Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

~ 00 Q') ...... TE Rr DOiNq THEbEST t!! iNGItAM8~I'~~~~ What does country singer Barbara Mandrell have in common with Team Husqvarna's ace enduro rider, Terry Cunningham? Cunning" di ham, the newly crowned 1982Nauonal En uro Champion , says, " We think a . ointment. On a. win.nin g r? II, Terry lot alike, I watched her being score~ over~1I vicron es a t five of .the interviewed on 20120 nd .last SIX sen es events. ~he excep n o n . . ,~ . one was the 1\1t. Baker, Washmgton round , q uesuon was, What dnves you the tenth of twelve in the 1981 series. 44 the most, ta lent or determination?' And she answered, 'Well, it 's go t to be determ in ation, beca use th ere's a lot o f people out there wit h mo re talent ." . That does n 't mea n that T.e., as Terry's family and friends call him, is selli ng himself short. H e says, " My mom always said I had good selfcon fidence. Even wh en I first sta rted raci ng, I n ever se t goals, but I a lways thoug ht that o n a given day, I should beabJe to beat the rest of the guys. I j ust figure rhat any bod y ca n be beate n , and like in an enduro, it's never over until the final check, the final score card is posted, the final po ints are tall ied. I may not a lways be th e fastest man o u t there, but I kn ow I've got th e desire." T erry is o nly th e sevent h man to win the coveted Nationa l Ch am pionship Enduro title in the 21 year histor y of the series . H is predecessors, for th ose wh o 've fo rgotte n th at th ere was a Na tio na l Cha mpion befor e the eig h t year reign of " King Richard" Burleson. include Bill Baird, wh o kicked off th e series wi th seven stra ig h t win s, j ohn Penton, j ack McLain , jr.. Ron Bohn, and two-time win ner Bill Kain. In 1981 Terry finis hed just two po int s behi nd Burleson after each rider's " th row-o ut" scores were deducted. Husky teammate Mike Melton finis hed th ird. another 22 poi nts back. bu t yo u mig ht say he. was .rhe Ilvin Terry 's " Mike beat me by six seco nds o n the emergency check ," Terry says. "So , in a way you can say tha t one crash cost me the title. But the n again, yo u cou ld point to a bunch o f o ther things, too." Li ke, for example, the painful pi lonidal cyst which formed on his tailbone, preventing him fro m running the first ro und of the '81 series , in Ca lifornia, and slo wing him do wn fo r the Stone Mou nt ain ro und sched uled just one week lat er. Terry al so suffered the worst injury of his rid ing career that seaso n, at the Little H arpe th (T en nessee) Na tio na l in April. " I was 32 m inutes late after a tough woods section, " he says. "The A and B riders too k different ro u tes, and I was the second rider throug h the A sectio n after Burl eson. I was hurrying to make up time, a nd I hi t my sho u lder o n a tree a nd fell. T he fall was nothi ng. My 430 Automa tic was lying there in the trail , sti ll run ning. j ust as I got to the bike , I stum bled o n something a nd fell into that spi n ning rear wh eel. I pulled my arm back, and then my leg hi t th e wh eel, so I jerked it a way , but the n I fell for ward and mv arm went int o the whee l agai n. . " I didn ' t even look at my arm - j ust got back o n the bik e and went about a hundred yards fart her. That 's whe n I started feeling it, so I stopped and pulled rhc sleeve back. l could n' beli ve but all the ski n was burned off m y for earm , and I cou ld see the muscle flexing." Even the n, Terry never considered q u itting. H e rod e th e lastfort y miles of tort uo usly tight woo ds one -ha nded, in ever-increasing pain , before seeking medical attention. T .e. says he's never been a quitter. " I' ve always been in some type of com pe titive sports-football, bas ketball, wrest ling, trac k-you name it. Once when I was p layi ng football, I got my sho ulder h urt in a tackle. It turned out later that I' d ac tua lly torn a muscle loose, bu t I wen t bac k into the next p lay and finis hed the ga me. I didn 't tell anybody abou t it, because basketball was about to sta rt, and I was afrai d they' d tell me I could n' t p lay. "The seaso n sta rted, a nd it was a little ro ug h p layi ng, because I cou ldn 't move my arm sideways-only fro nt wards and backwards, Finall y thecoach noticed I was havin g a lot of trouble making foul sho ts, and he asked me what was wrong : So I told hi m and then I went to th e doct or . By th a t ti me , the muscle was a lready sta rti ng to heal some. " His love for motorcycles