Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Maximize the potentials \ By Willial'!l Edgar Doug Polen, backyard America's recent .golden m ost privateer and-now Yoshimura/ Suzuki's star attraction, is as ready for this year's Daytona .200 and world-class road racing as the Lone Ranger was for ope n-air justice. Lean and clean, this fu ll -on 28-year-old racer - smart as a science prof, smooth as Barishnykov - from smalltown Dent on , Texas , has a min d for logi c and a bod for winning. When he stepped off a 747 at Los Angeles the week before last, I had my chance to get acquainted again. Pol en 's all-nighter ou t' of Tokyo to LAX was right on time. And Doug , cleared U.S. Customs raring to go. We had a kill er schedule to get through before he could finish the journey back home to his new bride, Diane. He'd already been in Japan for a week,'so we were go ing to make time count . Som ethi ng Doug Polen is awfu l damn good at. " If you ever loo k a t your physics boo ks," Pol en is say ing, hi s accent reflecting bot h T exas and Michi gan , " What makes everybody stay on ear th , obviously, is gra vity. T ha t is a jorce. And force equals mas s tim es accelera tio n. T hat refers to a ny th ing, ba sicall y. Anythi ng's that movin g." Wowl Ou r curren t veloci ty is 62 mil es per hour, runni ng with traffic in iny Volvo ta nk, hea ded to Chino u nder sno wca p ped mo u ntains . Dr ivin g th e int erstate hou r or so it takes from the airpo rt down to , Yoshimura R&D o f America wh er e hi s Suzuk i Daytona superbike is bein g prepped. And ever sin ce leavin g th e airport, Dou g has been rhapsodizin g on his roa d racer's rul es. In Polen's tech y vernacular, the win ni ng law of rost rum p hysics is " Ride The Limit Lin e All Season Lon g." Getting back to that matter of force, specifica lly ' " cont rollin g the for ces." Polen's formula was for a rostrum ha bit that hit the roa d racing scene like a T exas twist er in 1986 - ' that whirlwind year pr ivateer Pol en dominated the Suzuki Cu p series, closin g the seaso n with a stunning 27-straigh t win streak. Foll ow ing a two-year recess from club racin g . to earn money, Polen had emerged from the h interland to sho w hi s stuff. Heis grinn ing n ow, animated as hell in recall in g the conq uest. " Everybod y local was tell ing me, 'H ey, you gotta go and run agains t th ose gu ys in CaliforniaI' " Road racer Dou g T oland at the tim e was the hot Willow Springs winner and " getting full page articles in Cycle News and the magazines. So I went ou t there and I won both races. Nobody could believe it . That's when it all really started, when the big 'Doug Po len's cheating!' deals happened. Nobody comes out to Wil low who's never been there and win s. The only other rider who ever di d that was Kevin Schwantzl" So what Pol en did was, he went back to California that same year and won again, and then aga in. " I never lost a race at Willow in 1986." He's not rubbing it in, just stating facts. Doug Po len is a factual guy, always has been . He credits his parents for helping provide him the basi c weapons for beating road racing's odds . From his mother, a registered nurse, Doug learned the value of self-confidence no matter the und ertaking. From his mechanical engineer fathe r he discovered the glorious rewards of logic. To think logically, everyday , in every situation. " My parents told me, 'All we have to do is give Doug . the facts, then let him go from there.' That's allowed the freedom to make decisions and think about what I'm doing." Which is the key to road 'racing, any racing. T hi nkin!\, about it constantly. "If everybody Just used logic, a lo t of problems could by solved. You come out ahead more than you do behind." Po len has been coming ou t ah ead qui te a lot lately. Not onl y on the race track, but on h is high road to success. Again , it's called " con trolli ng the forces." The Forces of Ascent , if you will , in this case. For Doug Po len of ru ral Texas has gone and got himself a big city manager. Not ,some anxious player dimbing the ladder but a bona fide talent manager who has been through the forest. A guy wh o has cu t deals for some of the film biz's best. Rodney Sheldon. Before Polen flew in , I had breakfast with thi s man at the Polo Lounge, at the posh Beverly Hills Hotel. We drove "Number one," he says, " Rod ney Shel don loves motorcycles, loves them more than an ything he does. But he wasn't in tune as far as really knowing the ins and outs of the motorcycle industry." , Sheldon, at that breakfast, had said, " I told Doug it can 't be any more difficult dea ling in your world tha n dea ling in my world. Because if you think it's easy to part big sums of money from these guys who own the television net works and movie studios, then you're nuts ." Says Po len now, "It did n't take that much tim e for Rodney to figu re out what was really going on." We are enjoying this, Doug and I, tracing this new evo lution. It beats swearing at freeway traffic , still mil es from Chino. I glance at my watch - 5:00 A.M. in Japan, a long day for Po len, who had littl e sleep on the plane. Doug puts hi s head back, closes hi s eyes. I adjust Doug Polen has quite a year in front . of him - the Texan will head to Japan for a season of F-1 racing , there in Shel don's Rolls Royce, in L.A. aImosta necessity for image. But Sheldon is no glib flash. He's sharp, trim and u ltra coo l - and has ridden , and occasionally raced , motorcycles for 30 years. Last April, after watching Doug closely for two seasons, Rod ney and the cham p from Den ton shook hands on an agr eement that would have Sheldon handle Po len and all o( his 1989 