Cooley, 31, said by phone from his north San Diego County home in Ramona. “I’m addicted to adrenaline, and so far the only way I can get a rush of the stuff is to get on my bike, go to a race and go fast.”

Cooley, who won the American Motorcyclist Assn.’s superbike championship in 1979 and 1980, admits that he is about the only one who wants to see him try a comeback.

“I met with a good deal of resistance from inside the (motorcycle) industry, and from my family, but even though I appreciate their concern, I’m the one who has to live with the guy inside Wes Cooley’s body,” he said. “And he’s addicted to racing. I know that. I’ve got to give it a try this weekend. Then we’ll take another look at the future.”

Another spill, two weeks ago, apparently wasn’t enough to convince Cooley that he should stay off the race track. In a club race for production bikes at Willow Springs, he ended up in the dirt again after losing control while cresting a hill.

“I had to find out if I was capable of racing,” he said. “My times were not so bad. Not sensational, but not bad. I was on an unfamiliar bike that I borrowed at the last minute and when the wheels got out of shape, I didn’t make the proper correction. My thinking was screwed up, but I felt comfortable riding at speed.”

The major damage was to Cooley’s ego. The only physical damage amounted to cuts and bruises.

“It was embarrassing,” he said. “But it was nothing like the way I felt all through 1985 and into last year. I was floundering. I needed to get my life going straight again, and I realized that the only sure way was to go racing. Spill and all, that little race at Willow only convinced me even more that I had to get back in it.”

Cooley, whose father was a professional racer and motocross promoter in the ‘70s, was once one of the hottest riders in the country. When he won the superbike series in 1980, the two riders he beat, Eddie Lawson of Ontario and Freddie Spencer of Shreveport, La., went on to win world championships.

When Cooley won the superbike race at Daytona to start the 1981 season, he appeared unbeatable. Then mechanical problems plagued him and the year ended in disaster. While practicing for the season finale in October, Cooley clipped a wet hay bale and although he did not go down, the impact broke his pelvis.

Cooley came back in 1982 but never again challenged for the championship. He finished fourth in 1982, seventh in 1983 and ninth in 1984. His only win was at Sears Point in 1984.

In the Saturday-Sunday 24-hour race, which will start at 1 p.m. Saturday, Cooley will take turns with Team Suzuki teammates Thomas Stevens of Cape Coral, Fla.; Russ Paulk of Nashville, Tenn.; and Jeff James of Rochester, N.Y. Cooley is replacing the team’s No. 1 rider, Mike Harth of Roswell, Ga., who broke his leg at a race in Michigan.

“I hate to get a ride because someone got hurt, but when (team manager) John Ulrich offered me the ride, I was so happy to know that someone still believes in me,” Cooley said. “The team plan is to use two riders at night and two in the daylight hours. I will probably be one of the night riders. That suits me fine. The biggest problem at night at Willow is watching for rabbits. If you hit one, you’ve had it, and you never know when they’ll come hopping out of the darkness.”

Team Suzuki is the defending series champion and has won 6 of 9 races this season, but is second to the Yamaha-mounted Human Race Team in points because it failed to finish one race.

Each riding stint will be approximately an hour and 20 to 30 minutes, depending on fuel consumption. Riders change each time the bike needs to be filled up. The winning team is expected to travel more than 2,000 miles.

By restarting his racing career at Willow Springs, Cooley will be coming full circle. It was there, on the edge of the Mojave desert near Rosamond, that he started racing at age 14--without his father’s permission. Wes Sr. was in Europe in 1970 when his son turned up with a bike and entered his first race.

“I’m not sure I would have allowed him to race,” the elder Cooley said when he returned home. “It hurts to see your son get hurt, but let’s face it, every time he gets on a bike there’s a chance he could kill himself.”

Wes Sr., who once finished fifth at Daytona riding an old Norton, is now far removed from cycling. He is an alfalfa farmer and cattle rancher on 160 acres near Bend, Ore.

When young Cooley isn’t racing, he runs a school for motorcycle riders that is aimed at getting riders with fast equipment off the streets and onto race tracks.

“These new rocket ships that are coming out of Japan are helping give motorcycling a bad name,” Cooley said. “It used to be the bad guys with black leather jackets who gave the wrong image. Now it’s young guys with little or no experience, who get their kicks riding hot bikes over Angeles Crest, who are hurting motorcycling.

“My idea is to teach these guys with super-fast bikes that they can go faster, have a better time and not have to worry about the police, or hitting an oncoming car, by riding on a race track instead of racing over Angeles Crest, or on the streets.

“I’ve been a racer for 15 years and the bikes they’re building today are so powerful and have so much horsepower that I don’t think I could jump on one and get the full potential from it riding on the street. They can hit 155 to 165 m.p.h. and when you have that kind of horsepower, it’s hard to tell a guy that he shouldn’t use it.”

Just as it’s hard to tell a guy who was once a champion rider that he shouldn’t get back on a racing machine after a serious accident.

“I’ve been working out and I feel I’m as fit as I ever was, except for my grip,” Cooley said. “Where I broke my neck, it affected my grip. I lost all my grip in both hands, but I have about 80% back. I think that will be enough.”

Cooley has a lawsuit pending against Sears Point for allegedly failing to maintain safe racing conditions.

“Basically, what I want is enough to pay my medical bills, which came to $86,000,” he said. “Sears Point is one of my favorite tracks, because it is very technical, but in 1985 it had just been repaved and it was too slippery for racing. The surface had not had sufficient time to cure and it was apparent from the first day that a lot of people were going to get hurt.

