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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1431989
"Riding the XR500 kind of kept my spirits up," Haney said. "While we were trying to make the CX500 work, and it was tough, I at least was able to win some races and keep my confi- dence high on the small bike." Haney's stint on the Honda flat trackers proved to be right com- bination at the wrong time. In 1981, they punched out the CX to a full 750 and called it the NS750. At the Friday night Ascot race prior to the AMA National there, both Freddie Spencer and Haney won their respective heat races in the NS's debut. Haney went on to win the race, with Spencer taking second. "We thought, 'Man, we may have something for these guys,'" Haney said after the bike's en- couraging start. Unfortunately for Haney and Honda, the teething problems with the bike were numerous— most notably, overheating—and Haney only qualified for a couple of Nationals that year and scored only one top-10 finish. "Jeff was heading in the right direction," said three-time AMA Superbike Champion Doug Chandler. "He just happened to be with Honda when they were first trying to get into dirt track, and to race new bikes against the Harleys was a pretty tough assignment." Along the way, Haney rode in the Wide World of Sports Super- bikers, predecessor to modern- day Supermoto. While racing in front of a national audience was great, Haney was outgunned. "We had a good-running XR500-based bike," he said, "but it was no match for those works 500cc two-strokes." Haney finished 10th in the 1979 made-for-TV event and said the best part was that the next year, they used footage of Haney coming off a jump on commer- cials to promote the following year's broadcast. He also raced the Suzuka 8 Hours in 1980 as teammate to Roberto Pietri, on a Honda RSC Superbike. The factory Honda pair was doing well until the bike blew up at top speed with Haney aboard. "I just remember being in a full tuck and all of a sudden the bike going completely sideways," Haney said. "I went into the grass at close to top speed and somehow got it stopped without crashing. I pushed the bike all the way back to the pits and got a hero's welcome by the crowd." After his time as a factory rider, Haney kicked around and rode miscellaneous Grand Nationals, but a local sponsor, Dr. Mac Archer, gave Haney the opportunity to go road racing. In 1984, Haney turned in several top-10 results in both Superbike and Formula One. It was a pre- cursor to Haney's awesome ride at Daytona the following March. At the start of the 1985 Day- tona 200 (the first year the race was Superbikes), Haney started on the third row, but on the first lap he made a spectacular move that got him around six or seven riders in one swoop. "I remember going into the chicane and all the leaders sort of ran single-file into the chicane and they were on the inside of the track," Haney said. "I just went in deep on the outside, and that set me up for the next turn, and I passed a big group of them all together and came out of there, I think, in second." From there, Haney ran a clean race and shocked everyone with his third-place finish, behind Freddie Spencer and Wes Cooley. "It was just one of those magi- cal races where everything fell into place," Haney said proudly. "I had a great team behind me, with Dan Kyle building the motor and Bob Hyshita, Dr. Archer and Eric Berhard all helping out. It was just a bunch of Monterey guys who got together and went out and put it on the box in the biggest road race we had back then." CN This Archives edition is reprinted from the September 24, 2008, is- sue of Cycle News. CN has hun- dreds of past Archives editions in our files, too many destined to be archives themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, in the future, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones com- ing down the road. -Editor P114 Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives CN III ARCHIVES