Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Interview: Doug Polen The ultimate club road racer? By Paul Carruthers Photos by Henny Ray Abrams When uzuki and Honda decided to promote their line of sport-minded street bikes by handing out large doses of money to club racers at GSXR-Cup Series and Honda Interceptor races, itcaught the atlention of one retired 26-year-old Texan road racer. It was then that Doug Polen ecided to dust orr the old leathers and go for the gold. After the final ontingency checks were handed out, Polen had pocketed more ca h than any other club racer in hi tory close to ' 100,000. But before anybody quit their sixfigure a year, sit-behind-a- desk job, they hould realize how Polen accomplished what he did. We are talking bout 83 races, thousands of miles spent behind the wheel of a van trying to get to those races, and spending more than half of your earnings on expenses. "1 spent a lillIe over $50,000 to do it and ii'S all come out of everything I've won," Polen said during a break from the Grand National Finals in Road Atlanta on November 9. "I didn't have one sponsor this year because of my retirement thing. I had no track record for anybody to even want to put any money in on it. If I do real well today (Polen won two classes and finished second in the third), I'll end up probably pocketing $3035,000." So what about this lillie retirement thing that made Polen the best kept secret in road racing? Polen was a good club racer in 1983, buta crash at the Austin (Texas) Aquafestcombined with the thought of racing without making money made Polen hang up his leathers. "The Austin Aquafest was the last race that I was in and I pulled some muscles in my back that never really healed for six or eight mon ths," Polen said. "And then I ran two local club races at the end of 1985. I hadn't ridden a bike since 1983, no street bikes or anything until 1985." o Polen suddenly reappears at race tracks across America. It probably would have gone unnoticed until he promptly started thrashing everybody else on the pavement. Doug Polen was now making a name for himself - what made him return? "It was always fun," he said. "I always enjoyed doing it, but the involvementthat I had in it was just too serious to be fun anymore and financially we couldn't do it anymore. "We saw that if we finished in the top three running both classes (in 1986) we could pay for at least the expenses for the weekend. If we won, we would end up with a lillIe profit from the deal. We just went at it like that. I looked at it as an opportunity to get some recognition because I also figur~ Suzuki would really be doing some advertising with the series. We started the season and virtually have been winning since. "When I went back and ran those two races in the end of 1985, I ran as fast as I had two and a half years before. I figured right then that if I 'was as fast as I was then and I was as good back then to heat people that came (rom other regions and stuff, I figured I had a good chance. I knew I had a real good chance when I got to go out and ride the bikes against somebody else in the first race. I really knew that I could be successful after I went to each region one time and got to race against the guys in each region. After that I figured that I had a real good chance." Most would regret the time wasted by not racing. Polen, however, thinks the break (rom the spon has helped make him become what many feel is the ultimate club racer. "I think it was a good thing to do because it allowed me to back out of the actual scene itself and be able to look at how to maximize the motorcycle racing world," Polen said. "As far as publicity, money and everything to where if I did decide to go back and get into it, that I could do it and make out. Where I wasn't before. "I look back and I was able to sit back and say 'I made a mistake doing this, I should have done this,' I allowed myself to figure out how to do it. That' the way I've done it this year. I thought I could make the best of what I was doing and it seems to be paying off." Polen had a trYout with Yoshimura Suzuki at Mid-Ohio, but he crashed while silling in fourth place. The Texan will be back next year in both AMAICameI Pro Series road races and the Suzuki-sponsored events. But don't expect to see him on a factory bike. "The best thing about it is this season has turned out so well that now I have product people and everybody that want to do something with me next year," Polen said. "I have enough of a track record now from this year that I can approach a major sponsor and have something to show them; they could get some exposure. Weare going to try that angle right now because as far as I know no factories are in teres ted. "It's not real important to me to get a factory ride for next year beca use right now the AMA is kind of screwing everything up. It's not life or death if I get a ride next year. I'm not considering that because as far as monetarily I probably could only make as much as doing the club racingcircuit in the first year of a factory contract. "The sponsor that we're looking for is to do the AMA nine events and all other events that don't coincide with that. All the series events. In other words, a full season again." Does Polen have visions of mixing it up in Europe with the Eddie Lawsons and Randy Mamolas? You bet he does. But who is going to want a 26-year-old club racer that will be at least 28 years old before he's ready to go to Europe? Polen doesn't think age will be a problem. "I feel 16," he said. "I think there's a lot of good competition over there (Europe). That's where it's at. that's all you hear about. Beingable to race against everybody over there would be satisfying to me and it wouldn't hurt my money situation either. What I would like to do is try and race as

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