“A guy driving a (cycle with a) sidecar (Michael J. Parkinson of Chico) was killed the next day at almost the exact spot where I went down. And there have been a number of other serious accidents at that same point.”

The AMA, before the 1986 race, put in what has become known as Cooley’s Chicane, a line of hay bales that force riders to slow down and at the same time changes the angle of entry into the sweeping first turn where Cooley crashed.

“It isn’t how fast you’re going when you fall off,” Cooley said. “It’s how fast you’re going when you stop. And I stopped head first in an embankment.”

Cooley spent two weeks in the trauma center at Sonoma State Hospital, then was transferred to St. Joseph Hospital in Orange to be nearer home. He underwent three operations, in which he needed 22 pints of blood and had four pounds of steel plates and pins installed in his legs and back.

“After that, I went home, and my wife became nurse Nancy until I could walk around. All the pins and plates, all four pounds, are out now. All I need is to get some more grip back in my hands.

“One thing happened that made me proud. The Red Cross called one day and wanted to know who I was. They said they had 586 pints of blood donated in my name. They said it was the single largest donation for one individual. That made me feel good, to know so many people were behind me.”

STOCK CARS--The NASCAR Southwest tour will hold its 12th race, the Coors 100, Monday night at Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino. Mike Chase of Bakersfield leads defending champion Ron Esau of Lakeside and Roman Calczynski of Sepulveda after 10 races. . . . Ascot Park has scheduled a Curb Motorsports pro stock show, complete with a demolition derby, for Sunday night, followed by a 250-lap factory stock enduro Monday night. Ninety-nine cars will be lined up on the quarter-mile track going for a $5,000 first prize. . . . Former champion Dave Phipps has already clinched the NASCAR sportsman division at Saugus Speedway but other drivers will be trying to improve their positions Saturday night in a 40-lap main event. Hobby and foreign stocks will race Friday night at Saugus.

SPRINT CARS--Mike Sweeney, who has won both of Ascot Park’s 50-lap specials this season, will go for No. 3 Saturday night in the Labor Day Sweepstakes. The Carson driver will also be attempting to hold off defending champion Brad Noffsinger in the California Racing Assn. standings. Sweeney missed last Saturday’s race because his wife, Debbie, gave birth to a son that afternoon and Noffsinger trails by only 19 points. Eddie Wirth was the winner, with Noffsinger fourth. . . . Seven-time World of Outlaws champion Steve Kinser and the rest of the Outlaws will be at Baylands Raceway near San Jose this weekend for their annual Fall Nationals. Qualifying tonight and Friday night will set the 22-car field for the $75,000, 30-lap main event on Saturday night. Kinser, who has won 200 Outlaw races--including 32 this year--will be favored to take the $11,000 first prize home to Bloomington, Ind.

MOTOCROSS--The Continental Motosport Club’s Trans Cal series will open Sunday at Glen Helen Park in San Bernardino. A warmup race is scheduled for Saturday at Glen Helen with 600 riders anticipated. The seven-race series will conclude Oct. 18 at Carlsbad. . . . Friday night, the CMC riders will compete in their weekly show at Ascot Park.

SPORTS CARS--The California Sports Car Club will hold its annual Labor Day road racing championships this weekend at Riverside International Raceway. Practice and qualifying is set for Saturday, with seven races each on Sunday and Monday. . . . Round 6 of the Formula Russell pro series will be held Sunday night at Mesa Marin Raceway in Bakersfield with Alaska’s Todd Snyder trying to regain the Mazda Cup lead from Ken Pedersen of Sausalito. Snyder won at Riverside. Roger Mears Jr., a hometown Bakersfield product, will make his debut on the Mesa Marin oval.

MOTORCYCLES--Downey’s Wayne Rainey, after winning the national superbike road racing championship last week, announced his intentions of leaving Honda to race in Europe next year, presumably for Kenny Roberts’ team. . . . When Grand National champion Bubba Shobert won $10,000 in the AMA Camel Challenge race at Sears Point, he donated $5,000 to the track-sponsored Special Olympics program. . . . Speedway riders will be busy on all fronts this week, getting ready for the season’s final national qualifier Sept. 11 at Costa Mesa. The U.S. Nationals will be Oct. 3 at the Orange County Fairgrounds.

BONNEVILLE SPEED WEEKS--Don Stringfellow of Norco, driving a 1988 Pontiac Trans Am GTA, ran a world-record 277.329 m.p.h. for a passenger car over a measured mile at Bonneville Salt Flats on the final day of Speed Weeks. The gasoline-powered, twin-turbocharged street machine, prepared by Gale Banks Engineering of Azusa, had a two-way average of 268.038 m.p.h., bettering the old stock-bodied car record by more than 8 m.p.h. . . . Forty-one records were established. Among them were 358.112 m.p.h. in a single-engine streamliner by Al Teague of San Gabriel, and 318.98 in a Lakester dragster by Carr & Kaplan. Ten new members of the Bonneville 200 MPH Club were inducted, including two women--Tanis Hammond of Santa Barbara, 251.7 in a Lakester, and Sylvia Hathaway of Van Nuys, 202.3 in a Citroen passenger car.

MIDGETS--The United States Auto Club’s western regional Jolly Rancher series will have a doubleheader for midgets and TQ midgets Saturday night at Ventura Raceway.