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Coolbeth, KennyEntry/Object ID
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Kenny Coolbeth began his national flat track racing career in 1994, winning the AMA Rookie of the Year award. He went on to win three AMA Grand National Championship in 2006, 2007 and 2008 while on the factory Harley-Davidson team. Throughout his quarter-century career he compiled 37 AMA Grand National wins — sixth on the all-time list — and 108 AMA Grand National podiums.
Born March 30, 1977, Coolbeth spent his young life around motorcycles as his father and grandfather raced hare scrambles. His father started racing flat track, and Coolbeth got the bug himself at a young age.
“My dad asked me if I wanted to race when I was about 4 years old,” Coolbeth said, “and I had a JR50 at the time and said, ‘yes!’ That’s where it all started…and I guess it never ended.”
Kenny Coolbeth started his national flat track racing career in 1994, going on to win the AMA Rookie of the Year award that season. He also got his very first Grand National podium in 1994 at the Mechanicsburg, Penn., Half-Mile. But it wasn’t easy to transition from amateur to pro flat track racing.
“The learning curve was huge as a rookie,” Coolbeth remembered, “especially going from an amateur to a pro at just 16 years old. There were a lot of lessons learned, but as I got better sponsors and equipment and started doing well, I started realizing I could take it to another level and ended up winning Rookie of the Year.”
Coolbeth’s first AMA Grand National win was at the Columbus Half-Mile in 2002.
In 2003, while racing with the KTM Sport USA team, Coolbeth won AMA Grand Nationals at the Sedalia Half-Mile and the Vernon, N.Y., Mile, also wining the AMA National Hot Shoe 505 Expert and 750/1000 Expert races at DeLeon Springs, Fla.
In 2006, while riding for the Factory Harley-Davidson team, Coolbeth won his first AMA Grand National Championship, and followed that up with two more championships in 2007 and 2008.
“It was pretty cool to win that first championship,” according to Coolbeth. “The last race of the season was stressful, but it was unreal to win the race and the championship, and it was at the same track where I won my very first National in Columbus, Ohio.”
After winning the championship in 2006, Coolbeth signed on with the Harley-Davidson Factory team. “It was a dream come true,” Coolbeth said. “Harley was the only factory brand in flat track at that time, and it was cool to be a part of that, especially since they had the best bikes and knowledge at the time.”
Throughout his 25-year-long career, Coolbeth raced to 37 AMA Grand National wins, putting him sixth on the all-time win list, along with 108 AMA Grand National podiums, for which he’s fifth on the all-time list.
Coolbeth’s last AMA Grand National win was at the Atlanta Short Track in April 2018, and his final AMA Grand National podium came at the Weedsport Short Track in July 2018. He spent 18 seasons of his career in the top 10 in AMA Grand National points.
Coolbeth retired from professional flat track racing at the end of the 2018 season.
“I was still having fun, but it just felt like it was the right time to retire from racing,” said Coolbeth, “and I don’t regret it at all. I’m glad I went out on my own terms and not from an injury on anything, and I was still pretty successful in my last year. It was great to go out still racing competitively.”
Since retiring, Coolbeth hasn’t stepped away from flat track completely. In 2019, he worked with John Weiss — who’d he been riding for before his retirement — and Coolbeth-Nila racing was created. He returned as the mechanic for the Coolbeth-Nila Racing team in 2020, and for 2023 will be working as a rider coach and setup guy for the Turner Honda Racing team.
Coolbeth was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2022.Relationships
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Coolbeth, Kenny