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Speedweek: Still having fun at the tracks
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FarkSTURGIS — At an age when most people are content to sit back, slow down and relax, Jerry Cheney still gets a kick out of building and racing motorcycles.
The soon-to-be 62-year-old former Sioux Falls resident, now a 30-year resident of Bloomfield, Iowa, runs the flat-track racing equivalent of the senior tour, Plus 40 and Vintage events, and showed at this week’s races at the Sturgis motorcycle rally that he can still get the job done.
“Where else can you meet this many nice people, have this much fun and put yourself at risk of getting hurt?” Cheney asked with a laugh when asked what keeps him coming back to the circle-track wars.
He won the Plus 40, Modern class (for older riders on newer bikes) at Tuesday’s Jackpine Gypsies 70th Anniversary Celebration Half-Mile at the Sturgis Fairgrounds. He also finished second to Davey Durelle in the Plus 40-Vintage Singles division (older riders on older single-cylinder machines) Tuesday and placed third in a Plus 40 vintage class at the Gyspies short-track races Monday night.
The short-track, now named in honor of rally founder, J.C. “Pappy” Hoel, of Sturgis, first hosted rally races back in 1962. Cheney was there, racing then as now.
Racing at the rally back then meant using the same bike for all the events, short-track, half-mile and scrambles, now called motocross.
“If you had a machine, you rode it,” Cheney said. “We didn’t specialize like we do now.”
Cheney also road-raced motorcycles from 1967-1977, competing at famed venues including Daytona International Speedway in Florida, Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania, and Brainerd, Minn.
He continues to race vintage and Plus-40 events at Daytona’s bike week in February and early March.
From his home in Bloomfield, about 110 miles southeast of Des Moines, Iowa, Cheney still races dirt tracks in Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin and Illinois.
“That’s one of the reasons I moved from Sioux Falls,” he said. “In Iowa, 150 miles in any direction will take in a lot of races.”
Along with racing, Cheney also enjoys tinkering with his bikes, building his own frames, engines and wheels and operating Cheney Engineering, selling flat-track racing parts and accessories.
“You put something together and try it, and if it doesn’t work so well, you go back and try something else,” he said.
And while Jerry is still plenty quick on the racetrack, there is one aspect of the sport where he trails his wife Kaye.
“She always beats me to the pay window to get the purse money,” he said.
Jerry Cheney, of Bloomfield, Iowa, has been racing at the Sturgis motorcycle rally for more than 50 years, and is still at it, competing in Vintage and Plus-40 classes at races throughout the country. (Jim Holland/Journal staff)
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