Twenty-two year old Wells Bennett onboard an Excelsior 7SC inside the steeply banked timbers of the St. Louis Motordrome, summer, 1914.
The following article came from the typewriter of pioneer motorcycle racer William Wells Bennett, a Kansas native who became a legend in the saddle over a rare three-decade career. In his own words, Wells looked back on how he first got involved in motorcycle racing, providing the mini autobiography for an Excelsior sales brochure in 1920, the company where he spent most of his career.
By 1920, he had become a key figure in American motorcycle racing, having conquered every venue from dirt ovals and board track motordromes to GP road courses and near-vertical hill climbs. As he wrote his article for Excelsior, Wells was transitioning into long-distance racing, city-to-city flag runs, record-setting endurance feats, and alcohol-fueled hillclimbing. He soon opened his own Excelsior-Henderson dealership in Portland, which he ran until the company shuttered its doors in 1931, and he spent the rest of his life as a service representative for the Ford Motor Company.
Wells Bennett is one of the few pioneer motorcycle racers to survive the deadly motordrome era and build a long, highly successful career in racing. After reading the new story, check out past articles on the legendary Wells Bennett, Wells Bennett at Mt. Hood, The Grind of a Speeding Phantom, and the Wells Bennett Archive Icon biography, exclusively at Archive Moto.
How i Got into the racing game
Wells Bennett
I was born in Wichita, Kansas, June 24, 1891 and resided in that city until the age of 21 years. At the age of six I had my first bicycle and as I grew older rode more and more, making trips to neighboring towns and developing a natural tendency to travel and explore the outside world. I usually made these trips alone, because the other boys of my age thought the trips too hard to make. I also did a little bicycle racing and pitted myself against the other boys in stunts and contests on bicycles. I loved the contests and usually held my own with boys much larger and older than myself.
When about eight years of age I saw my first automobile and rode after it curiously on my bicycle. I remember very well how tired I got trying to keep up with it and it didn't get tired like myself and the old family horse did. I thought about how nice it would be to have an engine to push my bicycle around so that I could visit towns that were out of reach on my wheel.
Shortly afterwards I heard about bicycles that had engines on them and were called motorcycles. I did not see the first one until about 1901. The man who was riding it was pushing and pedaling and could not make it run, so after watching him a while, I turned up my nose and rode away on my wheel, deciding that, after all, I would just as soon have my wheel.
The first time that I was really impressed by a motorcycle was when I had ridden my wheel to Newton, Kansas, about 28 miles from home and had to pedal against the wind on the return trip. I was very tired and the riding was very slow, when along came a man on a motorcycle and breezed on past at the speed of about 20 miles an hour, which seemed to me very swift. He was soon out of sight and I decided that motorcycles were a fine thing after all. There were very few motorcycles in our vicinity at that time, about 1902, and I began to watch them closely. I managed to get acquainted with one or two men that owned them and I never passed up an opportunity to clean their motors or run errands for them, or do anything else to get solid with them, hoping that sometime they might allow me to ride their motor.
I finally got the opportunity that I was looking for and I was allowed to ride a motorcycle a mile or two. It was great. After that I got to ride more often. I would sit around in the back of the local motorcycle and bicycle shop and listen to the six or eight riders of the town relate their experiences when they went out 15 or 20 miles from town together. How many chickens they killed and how they fell over some farmer's dog, or spilled in a rut and broke down and slept in a hay stack all night. It all seemed very wonderful to me.
There was a young fellow that came to town from the country about that time and bought out a bicycle shop. He could not ride a bicycle, but he managed to repair them and by his fair dealing and honesty he got a fair business. Someone from the east came to him and gave him the agency for a motorcycle. He did not uncrate the first motorcycle he received until I came. In fact he did not know what to do with it. We were pretty good friends and he knew that I could ride one, so when I came in he asked me if I would uncrate it and get it to go. I was tickled to death to do it. I finally got it running and he wanted me to ride it up and down in front of his store while he looked on proud as could be. He said, “Ride it all over town and let everyone see it and if you sell any I will make it right with you.” I was hardly able to realize my good fortune.
I rode it up to the only other shop where the “gang” held forth and they hurt my pride terribly by giving me the laugh instead of being interested or envious. They called it cement mixer and sundry other hard names which made me very angry. I rode away and avoided them for a while. Then I heard that the select bunch from which I was an outcast was going to have a sand pulling contest, that was to decide which man could ride the farthest into some more or less deep sand before he got stalled or spilled off. The agent for the machine I rode told me to go and get in on the contest. I did, with the result that I won. The select bunch was sore and even let the air out of their tires, unknown to me, but I won anyway. There was several more like that, then a hill climbing contest up an ordinary hill on the country road which we would not notice now at all. I won that. Then a road race about a year later. There were 17 entries and a “fast field.” By this time the first twins had arrived and there were several entered. I wasn't so fast as some, but I rode sand and ruts better than the rest, so I won that.
