Harry Otto Walker, the newly crowned champion of Harley-Davidson’s first factory racing program onboard his factory works racing special, the Model 11K, at the 300-Mile “Coyote Classic” Road Race Championship in Dodge City, Kansas on July 3, 1915.

The tail end of 1914 stirred talk throughout the motorcycling world of a new contender in the racing game, and with Harley-Davidson’s victories in Venice, Oklahoma City, and La Grande as the 1915 season began, the rumblings had been proven true. Still, it was at the 2nd annual Dodge City 300, the Coyote Classic held July 3rd, 1915, that the Motor Company staked its claim as the American motorcycle manufacturer to beat. All of the momentum built by the company over the previous decade and the effort put in by Bill Ottaway to create a world-class racing team the year before came to a crest in a small town in the heart of America as the eyes of the motoring world turned towards Kansas.

The ladies of the Harvey House Hotel with the Harley-Davidson team at Dodge City, 1915.

The Harley-Davidson camp arrived early in the dusty frontier town, taking up residency at the Harvey House Hotel. The men from Milwaukee must have made quite the impression on the young ladies who worked there, as they were seen socializing with Milwaukee’s finest riders in the pits on race day. Having spent the first half of the year perfecting the recipe of his 11K factory racer and recruiting talent from all corners of the country, Ottaway assembled a team of 8 riders, the second largest team to compete at Dodge City.

The Harley-Davidson factory team, Roy Artley, Red Parkhurst, Joe Wolters, and Otto Walker at the 300-Mile Road Racing Championship in Venice, April 3, 1915.

Ottaway’s right-hand man, Leslie “Red” Parkhurst, would lead the fleet of Gray Streaks, joined by Harley’s first champion, Otto Walker, fresh off his heroic win in Venice. Another of the Venice team, recruited back in February, Joe Wolters, the veteran champ who had helped establish Excelsior as a top factory program at the height of the motordrome age, would remain to ride for the Bar and Shield. Ottaway’s earliest ringers from the 1914 testing season, the forerunners of the program, Bill Brier, Alva Stratton, and Ray Weishaar, also joined, rounded out by youngsters Ralph Cooper and Harry Crandall, the latter having just turned 17. With a dream team of the day’s best assembled, each of the 8 Gray Fellows was provided with a fresh, factory-tuned 11K for the event.

Alva Stratton, Irving Janke, and Bill Brier onboard early 11K racers in Fall 1914 configured with rigid forks and auxiliary fuel tanks.

For the grueling 300-mile road race in Dodge City, Ottaway distilled the features found on earlier variations of the platform into a perfect balance between power and weight. At its core was a 61 CI (989cc) pocket-valve V-twin, the mythical Ottoway-tuned M serial narrow-case “fast motor.” Throughout its evolution, the 11K racers featured a variety of configurations, but for the Dodge City race, Ottaway blended the best-suited and race-proven features from earlier iterations. The front fender and floorboards of the earlier road racing machines were gone, as was the auxiliary fuel tank that had been used for long-distance races in Sioux City and Savannah in 1914. The sprung fork from the KR configuration was retained, as was the short-coupled loop frame, dropped bars, and a bobbed rear fender. Several parts were eliminated to save as much weight as possible, the rear brake drum was drilled, and a now iconic new fuel tank made its debut at Dodge City.

With its distinctive rivets protruding from the side panels of the fuel tank, the Dodge City 11Ks introduced a rugged and intimidating new look to the elegant purebred racer; the design was pure function over form. In previous years, neither the modest pace of endurance contests nor the violent yet abrupt runs on the boards of America’s motordromes delivered a strain sustained enough to investigate the overall construction of the machines. However, as the long-distance grand-prix style road races gained popularity beginning in 1913, many motorcycles began suffering fabrication failures, specifically in the solder joints of their fuel tanks. Ottaway solved this by introducing rivets along the seams of the soldered tanks, reinforcing all possible points of failure against the rough terrain and prolonged high speeds of these types of races, an idea soon proven invaluable.

Otto Walker on the Dodge City “Rivet Tank” 11K, July 3, 1915.

On the day of the race, the Harley-Davidson crew arrived to a crowd of over 15,000 spectators, clamoring to see the day’s most notable quicksters unleashed along the dusty 2-mile course. The battleship-gray fleet from Milwaukee lined up for a rolling start just before noon amid a field of 21 other entrants mounted on brands like Flying-Merkel, Indian, Pope, Cyclone, Emblem, and Excelsior. Many former motordrome stars, racing legends like Cleo Pineau, Lee Taylor, Don Klark, Harry Glenn, Morty Graves, the Goudy brothers, and Bob Perry were among the big names the people came in droves to see. Finishing out the lineup, an upstart company from Minneapolis fielded a team comprised of Don Johns, Dave Kinnie, and Bill Goudy to run its cutting-edge bevel-driven overhead-cam V-twin racers, painted canary yellow and known simply as the Cyclone.

