By Dean AdamsSuperbike champ Reggie Pridmore won the “Superbike Production” race at Pocono on August 20 of 1977, riding a KZ1000 Kawasaki, a machine tuned by Pierre Des Roches. Pridmore is the father of current AMA regular Jason Pridmore.
Pridmore won the race over Mike Baldwin on a Moto-Guzzi, and Kurt Liebmann on yet another Guzzi.
Wes Cooley Jr. was the early leader on a Yoshimura Kawasaki (not a misprint, Yoshimura was closely aligned with Kawasaki before becoming Suzuki’s in-house racing team) but his engine failed and he was out soon after the green flag started the race.
Pridmore essentially had the field covered, and in the closing laps was honking his horn as he came up on slower riders.
In other races on that day at Pocono, Randy Mamola rode an Erv Kanemoto-tuned and Jim Doyle-owned TZ250 to third place in the 250 race, and Kenny Roberts beat his pal Skip Aksland in the “Expert 750 final”, a race later known as the headlining F1 class.
