Terry Poore celebrated in the 411 Victory Lane nine times in 2014.
Terry Poore has passion. He has passion for racing and he has passion for life. This fact is clearly evident when talking with the Seymour, Tenn. racer, even if only for a few moments.
Poore won nine times in the Sportsman class at 411 Motor Speedway during the 2014 season despite getting off to a bit of a slow start. He hopes he can visit Victory Lane just as often in 2015, perhaps beginning as early as the Sweetheart race on that track this Saturday.
“We struggled early but we found some stuff on the car as we were looking for a more comfortable feeling,” Poore explained. “To be fast and go fast, you have to be on that razor edge and we finally found comfort on the car about midyear. That came with getting a good, tight race car when the weather got hot and the track got slicker. After we found that, the car just stayed really consistent. That was the key to our success.”
Even while his car was improving as the season wore on, Poore says that he was not always satisfied with its performance. However, advice from a trusted helper convinced him to leave well enough alone.
“I tend to want to change things to make it better, but I’d wind up making it worse,” he admitted. “Jay Clark, who helps me, told me he was going to weld the nuts on it so I couldn’t change anything. That was a hard lesson to learn. If it’s working, you don’t have to run from it. You’ve just got to stay out in front of it a little bit, I guess.”
Throughout the 2014 season, Poore’s attention was often drawn away from racing as his wife Cindy, who he met at 411 Motor Speedway, battled health issues. Now, not only has her health improved, but she hopes to return to driving her own Mini Stock machine at some point during the upcoming year.
“The winning was huge, but just getting to go racing was even bigger in the scheme of all of it,” Poore said of last season. “That’s what we love, we’re a racing family. She’s the reason I do it because she’s the one who got me started.”
Poore may have gotten off to a relatively late start in driving stock bodied cars, but he has been a competitor in one form or another for his entire life.
“I raced motorcycles for years then I played college football,” the soon to be 49-year-old explained. “And now, this is the way I can still compete. Competition is all I’ve ever known.”
That desire to compete landed the Knoxville Halls High School graduate a scholarship to play college football as an offensive lineman at Appalachian St. University from 1985-89. In so doing, he came in contact with two of the country’s most well-known coaches.
“I was signed by Mack Brown, who was actually the head coach there when I signed my college scholarship, but then he left in the spring to go to North Carolina before I got there in the summer,” Poore recalled. “I had multiple offers from places like Ole Miss, Tennessee and a lot of big schools, but Appy St. was much like the mountains here in east Tennessee. I really loved it because it’s just a really good program that’s been built up for years.”
Brown went on to eventually win a national championship at the University of Texas while Poore’s coach, Sparky Woods, later left Appalachian St. to take the head coaching position at the University of South Carolina.
But racing is now the activity that holds Terry Poore’s attention.
“It’s been a blessing and a curse. It’s my passion. I love it and I’d always wanted to do it, and now I’m getting to live my dream out and do so in a way that I can afford it.”
Terry Poore celebrates a win with friends and crew.
