Jimmy Maness – Augusta, GA
When it comes to dirt racing résumés, Jimmy Maness’s is hard to beat. Billed as the King of the Southern Dirt Tracks in his motorcycle days, Maness was and is a well-known and successful driver on both two wheels and four. He’s had a great career with over 1,000 cumulative wins over the years.
As a young teen growing up in Alabama, Jimmy Maness became immersed in motorcycle racing while attending races with Mobile’s Triumph dealer, Bill Powell (with his mother’s permission, of course). Maness would ride in the back of Powell’s pickup truck to watch the races. Once he was old enough to get his license, Maness’s mother helped him buy his first motorcycle, a Triumph, from Powell.
Maness, an impressive fabricator starting at a young age, built his first unicycle. Unicycles helped him work on his balance, bettering his motorcycle racing skills.
In 1959, as a teen, Maness raced in his first motorcycle race. It was an enduro race, and Maness’s mentor, James Arrington, helped him throughout the race and won it, with Maness finishing close behind. This was the beginning of a very successful racing career.
Maness took on competing at flat-tracks on his Harley-Davidson Sprint. Although it took a while, he began winning on the 1/2-mile tracks.
After being drafted and serving in Vietnam as a helicopter mechanic, Maness came back to the States ready to race again, thus beginning his full-time career.
Maness was the first to pioneer the trend of colored leathers while racing. His color choice – hot pink – gave him the nickname “Pink Britches” on the tracks. He was even permitted to wear them his first year as a factory rider for Harley-Davidson before he changed to the orange and black colors of the brand.
Harley-Davidson and Maness had a long, prosperous career together, spanning around 10 years. He was known as THE factory rider for Harley-Davidson in the 1970s for the southeast. He was granted a national number – #71 – one of only 100 awarded to racers in the United States.
In 1971, Maness was named East Rider of the Year by Cycle News. Maness’s wins from both sportsman and professional motorcycle racing totaled over 760 races.
Racing was a family affair, with his daughter spending more time sleeping by a motorcycle than in her bed. Part of motorcycle racing meant traveling to several races every week, sometimes up to three different races in various states in a week. They would average about 100-125,000 miles per year as Maness would try to race everywhere he could east of the Mississippi. These tracks ranged from flat-tracks to road courses and everywhere in between, including big-name tracks like Daytona International Speedway, but he loved every track.
In 1979, Maness decided to quit racing. But the itch to return to the sport wouldn’t go away. Gordon Park Speedway piqued his interest in car racing. Against everyone’s thoughts that he wouldn’t be able to drive a stock car successfully after such a long motorcycle racing career, a month later he found and bought his first car – a Walter Newman car.
Maness believed that Newman’s cars and workmanship were the best of the best. He proved himself to be a truly talented racer, running second in his first race and finishing first in the points that same year at Gordon Park Speedway. In keeping with his former color scheme, the Maness #71 displayed and still sports the same orange and black color scheme that brought him such good fortune in racing.
The #71 Walter Newman stock cars went on to win over 350 feature wins and multiple championships: 1990-1995 track champion at Augusta; GA-I-20 Speedway points champion in 1999-2000; 1992 Georgia & Alabama State Champions; 2010 Rebel Yell Champion at Screven; and 2011 Georgia Outlaw Champion at Screven Motor Speedway.
Maness’s last race run was in 2023, with his last race win coming the year prior at Modoc Speedway. Most weekends, Maness can be found at his favorite tracks visiting with his favorite people – the racing community – where he’s met so many good people along the way.
