Elmer John Bergstrom and his unique Indian Model O on the boards of the Tacoma Speedway during his summer of long-distance record attempts in 1918.
In a recent article, The Grind of a Speeding Phantom, we looked into the 24-Hour distance record set by Wells Bennett on Tacoma's board track speedway in 1922. Bennett's accomplishment of riding 1,562 miles that day onboard his Henderson DeLuxe 4 cylinder took tremendous stamina and grit. Still, Bennett was, after all, an iron-assed veteran racer and a well-paid professional. This week's article takes us back to the timbers of the Tacoma Speedway once again for yet another 24-hour record attempt made by a very different man on a very different machine back in 1918.
Elmer John Bergstrom was not a professional motorcycle racer, the son of Swedish immigrants; Bergstrom was a sales clerk and office worker in Tacoma. He loved to ride whenever his schedule and his lovely wife Albena would allow. Still, there appear to be no other mentions of Bergstrom participating in any endurance runs, track races, or record attempts other than those made throughout 1918. Elmer Bergstrom was no DeRosier, Parkhurst, or Burns. He was simply an enthusiast, but the same spirit and grit that flowed through the veins of those pioneering professionals stirred inside Bergstrom in the Spring of '18.
Bergstrom was his mid-twenties, a bicycle dealer in Tacoma, and found that selling Miami and Merkel machines as he could come by them proved a lucrative addition to his shop. With the war on in Europe and the proliferation of Henry Ford's affordable Model T, motorcycle manufacturers began introducing smaller and more budget-friendly lightweight machines like the Cleveland 2-Stroke, Miami Power Bicycle, Merkel Motor Wheel, and the Indian Model K Featherweight in hopes of broadening their market share and attracting younger or more timid riders. Bergstrom saw an opportunity in the emerging new class of ultralight machines. In hopes of capturing a younger crowd, he set up a shop near Lincoln High School and offered a selection of budget-friendly ultralights. He was not alone in his speculation on the new breed of light motorcycles, his friend and fellow motorcycle enthusiast George Austin also saw an opportunity in the new lightweight machines.
Austin owned a Thor dealership in Seattle and had acquired the contract to be the new Cleveland distributor in the state for 1918. Convinced that he could turn 1,000 miles in 24 hours onboard one of these new ultralights, and being a successful endurance rider, Austin devised a 32-mile looping road course between Seattle and Everett, WA, and set off on November 21, 1917, to give it a go. The Cleveland Motorcycle Manufacturing Company in Ohio made the machine he selected for the effort, a 13ci 2-Stroke single cylinder. The conditions for his run were terrible, as was the state of the roads at the time. A rainstorm disabled his dry battery-powered spotlights leaving him to run the majority of the night in the dark, finding more difficulty as a thick fog set in after the evening's rain. He persisted, squeezing every bit from the little Cleveland through the night, with near-zero visibility. After the 24 hours were up, Austin only managed to roll over 542.4 miles at a disappointing average speed of 25 mph. Austin's attempt was enough to land him the world's record for distance on an ultralight machine given the class's newness, but he remained unsatisfied, convinced that the 1,000-mile mark was possible.
Down in Tacoma, the record caught the attention of Ray E. Day, the local Indian dealer and another friend of Elmer Bergstrom. Mr. Day believed that the latest Indian lightweight machine, the Model O, would be just the machine for the job, and he hoped that the attention would certainly help boost sales of the new model. Indian's Model O was the company's second attempt at a lightweight machine, after failing to generate much interest in 1916 with the 2-stroke Featherweight Model K. The Model O would be Indian's first side-valve machine, the preliminary project of Charles B. Franklin, the father of Indian's eventual and iconic powerplus platform who was brought on board in 1916. The Model O was a transverse 4-stroke side-valve twin coming in at a whopping 15.68 cubic inches. Mr. Day also had connections with the people at Tacoma's 2-mile board track superspeedway and felt that the controlled environment would provide the best shot at a record, even if the tracks' timbers had seen better days. With high hopes in this new machine, access to an appropriate venue, and boosted sales in mind, Mr. Day assembled his team. He recruited George Austin for his experience and mechanical acumen, but at six feet tall and 200 pounds, Austin's stature presented a challenge in and of itself onboard an ultralight. So Mr. Day then reached out to his friend Elmer Bergstrom for his smaller, lighter stance, as well as his willingness to submit to the grind needed for the record.
Local photographer and journalist Frank Richardson Pierce, who had covered Austin's run in Seattle, was brought into the mix to document Bergstrom's attempt. Another dealer friend, Mr. W. H. Williams of the Excelsior Henderson shop in Tacoma, acted as the official keeping a tight watch on every lap through the night. On May 23, 1918, the crew and a handful of helping hands arrived at the Tacoma Speedway to see what Bergstrom and the new Indian could do. The Model O was completely stock except for running the previous year's carburetor, a battery, a pair of spotlights for the night leg, and a set of fiberglass wheel covers to decrease drag. Bergstrom rolled over the line at 5:01 pm a quickly set a pace of just over 50 mph. Running was flawless, as was Bergstrom's riding, stopping only to add more layers, take coffee, fill up on gas and oil, and slip on a pair of bearskin gauntlets as the temperature began to drop into the evening.