The start of the 1915 300-Mile Coyote Classic

As Chairman Donovan’s pacing car pulled away from the rolling start, a crescendo of crackling exhaust bellowed as the riders screwed on their throttles and shot off in a blur of dust. Indian’s Lee Taylor took an early lead but was quickly overtaken by the blistering capability of Don Johns and his Cyclone on the second lap. Johns was a sure bet for those watching the new Cyclone run practice laps after he clocked a remarkable 92 MPH. Despite the Cyclone’s mechanical complexity frequently costing the young company big at the races, 1915 was proving to be the year of the Cyclone. However, after a pit stop, Johns’ lost the lead to Carl Goudy, reclaiming it after many hard-fought miles, only to have his sensational performance cut short due to a cracked fuel tank. The front of the pack was a frenzy of activity, with riders from different brands frequently swapping positions as they duked it out on the dirt of Dodge City.

Cyclone teammate of Don Johns, Dave Kinnie, who also failed to finish the 1915 Dodge City race due to a cracked frame.

Taylor’s Indian, John’s Cyclone, Perry’s Excelsior all took the lead at one point, but by the 100th lap, it was Excelsior’s Carl Goudy on a Big Valve X up front, having set a new dirt track record of 80 miles in one hour’s time. Indian’s Morty Graves and the Motor Company’s star Otto Walker followed closely behind, and as the field began to atrophy, the boys from Milwaukee started stacking up in the front. With blowouts, top-offs, plug swaps, and the occasional on-the-fly adjustment, the pits were buzzing with action throughout, keeping the 16,000 fans entertained with the frequent lead changes and bated breath. Still, by the halfway mark, it was Otto Walker in the lead, who held it for another 100 miles, setting new records at 200 and 300 miles. However, in a nail-biting finale with only 40 miles to go, Walker’s 11K threw a tire, forcing him to pit and allowing Indian’s Morty Graves to pass him for the lead. Walker returned to the race and clawed his way back to the front, but Graves had established too much of an advantage during Walker’s pit stop.

With only 2 miles remaining and 298 behind, the seams on Graves’ Indian cracked, draining the fuel from his tank and costing him the race. Ottaway’s rivets held, however, allowing Walker to assume the lead at the last moment and cross the line, followed by teammates Harry Crandall, Joe Wolters, Red Parkhurst, Alva Stratton, and Ralph Cooper. Harley-Davidson closed out 6 out of the top 7 positions in Dodge City, Excelsior’s Carl Goudy being the odd man out in the winners circle, having held onto a third-place finish. It was said that there were so many dusty gray figures crossing the finish line in 1915 that nobody could tell who was who, a comment that led to the Harley-Davidson racing team wearing brightly colored jerseys like jockeys in the years that followed.

Otto Walker rode 200 miles in 2 hours, 32 minutes, and 58 seconds for an average speed of 78.4 miles per hour, breaking the previous record. On the same day, he broke his own record for the 300-mile race in Venice with a faster time of 3 hours, 5 minutes, and 45 seconds, an average speed of 76.27 miles per hour. The big win also came on his big day, as Otto Walker turned 25 that fateful day in Dodge City. For his triumphant effort, Walker was awarded a $600 prize, about 1/3 more than the average annual salary in those days, and celebrated fiercely as America’s new champ with his picture in print across the country.

The triple century at Dodge City had been an unequaled success, unfolding without injury or tragedy, a breath of fresh air after years of heartbreaking headlines from the days of the motordrome. At the conclusion of the race, Chairman John Donovan of the F.A.M. announced that the next big event for the season would be yet another 300-mile championship, this time at Chicago’s massive new 2-mile board track speedway in Maywood known as Speedway Park. Given that the Chicago Speedway Corporation was staking $5,000 in prize money for the big event, the riders and factories alike were eager for September to arrive.

For the victorious Harley-Davidson crew, its domination at Dodge City redeemed the brand’s poor showing the previous year, reinforcing the momentum it had built since the Savannah race in November of 1914, and established the program as the preeminent name in the sport for the first time since it appeared out of a Milwaukee shed in 1903. Ottaway dispatched his fleet of 11Ks and his gritty jockeys immediately, with Wolters, Brier, Parkhurst, and Walker notching up victories from New York to Tacoma in the following months, until when, in September 1915, the team reassembled at Chicago’s Speedway Park, a massive new type of board track in America that would launch a new grand era of the sport.

A Dynasty Is Born: Harley-Davidson at Dodge City, 1915