A Brief History of Speed: Part III

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After only a year in the professional racing, the triumphant Harley-Davidson factory team poses onboard their magnificent 11KR’s after a landslide victory at the 1915 Dodge City 300, the preeminent motorcycle race at the time. Left to Right are 1st place finisher Otto Walker, 2nd Harry Crandall, 4th Joe Wolters, 5th Leslie “Red” Parkhurst, 6th Alva Stratton, and 7th Ralph Cooper.

The white-hot excitement of the American motordrome simply could not sustain and in September, 1914 the last board of the final circular motordrome was nailed in place in Omaha, Nebraska. Racing however, continued to flourish. The small horse tracks that first gave birth to motorcycle racing continued to harbor those bent on speed and victory, evolving into purpose built dirt flat tracks in the mid-teens. These dusty ovals, typically 1/2 to 1 mile in length began popping up at local and state fairgrounds across the country, becoming a staple of motorcycle and automobile racing well into the modern era. The popular endurance and reliability runs of the first decade alsotransformed into flat out, top speed, no-holds-barred endurance races that spanned hundreds of miles either on public road courses like in Savannah and Birmingham, or on the few large speedways like Atlanta, Indianapolis, and Dodge City. This was a period of large scale transition as the increasingly high level of competition in professional racing contributed to an atrophy of American motorcycle manufacturers, leaving those who faired well on the track like Merkel, Thor, Excelsior, and the mighty Indian, king of the motordrome to enjoy a prominent status in the marketplace. Harley-Davidson had built their empire thus far away from the racetrack, but in this era of intensified competition the Milwaukee based motorcycle company turned an interested eye towards racing. Building a factory racing program would require specialized skills so in 1913 Harley brought onboard Bill Ottatway, a talented engineer and tuner from Thor who quickly began developing a racing platform using Harley’s 1914 Model 10 production twin. Initially designated the 11K series, Ottaway began testing his new racers over the course of the 1914 season with a handful of unofficial competitors. After a mediocre debut at the 1914 Dodge City 300 Ottaway’s machine began to hold its own, capturing a string of regional wins and national victories in Phoenix and Birmingham. Finally, on Thanksgiving Day, 1914, Harley-Davidson fielded their first factory racing team at the Savannah 300 road race and rider Irving Janke placed 3rd. The team expanded for the 1915 racing season, the machines were further refined, and Harley started the season strong with 1st and 2nd place finishes at the Venice 300 on April 4th. By the time of the 1915 Dodge City 300, just one year after the company’s initial tests began, the Harley-Davidson factory team made a clean sweep of 1st through 7th places, the only exception being Excelsior’s Carl Goudy in 3rd. The motordrome era was over, but as the Golden Age of racing matured a new force emerged, one of American motorcycle racings greatest legacies, the Harley-Davidson factory team.

Albin K. Longren, 1908 Indian

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American aviation pioneer Albin Kasper Longren onboard what appears to be a 1907-08 Indian single as he cruises the downtown streets of Clay Center, KS. A common attribute amongst America’s earliest birdmen, Longren spent his early years behind the counter of a local hardware store, fidgeting with the mechanics of bicycles, automobiles, and motorcycles in his spare time. He first took to the skies on September 2, 1911, in a biplane of his own design, designing, manufacturing, and selling a variety of different aircraft shortly thereafter. A true daredevil, Longren funded his aviation company in those early years with revenues made performing aviation stunt shows and exhibitions across the country as one of the country’s earliest Barnstormers. His entrepreneurial aspirations were interrupted during America’s involvement with WWI and Longren became the chief inspector in the country's first military aviation research program. The program, based at McCook Field in Dayton, OH, hosted many of the country’s most talented aviators as well as a handful of newly enlisted professional motorcycle racers like the legendary Maldwyn Jones. After the war ended Longren returned to his airplane manufacturing company, and though it wouldn’t make it past the mid-1920’s, Longren continued to be an innovative force in the American aviation industry, claiming dozens of foundational patents, and lending his talents to aeronautics firms like Luscombe and Cessna. 

A Brief History of Speed: Part II

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The first decade of the American motorcycle was nothing short of sensational. Hundreds of manufacturers turned out thousands of increasingly capable machines. In a time when automobiles were still prohibitively expensive, motorcycles offered people of every status a modern mode of transportation. Local clubs sprung up across the country as did numerous trade publications describing the wide variety of motorcycling life. Racing had become one of the most popular sports in the country and having reached a national level, the first racing stars began to emerge along with the first factory teams. Horse tracks remained an accessible venue for competitors and spectators alike, but hill climbs and multi-day endurance runs allowed manufacturers a chance to truly test their machines. Motorcycle exhibitions were still a popular featured event on the 1/8th mile velodromes, but the machines grew too powerful for these small wooden tracks resulting in the emergence of a new type of venue that would take the country by storm... the American Motordrome. These bygone cathedrals of frenzied triumph and recurrent tragedy produced a new breed of professional, restless gentlemen of a newly dawned 20th century who put their lives on the line every week to the delight of the enraptured masses. The brainchild of British high-wheel cycle champion John Shillington Prince, 26 stadium motordromes were built across America between 1909 and 1914, the first of which, the Los Angeles Coliseum opened in March, 1909. Generally 1/4 mile long circles with banking ranging from a soft 20 degrees to a nearly vertical 62 degrees, the tracks featured grandstand seating for up to 10,000 along the rim and were typically bathed in electric light as night races were a favored spectacle. For those few daring enough to pilot their raw and untethered machines around these steeply banked, and often times roughly constructed board tracks a prosperous life awaited, one full of adrenaline, accolades, and affluence. Sadly though not all would cross the finish line and dozens of young men, most with with young families met a gruesome fate inside these 20th century coliseums. World War I hastened the inevitable end to what had been the intense and tumultuous five year boom of the American Motordrome. The inherent danger of increasingly capable machines, frequent weather disruptions, exceedingly high maintenance costs, and an undercurrent of distaste for the tragic gore made for the saucer’s abbreviated life span. Though the motordrome moniker would live on in the larger wooden speedways and smaller traveling Wall of Death thrill shows that were to come, the circular wooden bowls that spawned the name, captivated a nation, and helped foster a new American industry began disappearing by 1915, and were officially banned in 1919.

Pioneer board track racers Morty Graves and Al Ward neck and neck on the 48 degree banked turns of the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1910. The LA Coliseum was America’s first board track motordrome built by Jack Prince in the Spring of 1909 after scaling up his initial experiment of a slightly larger wooden bicycle velodrome track in Clifton, NJ the year prior. An experiment in design, the LA Coliseum was not actually circular but an oval featuring flatter straightaways and banked corners, a design Prince would return to in 1915 with the introduction of his massive multi-mile long board track super speedways. The oval design, a direct adaptation of his wildly successful bicycle velodromes did not translate as well as he had hoped and riders complained that it was difficult to take the increasingly powerful motorcycles to their top speed given the transition in banking. By the end of 1909 however, Prince would travel to Springfield, MA, home of Indian Motocycles to build America's first circular, continuously banked motordrome and the Golden Age of racing had begun.

Happy Father's Day

Cheers to all of the men who lead the way for their little ones, happy fathers day fellas.

Atlanta's own Ted Edwards and his boy Teddy Jr. Throwing some dirt in Piedmont Park, 1948.