Up to this time there had never been any race on race tracks between either motorcycles or automobiles, and the select bunch pulled off a race meet on the half mile dirt track at Wichita. Everyone was curious to see how it would look to see motor propelled vehicles race together and there was a large crowd and they liked it. After that there were many more. I always rode and rode for my life, but the race would be over and leave me still running by myself and the bunch never failed to laugh and tease me. I was only about 15 years old and it hurt worse than they tonight. I always cleaned them on the road, hills and sand, but they played with me on the track, but I never lost heart. I figured that some day I would clean up on them and get the laugh. I got so I could ride very good on the track, but never had any speed.
There was one man in the select bunch that never entered into any of the contests and he bought a new machine. I knew about it and a short time after there was to be a race meet to decide who was champion racer of Kansas. I was down-hearted for I wanted very much to be champion and knew I had no chance with that bunch. This particular man was never a close friend to me and I was slightly surprised one day when he came to me and said he wanted to show me something. I went with him and he took me to a shop and uncovered what to me looked like the finest racing motorcycle I could imagine. Small wheels, drop bars and studded racing tires and all stripped down. I stood and devoured it with my eyes. He asked, “How do you like it?” I said, “Gee, it looks great.” He said, “Sit on it.” I thought it a great privilege, as the bunch usually pushed me away from their machines and told me to beat it. I sat on the little racer and was even satisfied to sit on it, let alone riding it. He then sprung the surprise. “How would you like to ride it in the championship race?” I could hardly believe my own ears. “Would I like to ride it? Well I should say so.” I rode it and won the championship and the bunch was sure sore. The race was to be an annual affair, but after I had won it they had a championship race about once a month. My friend always had the motor ready and I always won. Finally he sold the motor and I was afoot. Then the bunch got up another championship race and laughed at me. I wrote to a certain factory with my tale of woe and about a day before the race I got my first factory racer. I cleaned up that bunch for two years.
In the year of 1912 I went on the Kansas short grass tour and took my racer along for a few races along the way. When we arrived at Denver on the way home we all took in the motorcycle races at the board track there. I had never seen a board track before and when I saw a couple of the riders get up on that board wall and go around there at what seemed to me marvelous speed, I thought sure they would all be killed, but nothing happened and I got dizzy watching them go around. I sneaked over to the pits when they came off the track to see if they really were human, and they were, just the same as myself. I talked with one of them for a while to be sure. He had heard of my dirt track riding and respected me and made me feel pretty good.
There was one race on the card of events for singles and I asked if I might enter. I was told “Sure.” I was introduced to the audience as an added entry and as the champion of Kansas. I got a hand and I felt pretty queer. I never had any tryout or practice and it was the first time I ever saw a board track, but I won the race. It was a lucky day for me that I didn't get killed, for, after a few laps in the race, I was so dizzy that I rode cross eyed and didn't know where I was going, but fate was kind to me, for since that time I have learned by experience that it takes a little time to learn to ride a board track and no rider should ever jump into a race without some training and experience. I have seen many a good boy killed just the same way. I got away with it and liked it so well that I gave up dirt tracks and went to Angeles to race on the board track during the winter of 1912. I didn't have much luck in the way of winning, but learned a lot about board track racing and, after that winter, I went east and was very successful on board tracks until the war started, which killed the racing.
I had never had a job before as I had earned a pretty good living by racing and I loved the excitement and sport of it, so when the tracks closed down I thought the world would come to an end sure. I entered the employ of a motorcycle dealer as salesman and demonstrator. In a short time I began to forget about racing as a profession, but could not get away from it entirely, so whenever there was a contest of any kind I was always ready to get in and try to win. I realized though that hill climbs, endurance runs and road records, while requiring skill and endurance, lacks the thrill and excitement of an honest to goodness motorcycle race, which has no equal, and I felt the call of the race tracks very keenly. During the past year I entered several races and it is my intention to enter many more before I die.
Motorcycle racing has drawbacks, however, and it isn't the gravy that it looks like. I have had hundreds of spills. Most of my accidents have been due to tires blowing up and the balance to skids. I have fallen many times at a rate of speed exceeding 90 miles an hour. I fell three times in less than an hour at 90 miles an hour, and won the next race. I was only skinned up a little. Several times I was seriously injured and there was lots of times I lost some skin and picked up a few slivers, then there was a great many times I fell at a terrific rate of speed and didn't get scratch.
The money part is not so good. Sometimes I made good money and accumulated a little roll, but traveling around with a crowd and being a good fellow costs money and then sometimes it is a long time between races. Then, again, you can not be lucky all the time, nor can you win all the time. There is no set rule for winning a race that I ever discovered, and the only rule I ever followed is to get ready first for the race, get a good start and when you see the flag, ride your darndest till you get the checkered flag. After that it is time enough to check up and find out if you can collect or not.
~Wells Bennett, Excelsior Bulletin, April 1920.