Homeward bound
By TMX Archives on 14th Feb 06
Paul Cooper's story is not one of mercurial, almost supernatural talent. And it's not one of a small-town boy made good (although it comes close). Nor is it a story of a man cut down in his prime. Paul Cooper's story is not one of mercurial, almost supernatural talent. And it's not one of a small-town boy made good (although it comes close). Nor is it a story of a man cut down in his prime. Most definitely Cooperman's story is no pulp fiction page-turner.Firmly planted in reality, it's about hard graft, about crafting race skills, building championships, about being the best rider that he could be. It's also about maintaining a professional career with results that would delight sponsors while carrying injuries that would slay a lesser man. And it is thankfully about coming out the other end and reaching retirement with the pride and dignity of a warrior who fought with honour and won accolades richly deserved.Meeting Coops at a Yorkshire warehouse for the photoshoot reinforces the sense of disbelief that we really have seen the last of Cooperman in British motocross. For a rider going on 35 years of age (not yet, in August) and with 15 years of international racing under his belt he looks remarkably upright and fit - youthful in fact. There's no limp, his shoulders sit square and there's alert crystal clarity in his eyes. And there's this curious mix of sensitivity and robustness. This is not a man past his prime so surely it's too soon to be talking retirement?But when he strips off his shirt for the shoot I can see there are lines that betray the truth. Scars run like train tracks down every limb and even slash across his torso at random intervals. His right bicep is part withered. Yet even now - and for all the scars - this is very much the body of a supreme athlete. Cooperman has never been a slacker and heading for what will be two pre-retirement years racing in South Africa he still trains and rides to the same level as any top GP racer. He is nothing if not professional.Of course, it's an incredibly difficult task to try and draw a complete picture of Cooper the motocross racer. The career is so long and peppered with so many events - both good and bad - that no one aspect, no one event can be selected to define the man. And such is the depth to Cooper, certainly no one result can stand as a defining moment.There was of course that runner-up at the British GP at Foxhill in 1999 and another podium in Belgium a season later, a time when Cooper looked to be at the height of his powers. Yet he won a British championship as far back as 1993 and as recently as 2002. And on the occasions when it's been Kurt Nicoll or Gordon Crockard or Josh Coppins enjoying the championship celebrations, so many times it's been Cooperman who's been the rider who's pushed them all the way to the wire.Ever the realist, Coops knows exactly how he got to run with such stellar names. "I think as a rider I'm part natural, part learnt. There are certain riders out there we call very, very talented - Robbie Herring, Jean Michel Bayle, Jeremy McGrath - but I've got a different take on it. They do have natural talent but I believe it comes from doing the right kind of practising. How they learnt when growing up, by doing the right things, practising the talent, honing the skills."I definitely cannot be classed as one of those talented riders. I think I've got a little of the technical ability and I tried to practice as much as I could and I mixed that in with as much desire as I had."Cooper started racing when he was nine and although he never collected any championships back in South Africa he could on his day mix it with the likes of Greg Albertyn. Keen to see if he could make a professional career from the sport, Cooper elected to come to England as with an English father - and so a British passport - and with relations in the UK he could see he could establish a foothold to build toward the world championships. He yearned to race in America but real world practicalities and no money meant it was Europe for him.Even then Cooper had to overcome setbacks as he severely broke both wrists in his final junior year. And when we say severely, we can count bone grafts and dying on the operating table (having been over-anaesthetised) as part of that journey. So Cooper was in fact 20 years old by the time he'd recuperated (or re-cooper-ated perhaps - something Cooper would do many times over in his career) and trained himself back up to strength and speed.Mike Carter at Husky Sport gave Cooper his break, allowing him a trial and then signing him for his first season. Although the partnership wasn't successful, it got Cooper started and by his second season Cooper had picked up a bike and parts deal with Yamaha. After that season Cooper rose to a fully supported deal which he repaid with his first British championship in the 125s.These were the days when riders were happy to race 125, 250 and Open championships and Cooper was also third in the 250s and fifth in the Open in that same year. Success didn't bring riches though."It was a lot harder than I thought. I thought with starting to win championships I'd start to earn money. But it wasn't quite like that, I had to live very frugally and there's no way I could have done it without my parents. Not so much financially - they didn't have the money - but the support came with cooking and cleaning and all the day to day matters."Despite having snapped his ACL in 1992 Cooper continued to race on and in '94 he finished runner-up to Kurt Nicoll before rising to be Open and Superclass champion in 1995 - effectively a double championship. His joy lasted barely a month - then he snapped his right wrist at a supercross.The repair required an exoskeleton and after what we can only describe as a 'surfing complication' the injury didn't heal until three weeks before the new season. With a change from Honda to Kawasaki coming at the same time it left him under-prepared for the following season. Typically Cooper though, he fought back and was runner-up by the end of the year.At this point we can leave the matter of the British championships for a while. The fact is Cooper had plateau'd in the British championship - fortunately at the very top - and over the next half-decade he would be runner-up four times and third once.What we can do now is look at Cooper and the GPs. For here is the paradox. For all Cooper's success in the UK, there seems to be no corresponding upturn in fortunes at the GPs. He qualified and earned points in '92 - his very first year in GPs - but his progress from a regular qualifier to regular points scorer to top-10 finisher was clearly a struggle and the transition from top-10 to top-five and then top-three seems to be agonisingly tough. After years of trying he briefly peaked in 1999 and 2000 but after that it slipped away again."Being consistent in GPs has always been elusive," shrugs Coops. "One factor is that every time I got injured it impacted more on GPs than on the British championship. There are only eight British rounds and they're spread out with month gaps but GPs can come three at a time. So a four-week lay-off could really make a difference to a GP championship push as compared to the British