Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 38 SEPTEMBER 24, 2013 won was Austin's Aqua Fest street race that later made Schwantz famous. Goodin was contemporaries with Freddie Spencer. Spencer, who was already being touted as the next big thing in road racing, and Goodin often raced during the same weekends, but the two rarely met in the same class, much less on equal machinery. Finally Goodin and Spencer met in a CRRC race at Greater Southwest Airfield in the 410 Production class, both on Yamaha RD400s. It was Goodin's big chance to test his mettle against the highly touted boy wonder. "He [Spencer] was about 100 yards ahead of me and I caught him," Goodin recalls. "I went around him and put about a 100 yards on him. My father had taken a drill to my airbox to drill holes in it to get more air, but he didn't clean the inside of it out and the plastic went inside my carburetor and I didn't get to finish. That really broke my heart because I wanted to put it on Freddie on equal bikes." Goodin's father owned a successful commercial roofing company and backed his son - and Bobby started expending his horizons outside of CRRC. In 1981 he raced a Suzuki GS750 and GS1100 in WERA races all across the country and dominated just about anywhere he went. He pre-dated fellow Texan Doug Polen's tear across the club races of America chasing GSX-R Cup money by five years. Watching Goodin race those production Suzukis was a revelation. There's no way someone should've been able to ride a stock GS of that generation, with its mile-wide motor, around a racetrack as fast as Goodin did. He'd clean house on those things, not only dominating all the production classes, but often winning the Superbike and Formula classes on them against vastly superior machinery. The non-stop racing schedule paid off at the end of 1981 when Goodin was the star of the 1981 WERA Grand National Final at Roebling Road near Savannah, Georgia. He won five WERA National titles that day, breaking Freddie Spencer's record of four National titles in 1977. That kind of domination attracted attention. Yoshimura Suzuki called P89 and invited Goodin out for a try-out. Goodin went to Riverside for the test, but rain cut it short. A few weeks later Yoshimura sent him another airline ticket and back to Riverside he went for second time. Yoshimura liked what they saw. "I stayed at Fujio's [Yoshimura] house while I was out there and they told me I was on the team. I didn't even talk money because I didn't care." Unfortunately, motorcycle sales were going through a recession and Suzuki introduced the 16-valve Katana and it was blowing up more often than not. With their Superbike project struggling, Yoshimura downsized to a one-rider team with Wes Cooley and Goodin was left out in the cold. Goodin was devastated. "It was a heartbreaker," Goodin admitted. "Growing up you do all those club races because that's what you're shooting for [a factory ride]. I tried racing with Ron Scrima-built motors and we were straining them so hard to try to run with the factories that all we were doing was scattering parts from coast to coast." Goodin left racing shortly after to take over the family business. He felt he had to stay away from road racing for years. Now all these years later, with his daughters grown and out on their own, Goodin came back to racing. He's racing vintage flat track events doing very well. "When I came back I kept it low key," Goodin laughs. "I didn't even put my name on the back of my leathers just in case I finished last." All in all Goodin is happy with the way his life turned out, but there's still a nagging feeling of almost making it to the promised land of Superbike racing only to have his dreams swept out from under him. "I really regret not getting the factory ride and not finishing that," he says. "But in those days you didn't make much money in road racing unless you made it to Europe. I think everything worked out for the best." CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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