ESPN report: Corky Keener shortly passed away at the age of… more details

Since August 22, 1975, when Kenny Roberts and the abominable Yamaha TZ700 gave Keener and Jay Springsteen the ultimate haircut and buzzed past them to win the Indy Mile, Keener, a former factory Harley-Davidson team racer, has not gone into hiding. He doesn’t have anything to be embarrassed about. Truth be told, Quicker wears the notable second as a praiseworthy symbol as opposed to an identification of disgrace. “I believe it’s cool that 30 years after the fact that race is as yet being discussed,” Quicker, presently 59 years of age, says. Nowadays Quicker busies himself as an electrical technician in his local Stone, Michigan, region. That is precisely what he was doing in the early 1970s, when he started to make a big impression as a local pro in the Great Lakes region’s flat track hotbed. “A ton of hustling occurred around this area, and I just got on the edge of it early,” Quicker says. “I unintentionally ran into a ton of person it, and I didn’t actually realize they did something like that. At the time, I was only 14 or 15 years old. It seemed as though it very well may be a pleasant thing to do.” In 1966, Keener became an Expert, but he preferred to race close to home and focused on his career as an electrician rather than the National circuit. After accepting an offer to ride the equipment of three-time AMA Grand National Champion Bart Markel in 1974, he had his first experience as an AMA Grand National regular. According to Keener, “I first rode Bart’s bikes at Louisville [Kentucky] in ’72, and he asked me if I wanted to ride for him full time at the end of that year.” “I really began riding for him in ’73, yet and still, after all that, we just went to a couple of Nationals, since I actually had a standard work. However at that point I understood that I could get more cash-flow than I was working, so you know where that leads.” In 1974, Keener and Markel planned to compete in as many Nationals as they could. Keener says, “It was kind of like a semi-factory ride.” “I wasn’t a production line rider, yet Harley had given the bicycles to Bart, and they were manufacturing plant bicycles. I wasn’t salaried, yet I was getting reward cash for winning.” It wasn’t some time before they hit the jackpot, with Quicker procuring his most memorable profession AMA Fabulous Public win at the site where he previously swung a leg over Markel’s Harley: Louisville, Kentucky, on June 8, 1974. That night, Keener jumped off the truck quickly, and when the fight was over, no one came even close to touching him. “I’d been running a great deal of the nearby races around Michigan and winning a ton of those, however it was anything but guaranteed,” Quicker says. I was competing against individuals who had previously won that race as well as numerous others. However, I get it was only my move.” Keener clocked a time of 26.04 seconds on the cushioned limestone half mile, which came as no surprise given that the surface was designed specifically for him. “We had a vehicle track anywhere, however most of what we rode were the pea rock tracks here, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin,” Quicker says. “Fundamentally, everything was little carnival horsey tracks.” Quicker effortlessly came out on top in his intensity race north of 1969 AMA Stupendous Public Boss Mert Lawwill and processing plant Win rider Mike Kidd, the Texan coming from the punishment line to complete third for the immediate exchange to the Public. The 20-lap headliner would be all Quicker, too. He pulled a tremendous lead by the third lap and level left them for dead. Keener asserts, “Everyone rode around the bottom, but I rode up by the fence for half the race.” “Each time I went around, the only tracks that I saw up there were mine because they had groomed the track prior to the main event. After riding about half of the race up there, I looked back and realized that I had gained sufficient advantage to simply descend to the bottom and ride the remainder of the race there. I was not caught. If by some stroke of good luck they could be generally that simple. “No doubt about it,” Quicker says. “Here and there you work multiple times as difficult to get eighth as you do to win.”