Morty Graves and NSU

19 year old Morty Graves and 29 year old Arthur Mitchell with their factory NSU racers at the Los Angeles Coliseum, America's first board track motordrome in early Spring, 1909. 

One of my absolute favorite pioneer American motorcycle racers, Morty Graves was often times the man to beat in the earliest days of professional competition. With his refined natural skill and hollywood charm, Graves competing for the best manufacturers, and the young man they called “Millionaire Morty” piloted many of what would become the most rare and iconic racing motorcycles in the world.

Graves initially began riding motorcycles in 1906 and almost immediately began racing stock machines. In 1907 he acquired a factory tuned Indian racer from Hedstrom's shop, and though he would sport a number of different manufacturer’s jerseys throughout his career, Indian seems to have been his most favored. He quickly became one of the regulars at Los Angles’ Agriculture Park, the white-hot nucleus of American motorcycle racing just before the big bang of racings golden age. Naturally, when famed cycle champ and velodrome builder Jack Prince came to LA in early 1909 to construct America’s first board track motordrome, Graves was assured a spot on the line.

German motorcycle manufacturer NSU was a relatively new import in the US market at the time. Billed as the Mercedes of motorcycles, the machines were highly engineered and powerful, though cumbersome, and the brass at NSU was eager to capitalize on victory on American tracks. Having been racing motorcycles since 1905 following a successful cycle racing career, Arthur Mitchell was a veteran rider by 1909 and a forefather of the LA racing scene. Mitchell had secured a contract in late 1908 to ride for NSU, Graves was brought onboard shortly thereafter and the two awaited delivery of their new racing machines from the German company for the start of the 1909 season.

Prince’s grand experiment, the Los Angeles Coliseum was a 2/7-mile wooden oval with 48 degree banking on each end, it was America’s first motordrome. In late February, early March 1909 Mitchell and Graves received their new 61ci, glowing white NSU racers. The first practice session at the newly completed Los Angeles Coliseum was held in early March and the pair put a lump in the throats of the top riders as they hit unofficial record speeds upwards of 75 mph. America’s first professional racers Paul “Daredevil” Derkum, Jake DeRosier, Fred Huyck, and Charlie Balke watched the cumbersome NSU team rocket around the new board track in amazement. On March 14, 1909 the Coliseum opened its gates to the public and the age of the American motordrome began.

Having a large 3.5" belt drive assembly, with the pulley reportedly measuring over 5 inches wide, the NSU provided the wily young Graves an unique advantage. In his own words, Graves described how the abnormally wide pulley allowed him to enter into the Coliseum's banked corners at nearly full clip, and at a much steeper angle than other riders could. When most would slide out the NSU’s pulley would catch the track and hold the weight in the turn, allowing Graves and the top heavy machine to take corners at speeds over 70 mph as he laid the bike low onto its pulley. As a result, the 19 year old Graves was a crowd favorite, consistently landing somewhere on the podium, including a few first place finishes, and setting a handful of world’s records onboard his bulky but fast NSU.

This photo comes from that very moment in time, when a 19 year old hot shot and his veteran mentor just so happened to be standing on the very spot where it all began. Morty Graves, a young man with a beastly machine established himself in the dayS following this photograph in the Spring of 1909 on a thrilling new track that allowed men to take flight on two wheels. Graves would move on from his contract with NSU by May of 1909 to ride for the premier motorcycle racing team in the world, Indian Motocycles, but it was his antics onboard the NSU at America’s first motordrome that earned him his place amongst the founders of America motorcycle racing.

A Brief History of Speed: Part V

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The early years of the roaring twenties represent the first high water mark in professional motorcycle racing. It was a period when sophisticated machines were unleashed by men of true and unrelenting grit inside colossal stadiums. The later half of the decade saw the waters of the sport recede, taking with it the days of the large-displacement behemoths, the fiercely competitive factory teams, the national stars, and the splendor of the board track speedway. A movement towards smaller displacement machines, which began with blanked off twins in 1922 eventually led to the development of single cylinder racers and a focus on 1/2 mile dirt track competition.

