This week in...

1994: Kocinski wins, MZ loses and Biaggi arrives!

Mick Doohan was about to take his first world 500cc title and 1994 would also be the year that Carl Fogarty made a big breakthrough in WSB. With the UK slowly coming out of an early 90s recession, it gave the country something to cheer about and Foggy got the season off to a near-perfect start at Donington Park with a first and second. Aussie Doohan didn’t get things off to such a fast start, when John Kocinski surprised everyone - himself included – by winning the opening round at Eastern Creek. Doohan was third, but after that he won nine races and finished all of the others on the podium to take the title by a mile. BMW unleashed the R1100GS in 1994 which changed... everything. It followed the R80 and R100 but was really the first big adventure bike. It bristled with top tech and could hit 132mph. It was as if the Channel Tunnel opening in May coincided with the GS’s launch - Europe was waiting for just such a bike.

‘If we go to a track where he thinks he’s fast and isn’t, he’ll come apart like a cheap watch’ SCHWANTZ ON KOCINSKI