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/177528
CN III ARCHIVES P88 BY LARRY LAWRENCE ALMOST FAMOUS Y ou know how in rock music there are bands that all the musicians know about, but are not well known to the general public? Motorcycle racing's underground star of the 1980s was a Texan road racer named Bobby Goodin. Goodin was a rider who seemed to mysteriously disappear from the sport, but those who saw him race knew just how good he was. You'd talk to riders like Doug Polen or Randy Renfrow back in the day and hear them tell you stories about Goodin and how he just might have been the best road racer never to make the breakthrough. He became a bit of a legend who lived just below the surface. "You should have seen that guy race," people would say about Goodin, but very few had the privilege and when he abruptly left the sport his name was simply lost to time. Turns out Goodin had some pretty good reasons to pack his gear and walk away. Shortly after breaking Freddie Spencer's WERA road racing records, Goodin got the call every rider dreams of - from a factory team interested in his services. And he got the job. But unfortunately he lost out on his big chance when the team unexpectedly pulled the plug on a two-rider team when budgets were cut and their new bike was a flop. After having the rug pulled out from under him Goodin figured he had two choices – travel the country, eat fast food and sleep in the back of a van to pursue his racing dreams, or take over his family's lucrative business and live a prosperous life. It was an easy choice really, but one that Goodin still sometimes looks back on and wonders "what if?" Goodin was raised around motorcycles. He started flat track racing as a teenager and progressed quickly. The high school Goodin went to happened to produce an amazing amount of guys who went on to be top-notch motorcycle racers. "Mike and Gary Kidd graduated from there," Goodin said. "So did Robert E. Lee and Jimmy Lee, big flat trackers; Kenny Tolbert, who went on to be a legendary mechanic, Kevin Brunson, Bill Herndon, just all kinds of really fast riders came from L.D. Bell High School." Goodin turned pro by the time he was 16, but his future prospects in flat track were a question mark. Goodin says about his flat track career, "I didn't do great, but not bad." Whether or not Goodin would have ultimately made it on the Grand National circuit became a moot point in 1977 when he tried road racing for the first time. "I think I was about a sophomore in high school and I came home one day and there was a CanAm in the garage," Goodin said. "I asked him [his father] what we were doing and he said we were going road racing that weekend. We went to Hallett, Oklahoma, and I won my first race. We were driving back in the motorhome and my dad said, 'I think we need to get rid of the dirt track bikes and go road racing.'" So Goodin started honing his racing on the rugged race courses of Texas and Oklahoma in the CRRC club (now CMRA), which ultimately produced some of the greatest road racing talents in America, including Freddie Spencer, Kevin Schwantz, Doug Polen, Colin Edwards and Ben Spies. Goodin became an early star of the club. One of the better known races that Goodin