By the end of the 1920‘s the AMA granted some smaller displacement classes National Championship titles including 21, 30.50, and 45 c.i. engines. Both Indian and Excelsior were quick to develop engines within specifications, resulting in a considerably larger presence in the winners circle at the decade’s end. Simultaneously, hill climb competitions, which dated back to Southern California in the mid-teens had matured throughout the 1920‘s. By 1930 the thrilling spectacle of men onboard odd mutant marvels, wrapped in chains and rocketing up steep walls of earth had become the most popular sport in the country. In 1931 the AMA sanctioned separate championship hill climbs on each coast for the first time, ushering in the golden age of the hill climb. With Class A racing rapidly wilting Harley-Davidson and Indian both decided to focus their attention on the grand ascent, each producing highly-specialized hill climb machines. Excelsior had shifted more factory attention towards hill climbs in the early 1920‘s, but the Chicago based manufacturer, one of America’s big three fell victim to the crash and ceased production in September, 1931.

The new developments of the 1930‘s sparked a cultural shift in racing from a national level to a more regional focus. Local 1/2 mile races and larger dirt speedways like the Springfield Mile, Langhorne, and Laconia rose in popularity while regional heroes took the place of national superstars. As the decade drew to a close the once mighty board tracks were long gone and Europeans held most of the speed records. As it did in nearly every aspect of American life, the Depression Era brought about an unprecedented amount of change within the motorcycle industry and the sport of racing. The decade was essentially the death rattle of Class A competition, but the extreme circumstances also laid the foundation for what would arguably become the most significant and beloved form of racing in the country’s history, one which reignited the intense rivalry between America’s most iconic motorcycle brands, AMA Dirt Track Class C.

Indian and Excelsior already had 45 c.i. platforms as well as specialized hill climb bikes by the late 1920‘s, once again Harley-Davidson arrived late to the race. Their response however debuted in 1929, the purebred 750cc OHV DAH hill climb machine. With its elongated braced frame, small tanks, and distinctive trailing fork linkage the DAH was a fiercely competitive machine and became one of the most rare and highly prized motorcycles that the company ever produced. One of roughly 25 ever produced between 1929 and 1933, the single down tube frame identifies this DAH as an earlier model.

A Brief History of Speed: Part IV

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In the years prior to WWI American motorcycle racing had grown from low speed matches on local horse tracks to unrestrained, factory supported, death-defying speed blitzes across motordromes, flat tracks, and super speedways. With Harley-Davidson entering the sport in 1914, the two major competing brands Indian and Excelsior found themselves in a three way battle against a well funded adversary. Local dirt flat tracks continued to rise in popularity and the Dodge City 300 became the sport’s premier race, but as the gates of America’s infamous motordromes closed a new breed of track emerged. Inspired by the success of the large dirt super speedways in Indianapolis, Atlanta, and Dodge City, Jack Prince’s latest board tracks expanded the idea of the motordrome to the scale of the speedway in efforts to accommodate increasingly popular automobile races. Prince had experimented with the idea in 1910 with the 1 mile Los Angeles Motordrome at Playa Del Rey, and once more at the 1/2 mile track in Elmhurst, CA the following year. However, these new multi-mile long, wide, wooden ovals, with their flat straightaways and highly-banked turns would be mammoth construction efforts consisting of board feet of lumber numbering in the millions and hundreds of tons of nails. In June 1915 fans poured into Chicago’s massive new 2 mile wooden oval at Speedway Park, America’s first board track speedway. Similar tracks followed in Tacoma, Omaha, Des Moines, and Sheepshead Bay in 1915 alone, 17 more were completed by 1928. In 1916 professional motorcycle racing was suspended because of WWI, and many of the country’s top competitors enlisted for duty. The FAM, America’s sanctioning body since 1903 dissolved and a new organization, the Motorcyclists & Allied Trades Association (M&ATA) took its place in 1919, eventually becoming the American Motorcycle Association (AMA) in 1924. Racing returned that same year with a season bookended by 2 spectacular 200 mile races in LA’s Ascot Park and Marion, IN, both of which were dominated by Harley’s reassembled factory team. In the years to come thoroughbred machines, world class venues, and factory teams overflowing with superstars made for some of the most ferocious and exhilarating racing the country had ever seen as the battle between Harley-Davidson and Indian intensified. These were the years of Harley-Davidson’s fabled Wrecking Crew, a factory team stacked with legends who defined the quintessentially American brand. However, the team itself was only together for three years before Harley-Davidson pulled the plug on their racing program in 1922. A few retired, some signed with other teams, and a handful continued racing Harley’s either under special contract or onboard machines that they purchased after the 1921 season. At first the prohibition era was a time of purebred, Class A competition in which fearless men consistently pushed what was thought possible on two wheels. However, the 1920’s also signified the end of the first major era in American motorcycle racing as the decade ended with smaller engines, abandoned tracks, and fewer heroes. By the stock market crash of 1929, in desperate need of change, the industry pushed forward with innovation in technology, design, and style while the sport of professional racing was reborn with the development of a more inclusive class of racing.

