VOLUME 59 ISSUE 34 AUGUST 23, 2022 P125
Trav was lettering Kizer's van, he
was asking Kizer about his flat
track racing.
"At one point, he asked me if
I had ever ridden a turbo bike,"
Kizer recalled. "I had no idea
what he was talking about. Trav
invited me to come to the local
drag strip to watch Mo on his
turbo and told me to bring my flat
track bike along."
Terry, his girlfriend Cindy (who
later became Terry's wife), and
Terry's brother Keith (who every-
one called Scooter) went to the
local drag races on a Wednesday
night, and as Trav instructed, Ter-
ry brought his 250cc, Champion-
frame flat track bike. He entered
the event and began clicking
off runs in the 12.9s right at 100
mph. This turned some heads.
"I didn't have any reference or
idea that was a really good time
on a little 250," Terry said. "That
was my first time on a drag strip,
and I was just messing around
having some fun."
This flat tracker's unexpected
drag racing performance on his
little flat track machine prompted
Trav to invite Kizer to come out
and do some runs on one of Mo
Parsons' bikes. It was quite a
jump from a few runs down the
strip on his little flat track machine
to throw a leg over an open-class
turbo machine, but Kizer was
oblivious to the potential hazards.
"I was all over it because
I was 19 or 20 years old and
stupid," he laughs. "They put
me on a 1075cc [Kawasaki] KZ
with smooth bores and wheelie
bars. Since I was only about 120
pounds, I ran a lot faster than
those guys. I think I was in the
high 10s at over 130 miles per
hour. To me, it was like I'd died
and gone to heaven.
"Mo was a big guy, probably
230 pounds, and I came along at
a perfect time when he was prob-
ably looking to put a smaller guy
like me on his bikes and see what
they could really do."
Parsons invited Kizer to come
along to a National drag meet in
LaPlace, Louisiana. Once there,
Kizer found himself in a turbo
class with some of the sport's
heavy hitters.
"I was now facing guys with a
lot of experience," Kizer recalls.
"Mo told me that when I finally got
it right on the launch, I'd know
it. We didn't have two steps in
those days, so getting a turbo
bike off the line meant you had to
wind the engine up and release
the clutch just right or you would
blow the tire away or bog the
bike.
"When I finally got it right, I
damn near went off the back of
the bike. That thing bit and was
hauling ass, and I was like, 'Oh
my God!' I had to work myself
back up to the handlebars.
They were nearly jerked out of
my hands. On that pass, I ran
a 9.8, and that was below the
national record. By the time we
were done that day, we reset the
national class record at 9.60 at
a little over 160 miles per hour.
I did not win the race because I
hadn't yet got my act together at
the start line with the Christmas
Tree. Hell, I was used to watching
a guy with a flag in his hand and
trying to read his eyes. I wasn't
looking at a light."
So, at his first national in 1977,
still wet behind the ears, Kizer
Terry Kizer doing a
burnout at Capitol
Raceway in Maryland in
1979.
PHOTO: PAUL SCHWAB