championship. And with me always doing well in the British it was always the case I'd miss a few GPs to be fit for the British. So it's a possibility that the dual focus cost me."But Cooper is grounded enough to admit that it was more than just injury or bad luck that denied him world championship glories. "I was definitely searching for the edge in 1996-'98 and I went very, very extreme with the nutritional side of things, with fitness. At that time I couldn't get a top-five consistently and I was really trying to find that next level and I was sort of looking everywhere for it. I think I actually went through a stage of doing myself more harm than good because I was trying different diets and types of training - all of it off my own back - and it wasn't helping."Then in 1999 I made a big change. I cut back a lot on my training and concentrated more on my riding. And it went very well - I had my high point at the GP at Foxhill when I was second. But three weeks later I broke my hand and knocked myself out. And I tried to come back straight away when I was injured. And that didn't work."I met up with my trainer Stephan Nusser for the next season and that brought me on again. It felt right - it was professional to get the training side sorted, to hand over the responsibility and to know we were doing it right."It was the second year with Husqvarna and we got more professional too. I was asking for developments and getting them, we did a lot of testing and the team was focussed and brilliant. I got another GP podium and a lot of fourth places, missing out on podiums by the smallest of margins."As well as doing well in GPs my British results were going well too. I was having a real battle with Gordon Crockard but unfortunate mechanical mishaps were costing me too many points. It came down to the last round at Farleigh Castle. And it looked good, I had a good lead in the first moto when the crank broke. And that was that. I came back and despite more mechanical problems finished second in the second then won the final moto. But by then the championship was Gordon's."Losing that championship was the hardest loss for me. It was very, very difficult for the whole team. We'd worked two years for that championship with the first year being a full development year and so it was a huge knock back for all of us. It took a long time to get over it."But let's get back to the GPs for a moment as Coops isn't finished on that particular subject."I used to question myself a lot, every season, trying to understand why I wasn't getting the results. At the beginning, yes, I wasn't mature enough to know what I needed in set-up, what would suit me - and there were times I wasn't assertive enough. I never said 'this is what I want'. And there were the injuries."But there's self-belief too. That is a big thing, the confidence. I think that's a big, big part of the puzzle. I think there's something in me, in my background, my make-up, that's maybe a bit underdog. As an athlete, in any sport, you have to be able to shut your mind out to any doubts you have and focus on the belief you are going to win. I used to read about it and I used to try and practice it but it didn't come natural."There are certain people, like Greg Albertyn, where it does come natural where they have this incredibly strong self-belief, they simply can't believe they won't win. Grant Langston was like that too. And so you need that, then you need to make the right decisions, to do the right things. Maybe there are other people who have that and don't make it but certainly a lot of the guys who do make it most certainly are like that. A self-belief that's almost delusional."Looking back over his career Cooper acknowledges there were some pivotal relationships made along the way. The first being that with Mike Carter at Husqvarna who gave him his first chance and obviously was there in '99 and Y2K. But, of course, the big partnership was that with Trevor Avery who was Cooper's team manager for more than half his career."I clicked with Trevor I think because we truly had common goals in racing. He must have liked the way I applied myself and I liked the way he always did what he said he was going to do. But more than that we genuinely got on, like friends. We really enjoyed the times when we travelled together to the races - we always had an absolute blast, would have really, really good weekends as friends would. The weekends when we didn't travel together, or maybe he stayed home, they weren't anywhere near as good."Harry Ainsworth (at CAS Honda) was important too. He came to me at a tough time and obviously gave me my last championship. He was very different to Trevor but with him too there was something more to the relationship. I remember travelling together to the MXdN in 2000 and we talked the whole way but not once about motocross."Yeah, two very different guys but they were both very passionate about what they were doing and so made a huge difference for me. I think as a rider you need to have a mechanic, or a trainer or a boss who will be there right alongside you to achieve the common goal - you always get better results like that. With Trevor and Harry I had that, they brought a depth to what we did, they were special."For now though the future lies in South Africa with two seasons racing the South African championship under the Fox Campbell Kawasaki awning. In a sense it's full circle - Russell Campbell and his team were the guys who set Cooper on his way to Europe at the outset in 1990.But it's by no means goodbye to the UK. After 15 years in the UK - and with his English dad - he feels as home here as in his native country and he has fantastic friends in both. And that's very much Cooperman. He's no social butterfly but he holds dear those that he likes. And he's no super-talented racer, yet he extracted more from his racing than many he'd readily admit were far greater talents. He fought with heart and dedication.Yes, the Cooperman raced here. And we are privileged to be witnesses...Damaged goodsCareer crunchesCooperman's injury list is a long one - a very long one - but maybe that's not surprising given his time at the top. Of course it's all been documented before but here's a quick recap of just some of the biggish ones... Compound fracture of left arm in 1986 ('died' under anaesthetic while being operated) Broke both wrists and scaphoid and shoulder in early 1989 (bone graft on both wrists) ACL snapped in 1992, then wrecked again in 1996 (reconstructed) Compound fracture of right wrist in 1995 (required exoskeleton) Dislocated shoulder in 1997 Torn bicep in 1998 Metacarpal and knuckle on left hand broken (pinned in 1999) ACL in 2001 (more reconstruction) Torn groin in 2002 Dislocated finger, broken rib in 2003 Left collarbone shattered in 2004Weapons of choiceCoops' favourites"It's a short list. My championship winning 1995 Honda CR250. Trevor's still got one of those. Then my 2000 Husqvarna CR250. And my championship winning Honda CR250 of 2002. Harry let me keep that one as a championship bonus - it's the only bike I have from my whole career. And my mechanic Steve Payne's restored it to full glory as well. And for pure performance the 2005 Honda CRF450, the best bike ever."Words by Jonathan Bentman Photos by Redeye