contracts. "Here comes th is privateer," Sheldon said, recalling the first tim e he saw Doug " riding equipment I wouldn 't let any of the kid s I sponsored over the years rid e. Here he comes to the track wi th his own people in a beat.up tru ck, pulls out this bike that loo ks a bit soi led, and goes and just kicks everybod y's ass." Rodney was lovin g it. " I never was int erested in managi ng somebody in the road racing bus iness, because I never found anybody I thought could go all the way." Until Doug Polen . Po len and I are getting closer to the Yoshimura shop now ; and he is sm iling as he talks about hi s new manager. the tank's cruise control and think again about wha t She ldo n had said at the Polo Lounge, wh ile some agent in the next , booth ya kked on Spielberg. "T he purpose of me managing Doug Polen," said Sheldon, a q uick-witted New Yorker who earned a fortune young, sta g i n g concerts with rockers th a t included the Beatles , " is to help Doug make the rig ht choices in . the proliferation of h is career . And in ma king those choices, to insure .he is ompensated as per hi s mark et value, and not as per what they want to give him. " Rod ney is a guy so sure of himself tha t h is speech is impeccable. " It 's been iny experience that the great young roa d racers are equipped to ride these motorcycles so magnificently tha tit becomes poetry when you watch them on a track. But it doesn't necessarily equip them to ma ke their own deals with any sort of professionalism, because tha t's not thei r background." He-went on. "Under no circumstances would I ever adv ise holding up a company, saying, 'H ey, pay it or else.' That's not the style to do. But since they are used to getting th in gs don e basically their way, where they ho ld all the trump cards, it became a very difficult experience getting involved with Doug and negotiating his '89 program. As a matter of fact, it took six and a half mon ths to make all these dea ls. Six and a half mo nt hs of phone calls communications, telexes, faxes, all over the world, dea li ng with different companies, people saying yea then nay . One time , at the 11th hour of makin g this deal , I ha d to say to one o f these companies, when it became real clear that they were making a grandstand p lay to test my nerves, I said, 'Look, if you 'r e not willi ng to make what we consider a fair arrangement for Doug's services, I'm going to advis e him to sit the season ou t and wai t, and in the middle of the GP 500 year somebody's going to need a world-class rider. And if I've go t to go and support him myself, with my own mon ey; I' ll do it.' And they knew then I wasn 't kidding." I was ' liking Sheldon's style because, bot tom lin e, val ue deserve val ue. He co nt inued. " R igh t after tha t, the co rn- . m unication s got mu ch easier. And that deal fell int o p lace. For a whil e these people had been saying to Doug, 'What are you deal in g wi th this man ager for . He doesn 't know h is ass from hi s elbow. He's goi ng to ru in your career!' And wha t's interesting is that Dou g Polen may be a country bo y from T exas, but he is one sma rt you ng man. Because everythi ng I di d on hi s behalf, I did after consulti ng him. I didn 't just run off int o the woods and say 'This is what I wantl' like a ciga r-cho mp ing cartoon character. It 's not my style. " It's a scar y, lon ely bu sin ess. And for Dou g to have someone with him in his corne r, who 's not only a supporter but a fan, that's the crown." Sheldon swilled his coffee and spo ke 'of Doug 's wife of three months, Dian e. " You kn ow ," said Polen 's man ager, his eyes focused on somethin g distant, " When I used to race when I was.a kid, my girlfriend at that tim e, all she ever used to do was bitch and moan - it's just the op posite with Diane Pol en. She is so supportive and makes it so easy for Doug to go to work , because she kn ows tha t he's the best. And what she wants him to do is be the best. And that's all he wants to do. He doesn 't want to be better than Kenny Roberts, Eddi e Lawson . He wants to be the best I Doug Pol en he can be. And he is'so well equipped for being the best Doug Polen becau se he's magic. When I had phoned Diane at her office in T exas , she told me, " I 'rn a hundred percent behind Doug's racing. I love to watch him , he 's so smooth." And she' ll be flying back and forth to races with her husband. "That's part of our deall " Diane lau gh ed in a spi cy way. She'll wear ' the team uniform and check Doug's times with a little computer they bou gh t together, and she'll be in charge of his hel met, and see tha t he's go t his favorite sport dri nk, too. Neat, caring things people do whe n they're so in love, Like this new Mr. and Mrs. Pol en . Doug is awake, and we're starti ng to chec k off-ra mps . I ask him about the beginnin g. He had an 80cc dirt bike in Rochester, New York, before the Po lens moved to Texas. "W hen I was work ing at the Suzuki shop there in Denton, I got a motocrosser. I was 15 then. I was assemb ling bikes, learni ng as ,you go. I had the dirt bike (or two or th ree years, and meanwhile got a street bike, a 1977 GS550." We get off onto helmets and protective gear; a big crusade of his to make young ride rs aware of their im po rtance. Then he goes on abo ut himself. " What really sparked the recent sit uation was, my friend sold the shop to Danny Spencer, Freddie's brother. This was before Freddie was established and recognized, too young to be a pro racer . T hat's how I got introduced into th e racing aspec t, thro ugh Danny. " Danny rook me out to a race at Greater Southwest Airport, to a track of con nected runways on the abandoned

• Cover