In this photo comes from the high water mark of America's first great era of motorcycling. Here, racers exit a corner of the 1.25 mile long Beverly Hills Speedway during the inaugural motorcycle races held on April 24, 1921. Speeds exceeded 100 mph averages throughout the day with Harley-Davidson’s Otto Walker and Jim Davis each taking a first place finish. Indian’s Albert “Shrimp” Burns took the other two wins despite a nasty crash during the second race. Seen here from front to back are #2 Ray Weishaar, #1 Otto Walker, #5 Fred Ludlow, #3 Jim Davis, #4 Ralph Hepburn, and #15 Curly Fredricks.

Happy Independence Day

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Cutting it close with all of the festivities this weekend, but I wanted to throw out some love for you guys and this lovely country we get to call home. Happy Independence Day Folks!

A century ago today, July 4th, 1916, Harley-Davidson’s original racing star, Leslie “Red” Parkhurst took one of the factory’s first 8-Valve racers to speeds well in excess of 90 mph at the massive 2-mile long board track super speedway at Sheepshead Bay, winning both the 2-mile FAM National Championship, 100-mile race, and setting a new record for 50 miles. Legend goes that the lanky 6 foot 4 inch Red, who was so named after his fiery hair color began racing ponies against local Native American kids when he was a boy in South Dakota before throwing his long leg over a motorcycle in 1909 at just 13 years old. Harley brought him onboard in 1914 just as the Motor Co. had begun experimenting with a factory racing program. By the time Red let lose on the boards at Sheepshead Bay two years later he had become one of the most beloved racers in the country and one of the cornerstones of a new and dominant Harley-Davidson racing team. 

On Independence Day, 1916, Parkhurst rode one of Bill Ottaway’s latest creations, a first iteration of the mighty Harley 8-Valve racers which Parkhurst himself helped debut a few weeks prior in Detroit. With the kinks worked out from those first runs, Red quickly claimed the 2-mile National Championship in front of a crowd of over 18,000, making the single lap around the wooden oval in 1 minute, 19 seconds, a speed of 91 mph. When it was time for the race of the day, a 100-mile, 50 lap, all out battle the crowd stood on their toes as Red blasted around the track. Only 20 miles in he had already lapped the field, and by the 50th mile he had opened up a 4 mile lead, having lapped the field at least twice. It was also on the 50th mile that he broke the existing record set by teammate Harry “Otto” Walker by 1 minute, 40 seconds. Reports say that if weren’t for an unexpected pit to replace a blown plug on the 66th mile he would have knocked out the 100-mile records as well, but none the less he crossed the finish line in just over 68 minutes, an average speed of 88 mph, on wood strips, with a leather cap and a wool sweater, 100 years ago today. 

Though Red was the star of the day, Harley-Davidson was the big finisher, placing 5 out of 6 top positions at Sheepshead Bay. Harley had also fielded an 8-Valve equipped team that same day at the annual Dodge City 300, with Irving Janke winning the prestigious event and Ray Weishaar taking 3rd place, each on a new factory 8-Valve. It was a grand Independence Day indeed.