An all-too-often forgotten founder of the Harley-Davidson racing dynasty, William Fred Brier, poses with his early 10K factory racer in Sioux City, Iowa, September 2, 1914. This remarkable image offers an early glimpse into the formative moments of the Harley-Davidson factory racing program as it took its first steps into the sport of professional racing in late 1914.
An Illinois native, Bill Brier worked as a mechanical engineer at the Aurora Automatic Machine and Tool Company, builders of Thor motorcycles, alongside the company’s chief designer and head of its racing department, William Ottaway. Once released from their production contract with Indian in 1907, Ottaway began working on new engine and motorcycle designs, leveraging the emerging sport of racing to test out his machines. With riders like Shorty Matthews, Paul Derkum, and Bill Brier, Thor began building a reputation in the sport and a growing presence in the industry. Thor, along with Indian, Merkel, and Excelsior, were the brands that established the sport of motorcycle racing in America and created a thriving industry by the early teens.
Pictured here, 26-year-old Paul “Daredevil” Derkum poses on board a slightly modified, first-year production Indian twin to promote the races at Agriculture Park on September 9th, 1907. Already a recognized figure among the earliest class of American motorcycle racers, Derkum stood at the forefront of a sport still defining itself as one of its first true celebrities. Born in Hamilton, Ohio, Derkum arrived in Los Angeles with his family in 1890 and quickly took to bicycle racing, a culture then sweeping the nation. He became a fixture in the city’s growing cycling scene, working alongside his brother in a bicycle shop and spending long hours at the dusty oval of Agricultural Park. There, amid the gamblers and sporting men who crowded the grounds, he likely crossed paths with Will Risden, another young bicycle dealer and racer whose influence, together with Derkum, would shape the course of motorcycling on the West Coast.
On the warm autumn evening of October 21, 1912, beneath the arc lights of the Lake Cliff Motordrome in Dallas, Texas, a stadium full of racing enthusiasts witnessed a miracle on the boards. The country was still in shock as the tragedy at the Valisburg Motordrome occurred only weeks before, on September 8. The horrific and now infamous crash, the precursor of the “murderdrome” moniker, claimed the lives of Indian racing stars Johnny Albright and local Texan hero Eddie Hasha, along with 6 spectators, 5 of whom were teenage boys. In the weeks that followed the Valisburg track shutdown, papers nationwide ran stories about the carnage, and an outcry for improved safety standards prompted organizers and promoters to implement new rules and infrastructure. For the riders, however, racing was their livelihood, and though their friends had just perished, death was just another aspect of their daily lives and most were eager to get back onto the boards.
American racing icon John Charles Seymour was the fearless champion, a young talent recruited onto Indian’s factory program alongside fellow legends like Gene Walker, Hammond Springs, Maldwyn Jones, and Eddie Brinck during the sport’s spectacular revival following WWI. During one of the most dynamic and exciting eras of the sport, Seymour acted as an anchor for the storied Springfield brand and remained one of the few men left at the top of the professional racing game by the late 1920s. Born in Schaffer, just outside Escanaba, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, on October 8, 1898, to Canadian immigrants, Seymour tragically lost his mother and older brother in the summer of 1908 at only 10 years old. Unlike many at the time, he was able to maintain his schooling and took a job working on motorcycles at a local shop as a teenager. By the time of his graduation, Seymour had saved up enough to purchase his own Indian, a brand he would stick with for the next decade.
