Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127680
.IN TERV IEW Terry Vance • By Dean A Photo by H Ray Abrams or four years I have pursuing Terry Vane undergo a lengthy interview, and from the begin-. ning his has shunned the very idea. "You'll just ask me how I like getting my ass handed to .me by those Kawasakis," he said with a grin back in 1990. "And I don't want to answer that. " Later, his business and the death of one of his gifted riders, Larry Schwarzbach, stalled my quest for answers. Thankfully, the man beh ind Vance & Hines Yamaha finally warmed to th e idea - as long as the qu estions d idn't involve his personal life. Vance had done a go od job of keep ing his personal life exactly th at - personal. Very little is kn own abo u t the non-racing Terry Vance. He 's a devot ed fam ily man, his religion is impo rta nt to him, and he owns a house in Utah. That' s it. Professiona lly, we kn ow mo re . Acco rding to lo re, multi-millionaire Vance came from very m odest b eg innings . Fr esh out of h igh school, he learned ho w to drag race a motorc ycle - with incred ible s uccess. Wh il e working for drag racing pioneer Russ Collins, Vance met a quiet man with the ability to coax engines into producing in credible amounts of horsepower. That meeting with Byron Hines w as the start of something big. The two became friends while forming a business partner-' ship that has propelled them from a humble beginning to present-day su ccess. Th e days when the two could barely afford to pay the basic bills are long gone - Vance & Hines can't ship exhaust system s fa st enough to me et demand . In the cut-throat world of aftermarket motorcycl e prod ucts, Vance ha s made himse lf into a pla yer . Lik e most, Vance has his de tractors, but they will not depreciate his abilities as a bus inessman nor do they not respect him. His larger-than-life competitiven ess as a mu lti-time NHRA drag racing champion ea s ily lent itse lf to hi s full-time post- ra cing job as the po int man at Van ce & Hines Racing. He is the very hands-on owner of a su ccessful Superbike team that currently fi eld s fa ctory cf Yamahas for Jamie James and C Edwards n. In preparation for this intervi ,I told Vance I wanted to ask h~. out .m the early days of the Vance & ines team, when the magnificent Mik Baldwin and Randy Renfrow rode or the team. He dismissed historical .estions ,·~,e immediately. "That's the past. cares about that stuff." He obviously had an a enda 0 have his voice heard on the is cing the AMA Pro Racing depart . Unlike many pretenders, the 40-year-old Vance carries more weight with the upper echelon of AMA directors than any other 0_'. 1p~ team m perhaps =y son involved in AMA road racing. You have never really revealed the behind-the-scenes th in gs that happened when you switched your superbike ' team liaison from Suzuki to Yamaha. Well, I didn't just high-tail it out of there at Suzuki and run to Yamaha . Our company was in a position that we had reache d the arc of our ra inbow and we need ed to expand into the road racing mark et. We kn ew th at we needed to have an alignment with a manu facturer to do th a t b ecau se all th e guys w ho are wi nning the races are factory alig ned. I had a two-year contra ct with Suzuki just fo r endorsements , p romotional activities and other things. I wen t to Mr. Shiganoya and explained to him that throu gh Yamaha - I had an oppo rt unity to involve Vance & Hines in the road raci ng side of the business and to do that I need ed to get ou t of my contract. He was very good to me, as he was to me th ro ug ho ut my 10-year re la tions hip w ith Suz u ki. He und e rst ood where I was comi ng from, and he knew tha t with the Yosh imu ra alignment the y had that Suzuki need ed to be loy al to Yos hi mu ra. He knew they would not be able to g ive m e th e s up po r t I need ed for the road racing program, and he allowed me to get out of my con tr act with Su zuki. Th at ena bl ed me to enter into the contract with Yam aha in th e fall of 1989. Really, Vance & Hines owes a lot to Su zu ki for pu tt ing u s o n the map , in being involved w it h them from the very beginning . But a ls o fo r being gracious enough to a llow us to be involved with Yamaha in the road racing program. Since you began your associa tion w it h Yamaha, yo u have whittled away at your NHRA drag racing program to the point that, in 1994, you 're subbing it out to Ward Performan ce an d have a limited presence in NHRA racing. Are you phas ing that segmen t of Vance & Hines out? Drag racing is basically the roo ts of where Byron and [ came from and, believe me, the last thing I ever wan t to do is exit drag raci ng on a p ermanent scal e. It ' s just that we thought we had sat-