Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

race and got second in the main event to a guy named Timmy Cartwright. The next day I won everything, so in weekend I already had 26 points, and you had to have 40. The next weekend they had a three-day deal that they would run in Oklahoma City every September. Friday was a regular class-C half mile, Saturday night was a short track, and Sunday was a Regional. Well, Friday at the half mile, I won my heat and my semi, and I was winning the main. But it had been raining the night before, and they had to wheelpack the track, but it was still muddy. I was riding a Bultaco at the time, and the Bultacos ran thi t-tube from the gas tank through a hole in the triple clamp. The mud got underneath the triPle clamp, and the thing vapor-locked. But you got fi points to win a heat race or a semi on the half mile 10 n I had 36 points, but I still needed four more to be a Junior for the next season. At the ext night's short track, Poovey lined up against the region's iggest guns to vie for four more points. "Jimmy Lee and Ro6ert Lee Mike Kidd were there, and they ere top ~ I remembe that I fell off in the first tum of the maiD event, and I broke my ankle, but I got up and restarted tHe race, and I got second, so I got all my points." What a difference a c upte moot can make. Come ttie follOWing Fe~ruary, Poovey found facto -backed ultac at the AstrodOme Short Track. -They had a junior InvttationaJ there, a"!t on Friday night they ran the heat 1'lIClI. and then on aturoay night they ran the feature." Poovey says. "Friday night I won my ' - race. and Saturday night I was battling with the top NOYlces from the year before. The way that they used to build the lraCk at Houston was that there was a berm on the Inside and the outside. I hit that berm on the outside. and I crashed, so I didn't win." Just a few weeks later. Poovey got his first taste of Hartey-Davidson XR750 action in his first Daytona Bike ana Week appearance. Terry Poovey ___y at Daytona ROUSIIAU f some motorcycle historian should happen to look up Terry Poovey's record 30 years from now, he or she will likely find that it just doesn't balance out. But that will be because there is no way to balance the perseverance and grit that the Texan has tirelessly displayed against the black-and-white record of I I Grand National wins - maybe 12, pending the outcome of the 2005 Daytona Short Track. like the dirt upon which he has made one of the toughest livings a man can make, Poovey just seems as though he has always been there, probably because he has. Poovey has raced against most of the top AMA Grand National Champions of the past 40 years, including Mert Lawwill' Gene Romero, Kenny Roberts, Gary Scott, Jay Springsteen, Steve Eklund, Randy Goss, Mike Kidd, Ricky Graham, Bubba Shobert, Scott Parker, Chris Carr and Joe Kopp. And at one time or another, he has beaten them all on the track. Consider that although he only has I I wins, those wins have come in each of the four decades spanned by his career. Now, at the age of 46, Poovey has finally decided to hang up his leathers and helmet for good. His ride in the 2005 Daytona Short Track will be his last in AMA Grand National competition. I 32 MARCH 2, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS "Daytona is kind of where I started, and that's kind of why I want to end my career there," Poovey says. "Besides, I think I can win the race again." It's that "think-I-can" attitude that has colored Poovey's career from his earliest racing days as a youngster in his native Texas. "My brother raced," Poovey says. "I was probably 6 or 7 years old when he started racing, doing flat track and scrambles. He started out on a Honda 90, and then he moved up to a Bultaco Sherpa S 175, and it just escalated. He wound up carrying a National number in '73 and '74. He was National number 94. I just started going to the races with him before that, and in 1968, I got the first Honda Mini Trail 50 to come to Dallas, and I just started racing that." Poovey got his professional Novice card in 1974, but his Novice career was short-lived, lasting only from September to December of that year. "I was 16, but my birthday was in September, so as soon as I turned 16, I got my license, but I got my Junior points in two weekends," Poovey says. "The first weekend we went to Hutchinson, Kansas. There were two races there, and the first night I won my heat "The first race down there was at Valdosta, Geo'llia. and it was this deep. red. cushion track," Poovey says. "On aturday, everything was going pretty well, but I was just a 16-year-old kid, and I had very little experience on those [XRl motorcycles. I just remember that I ran it in there Sideways and crashed and tore the thing all up. Ken Maely went to Daytona back in those days, and Ken and the guy I was racing for, Tommy Connors, started working on the motorcycle. Maely built some pipes and helped Tommy get the thing straightened out, and Sunday I went out and won the race." The sting of an ill-fated stint in the Novice road race at Daytona International Speedway was dulled when Poovey got his first taste of Bike Week short track racing at the late Daytona Memorial Stadium. It would keep him coming back for the next 30 years. "I went there, and Friday night was Novice/Junior night, and I won. Saturday night was Junior/Expert night, and I won. Then, on Expert night I got second. After that, I went back home and went back to school." Poovey was in his sophomore year in high school by then, and the Texas circuit consumed most of his time. "There was a lot of racing here in the '70s," Poovey says. "Pretty much for me, that's alii did. The races took all my time. I would go to school, but then in the afternoon I would come home and ride, and I couldn't wait for the weekends, to go raCing. From fifth grade to 10th grade, I rode every day after school." Unfortunately, Poovey says, his hectic racing schedule left little time for actual scholastic endeavors. Not unlike some of his peers from that era, he never finished high school.

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