also began early. H e says, " My U ncle Bud bought a bike to run aro u nd o n while we were up in Canada. We were a ll grea t sportsmen - h unte rs and fisherme n . T hen the first bike my dad ever bo ught was' a Honda Supe r 90. It had 18 inc h wheels and all that. We got the bike in early 1969 and I hadjust turn ed nine in Sep tem ber wh en I rode my first rnotocross . I fini shed second in that race, ridi ng in the junior class. The g uy tha t beat. me was 16. We di dn 't hav e a ll th e classes they hav e now . Yo u kn ow, th e Schoolboy Stock and Schoolboy Modified and so o n ." • • JJ.el'Yc:q1.J9'ZO PP.I!17 he raced , .3 motocross every cha nce he got. Terry's brother, j erry , two years and one day hi s senior, was com peting a t th e same time. " He used 10 be rea lly good in mo tocross," Terry says. " In fact, he was th e top Ohio rider in 1971. My parents were behi nd us and su pported us financi ally, as mu ch as they co uld. And th en in hig h school my bro th er kind of go t away fro m th e raci ng, and now he's th e chief park ran ger up in Punderson Sta te Par k, near Cleveland. But you m ight say he go t me sta rted in it." T erry says he ran th ree or four end u ros in 1974. " I j ust couldn 't afford todo it that m uch . I ha d a co uple of old bikes, and whe n I'd get them ru nning well enough, I'd ask my dad to take m e to a race. Then in 1974 I gave up basketball to take a wi nter jo b so I co u ld bu y a new bike in the spring. My dad chi pped in for it, too. It was a H onda MR175. " I ran motocross with it, hare scra mbles, any th ing a nd everything. There was a 24 or 27 race end uro series in the distr ict in 1975. I rode my first race with th e bike o n, I th in k it was August 15th. From then until Nov ember, I went from nobody to the top overall B rider. I had it clinched wi th just o ne race to go, and th en th e AMA sent me my A card. So because of th at , instead of my getting th is great big pl aque, th e gu y that finish ed second in the district got it. And I'd won eigh t out of 12 overa ll B'S', two seco nd overa ll and a fourth and fifth overall. "T h at bike lasted until May of 1977. By the end of the year I was pumping pans into that thi ng like crazy. I ran a tire until it was bald-until there was no knob left in th e cen ter." His first year as an A rider wa s 1976, and he finished founh in the district. In 1977, his senior year of h igh school, Ma ico gave him a support ride. " I knew I was ge tti ng my Ma ico on 'T uesday, but th e weekend befor e that, I went to a 120 mile run. I was o n ly about 15 miles o u t, right in the fi~t woods sectio n, when the shock on my old H onda stuck in the down position. I was so sore aft erwards, I co uldn ' t move for a week. " I fin ished th at da y, and won th e race- the seco nd or third I won that year-and I was sitting there by the tra iler when a friend, john Thomas, came over and said, 'Terry, yo u need someone 10 help you o u t.' And I said , 'Well , j ohn, that's how ir's going to be. Maico' s go ing to help me out, starting' next week.' And it still has an effect on me 10 where, if my pants o r jersey get torn, I'll have my wife sew th em up. I guess I'll have to watch it a little more now, becau se some times the dealers get on my case, saying I should wear new . stuff." With a bike a nd parts furnished by Maico, Terry ran two Qual ifi ers a nd four Na tionals in 1978. In 1979, he says, " It was a bout th e same, but I th ink I rode four or five Qualifiers, and I went 10 Six Days for th e first time. That was in West Germany, and I got a Gold. " H e was accompanied o n th e trip by his wife, Peggy. T hey were married in j anuary, and Peggy says, " I'd never . reall y traveled anywhere befor e that. I'd been to West Virgin ia twice to visit relatives, and then a few months after we were married, here I was overseas. " T err y gre w up in Athens, Oh io, Peggy in th e nearby town of Nel sonvill e. They met wh en Terry was help.ing h is yo unger sisters, Dian e and Debbie, set up th eir ~ - H exh ibits at th e Ath en s County Fair. T erry and Peggy dated bri efly, but found it diffi cult to spend much time togeth er because of their resp ective school sched ules. They drifted apa rt, and Peggy event ua lly ma rr ied a long-time boyfriend. T hing s did n 't work out, an d she soo n mo ved back in wit h her pa rents. Her da ughter, Carrie, is five-years-old, a blon d-hai red, , precocio1,1s kin dergartner.

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