As the night came, the difficulties began, first with a thick Puget Sound fog covering the track, followed by a heavy frost covering the boards and making the running exceptionally challenging. Bergstrom kept humming along, though, as Mr. Williams counted the distance and time with each lap. Ray Day and George Austin supplied what assistance, relief, and encouragement they could on the stops as the remainder of the crew counted sheep by the fire. The sun rose, chasing away the fog and frost, but around 10 am, the team noticed Bergstrom making some peculiar noises and hand signals as he passed lap after lap. It wasn't until finally, with his hands up like horns and a loud "mooooo" as he passed by the pits, that the crew realized what he was trying to say. At the time, a herd of cattle was kept in the Tacoma Speedway's infield, along with a handful of horses and a single mule. A half-dozen cows had somehow made their way out of the fencing and were wandering onto the track on the back turns.
They were quickly wrangled, and by just after lunch, Bergstrom rolled over his 624th mile, breaking Austin's standing record with plenty of time on the clock left for the 1,000-mile mark. Unfortunately, after 20 hours of riding, surviving the bitter cold, frost, fog, and livestock, Bergstrom's troubles continued to hamper his run. While on the back straight, the little Indian's exhaust came loose, the flames exiting the port setting fire to the oil residue on the bike. Bergstrom was off the machine in a flash and used the pillow strapped to the top of the tank to beat the fire back down. Back on board and with the manifold resecured, he made the remainder of the miles against and increasing wind, catching his wheel discs, slowing his times even further, and wearing down an already exhausted man. At 5:01, he rolled his final mile, making only 799 miles in the 24 hours. Bergstrom and the team had set a new record but had fallen short again of Austin's 1,000-mile goal, so they resolved to give it another go, convinced it was within reach.
Their next attempt was called off due to weather, followed by another that progressed to the 543-mile mark before a stuck valve forced the crew to call it off. By August, the looming inevitability of conscription hung over Austin; Ray Day had already found himself drafted into the war effort though he remained at nearby Fort Lewis for the time being. Bergstrom feared that if he didn't accomplish the 1,000-mile mark, the opportunity would soon be lost. So, on August 29, 1918, the team assembled once again at the speedway and set off with the little Indian "Model Nothing," a nickname it had already garnered as an underpowered machine with little favor in the industry.
From the start of their fourth attempt, the running had gone smoothly, the only issue being the batteries that powered his spotlights ran out before the sun came up, leaving him to run the last few hours by moonlight. Bergstrom's wife Albena was on hand, bringing hot coffee, chicken soup, and fried chicken much to the delight of the crew and spectators that had gathered. By 8 am his average speed was only 46 mph, but the trouble-free and consistent run had already put him past 500 miles covered with still 12 hours to go. Just past 2 o'clock, Bergstrom beat his standing record. At 6 pm, to the cheers and excitement of Ray Day, George Austin, and the small group in the pits, Elmer Bergstrom rolled over his final mile, having run 1,106 cow-free miles onboard a 15ci ultralight Indian Model O in 24 hours.
Six years later, at the same venue, Wells Bennett would surpass Bergstrom's distance by nearly 500 miles in the allotted time, but with 3-times the engine and no cows to dodge or fires to put out. It had taken the better part of a year, but Bergstrom had finally made his mark. He is said to have run over 3,000 miles on the speedway that summer, with those many miles being the only experience he had riding ultralight machines up until that point. The effort landed him the record, some bragging rights, and no doubt a few extra ultralight sales, but the new class machines didn't catch on as the industry had hoped and didn't last much past the time it had taken to make the record. Just as the ultralight class faded from the marketplace, so too did Elmer Bergstrom's name from the papers.
The Indian Model O, along with many of the other ultralights on the market, never got much traction, Indian discontinuing the machine in 1919. The same year Harley-Davidson introduced their similarly devised Model W Sport, only slightly more popular, remaining on the market for another couple of years. Elmer Bergstrom moved on from the bicycle and motorcycle business, opening up a butcher shop in 1920, which eventually led to a position within the Hormel Foods in Seattle, until his retirement in Gig Harbor, Washington, where he died on November 21, 1970. This photo of Bergstrom is one of the many found all too often floating around the internet blogs, groups, and forums with little if any information. His accomplishment is an easily misplaced footnote in the Golden Age of American motorcycle racing's grand history. Still, his passion for these machines, along with the determination it took to run those many uncomfortable miles back in 1918, is what the very spirit of motorcycling is made of.