Throwback Thursday: Down and Out in Peoria
Larry Lawrence | March 22, 2018
Photo by Gary Van Voorhis
In this week’s Throwback we go back to America’s bicentennial year of 1976. The site was the legendary Peoria TT National. Things all went wrong in a heat race in that year’s AMA Grand National. Going into the first turn Harley-Davidson factory rider Corky Keener went down and Wes Powell had nowhere to go and torpedoed right into Keener. Gene Romero, Billy Oliver and Rick Sexton appear to be clear of the crash.
The action was captured by then Cycle News East associate editor Gary Van Voorhis.
The accident broke Keener’s leg and he was forced to sit out the rest of the season. He was sitting ninth in the series standings going into that year’s Peoria TT National. It marked the first major injury for Keener in spite of being a 30-year-old racing veteran at the time.
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