| March 17, 2024
Cycle News Archives
COLUMN
Well, Almost
By Kent Taylor
Cycle toughs in full leather gear, dicing it out on loud, fast motorcycles before a raucous crowd, kicking up dirt and dust along the way! Flaring tempers, cops with nightsticks, protests, angry words, pointing fingers—with 10 grand in cash on the line!
Another bad motorcycle movie? Maybe Little Fauss and Big Halsy? Or, perhaps a worse one, like Pray For The Wildcats? Surely, the cinema is the only place where all these elements could be compiled into one more sneering tale of bad guys on motorcycles?
Nope. This kind of chaotic drama is from real life, Cycle News, March 26, 1980, where coverage of the Daytona Short track provided more visions of two-wheeled nastiness than any Hollywood screenwriter could’ve imagined. The big studios would’ve rejected the idea that the antagonist, the source of the conflict, Batman’s Joker, and Little Fauss’ Big Halsy, was nothing but rubber. Bouncy, black rubber molded into the shape of a circle!
Tires! For racers, they truly are where the rubber meets the road, or in the case of the Daytona Short track, a tight and rough ¼-mile dirt surface. Choose a bad tire, and all the engine porting, polishing, grinding, and gauging is, in Biblical terms, nothing more than sounding brass. Power in the engine is one thing. Power to the ground is a better thing.
The short track event held at Memorial Stadium in Daytona Beach was round seven of what was called the Harley-Davidson Dirt Track series, and Cycle News contributor Henny Ray Abrams was on hand to cover the event. Most of the AMA’s top riders, including Mike Kidd, Terry Poovey, Gary Scott, and his brother Hank, were doing battle for the beefy $10,000 prize that was going to be awarded to the winner of the series. Two rounds were held on this weekend, split over Friday and Saturday evenings.
Ten thousand is a mighty big number, but the most important integer this particular weekend was 23, the number of super soft tire sets that were provided by Goodyear. The company, according to Mike Babick, Goodyear’s Assistant Director of Racing, was experimenting with the new compound and had made up the tires, which were supposed to be used at the AMA’s Grand National Championship event to be held at the Houston Astrodome. There is no explanation as to why they were brought to the Daytona event, but what is clear is that there weren’t enough of the special new tires for everyone. Kidd and Poovey got them. Billy Labrie, who was leading the points race for the Harley-Davidson series title, didn’t, and neither did Gary Scott. It would be Scott, a rider often seen in the middle of controversy, who would lead a rider revolt that night, charging that Goodyear was “playing games” by shoeing only certain bikes with the sticky new tires.
“Tires were vitally important in dirt track racing,” said former dirt track racer Tom Horton. A member of Team Yamaha’s “B” team (which received bikes and parts during the mid-70s), Horton remembers racers spending hours with a grooving tool and razor blade, slicing the tire at certain spots to make it eat. “You would cut the leading edge and the next edge, but you had to be careful not to cut too deeply.
“I remember a Junior race once where I wanted to beat Tom White, something I had never done. I grooved my tire deeply and it worked great—for four laps! On the fifth lap, it started chunking and Tom passed me and took the win.”
Whatever compound Goodyear unveiled with its new experimental tire was enough to make a big difference, and Scott wasn’t going to stand for it. A heated argument at the riders’ meeting between the former champ and AMA referee Freddie Ephrem grew ugly, with Scott and other racers threatening to walk out. Ephrem counterpunched with a threat of his own, telling the protesting riders, “Every one of you is subject to suspension if you don’t do what I say!”
In an apparent effort to quell emotions, Ephrem asked both Terry Poovey and Mike Kidd to take off the special Goodyears. Poovey acquiesced, but only if he “could get 10 laps to break in a new tire.” Mike Kidd, however, wasn’t about to give up his edge on his competitors. “I’ve got it the way I want it, and I’m not changing it,” he said, brazenly adding, “I’ve got the advantage now, and I’m going to keep it!”
The crowd said to be 5000 strong, wasn’t aware of the rubbery situation until they saw Gary Scott being forcibly removed by a uniformed member of the Volusia County Sheriff’s office that was ready to charge Scott with inciting a riot. This sight prompted them to begin chanting, “We want Scott! We want Scott!”
A promoter’s nightmare would be averted; however, after being briefly detained, Scott returned to the pits. He told Billy Labrie, “It’s going to hurt us a little now, but let’s give the people a show.”
With that, the steel-shoed warriors went to battle, doing what they do best. Dirt track racing was indeed the best two-wheeled show in the business. The racers returned to the starting line and, to the surprise of no one, Kidd and Poovey ran away with the main event, leaving third place a full straight behind them.
It would be the final night for the magical Goodyears, at least for the duration of the Harley-Davidson series. After the Friday night debacle, AMA’s Director of Racing Mike DiPrete issued a statement that banned the use of the new magic tires. Apparently, AMA regulations dictated that Goodyear officially “recommend” the tires for use in AMA competition. No such word from the company, so the tires were now illegal. Saturday results show Hank Scott taking the win, with Kidd second and Poovey in fourth behind Charlie Roberts.
Gary Scott, the rubber revolt ringleader, didn’t crack the top 10 in either night of racing. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but the 1980 Harley-Davidson Series Daytona Short Tack was stranger than most anything else. CN