Another Rich Chenet photo this one of Eddie Lawson racing the big Kawasaki KZ1000 MK2, aka Black Beauty, in the AMA Superbike race at Pocono Raceway in August of 1980. Pocono was an exciting race that year. Wes Cooley took the early lead on his Yoshimura Suzuki GS1000 only to be passed by Honda’s Freddie Spencer. Cooley, who led the series at that point, was forced to retire when his bike broke. It was then Lawson and Mike Baldwin chasing Spencer. By the closing laps Spencer had opened a gap on Lawson, who’d gapped Baldwin. On the last lap Specer got completely sideways coming out of a turn and started looking down at his bike. Lawson came past to take the victory. Spencer’s factory Honda was leaking oil and he limped home to second. Rich said this photo was taken with a 500mm mirror lens. One unique thing about the mirror lens was the characteristic circular bokeh (blur in the out-of-focus area of the photo). This is such a great photo with Lawson coming over a slight rise, his knee planted on the ground and the large crowd shown in the background. It was a perfect capture by Chenet.
Eddie Lawson racing the big Kawasaki KZ1000 MK2, aka Black Beauty, on his way to winning the AMA Superbike race at Pocono Raceway in August of 1980. (Rich Chenet photo)
Rider Files 
I LOVE THIS PHOTO! The first thing that caught my eye here is the interesting bokeh. Another one of the tell-tale signs of a mirror lens is the slight ghosting that occurs around ancillary subjects. Eddie is quite sharp, but the people in the immediate background are ghosted, and the people in the grandstands are circular. These days bokeh on the best lenses tends to make the background colors creamy, but I think old school pictures like this are cool to look at. I’d love to know the camera settings for this shot. (This was looooong before EXIF.)
The second thing that caught my eye was Eddie. Period. I could say more, but why? He’s God.
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It was a major challenge to catch the rider in focus with those mirror lenses too since the depth of field was so narrow. We know the f/stop was no bigger than f/8, so I’m guessing f/8 apature with a shutter speed of 1000th of a second maybe higher.
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The lean angle on this big standard superbike is incredible. Is that turn 2?
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I think it must be turn 2. I have to think turn 4 was flat as a pancake. I only raced there once spring ’84. It was the second race of my “career”. I blew the drive coming out of the chicane on the last lap and was repassed by a CB750f coming to the flag. I had worked all race to catch him, and finally had passed on the brakes entering the chicane. Man I miss racing!
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YES, that is indeed turn 2 or “the Hairpin” at Pocono.
This was a very slow left that had a pavement change/dropaway and round metal pipe receivers for Armco barriers buried just beneath the surface of the pavement. Fun! Haha..
(turn one was a long right that was part of an unused paved small oval, with 2 layer Armco on the outside, so T2 cut accross what was Armco barrier at one time to head into the infield)
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WOW!!! Sweet pic!
The lean angle… On that bike… with circa 1980 bias-ply tires… Got so used to seeing EL on Kel Carruthers or Erv Kanemoto tuned factory equipment it’s easy to forget how he worked his way up. Eddie earned everything he got!
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