When this brief autobiography of Joe Wolters appeared in the spring of 1920, the racing season had already begun under tragic circumstances for Wolters and the Excelsior factory team. On January 2, teammate Bob Perry was killed while running at full clip during qualifying at Los Angeles’ Ascot Park for the upcoming 100-Mile National, crashing aboard the formidable overhead-cam Excelsior he had helped develop.
For Wolters, Perry’s accident came late in a career that had already spanned nearly the entire history of American motorcycle racing, Wolters himself having survived multiple crashes that could have easily ended the same as Perry’s, and though he was back in the saddle one week later, retirement was drawing closer to focus. “Farmer Joe,” as he was known, was one of the sport’s founding fathers; prolific, decorated and profoundly influential during an era when motorcycle competition evolved from improvised local contests to the sensational board track motordromes, massive wooden speedways and increasingly sophisticated factory racing programs.
One hundred and ten years ago, in 1916, as America celebrated its 140th Anniversary, Harley-Davidson was busy building momentum as one of the world’s best motorcycle brands. Leading the charge was the Bar and Shield’s first racing star, Leslie “Red” Parkhurst, who spent the day sending shivers through the grandstands in Brooklyn, New York, with his blistering speed. Running one of Harley-Davidson’s first overhead-valve factory racing machines, Parkhurst thrilled the crowd of 18,000 at speeds well in excess of 90 mph at the massive 2-mile-long board track super speedway at Sheepshead Bay. His efforts earned him both the 2-mile FAM National Championship and the title in the 100-mile race and set a new 50-mile record.
The Enthusiast Girl, Miss Vivian Bales, Harley-Davidson’s eternally lovely, fearless, and unwavering first lady was a pioneer American adventurer who defied the conventions of the Roaring Twenties and defined for herself and a century of riders since what it meant to be a woman and motorcyclist. In the Summer of 1929, Bales clocked over 5,000 miles alone on a Harley-Davidson Model D, the first in Milwaukee’s famed “45” lineage. Without as much as a single flat tire, Bales and her trusty Model D triumphed, both over the miles that lay behind her as well as the conventions that girls simply shouldn’t ride motorcycles. Throughout her 78-day, 5,000+ mile adventure covering 14 states, the White House in Washington D.C., and a bit Canada, Bales blazed a trail for all future female motorcyclists to become a good will ambassador for enthusiasts everywhere. She had shaken the hands of more mayors than she could count, met the President of the United States, the founders of the company she had chased her dream onboard, and charmed the hearts of thousands along the way.
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.
