A popular early form of motorsport was the hill climb, which in its original form dates back to the very introduction of the automobile and motorcycle.However, these early hill climbs were not the outlandish grudge matches with nearly vertical slants like the ones America fell in love with in the 1920’s and 30’s. The earlier bouts were timed ascents up inclined local roads throughout the country and were only slightly more civilized. This photo comes from one such early hill climb, an event staged in the palisades of New Jersey in the fall of 1909...
By this day 100 years ago nearly half of humanity had been tearing itself apart across Europe for nearly 2 years, trapped in the desolation of the world’s first global conflict, the war to end all wars. Death had kept busy ushering millions near the tranquil waters of the Marne and the Somme, and from the once peaceful pastures at Ypres and Verdun to their doom, but on this day, April 9, 1917, he extended his necrosed arm across the Atlantic and drew the United States into the carnage.
It was one hundred years ago this week that a reluctant United States finally resolved to enter into the horrifying bog of World War I, the gruesome mechanical death machine. On April 2nd, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson addressed congress citing that America was “but one of the champions of the rights of mankind,” and that “The world must be made safe for democracy.” On April 6th, Congress declared war against Germany and America thrust itself forward into “the war to end all wars,” a terrible new pitch of blood letting across Europe that would tear from humanity nearly 40 million casualties.
On December 30, 1912, on the wide boards of the Playa Del Rey board track in Los Angeles, a local Class B racer named Lee I. Humiston mounted his new 61ci Excelsior twin and set off for the day’s speed trails. Like a lightning bolt of grey and red, Humiston and his Excelsior shot around the massive 1 mile long wooden circle at Playa, the largest wooden track of its time which had a shallow banking of only 20 degrees, and set a new mile record of 36 seconds flat. The occasion was a spectacular moment in American motorcycle history and all who were present knew it, as it marked the first time that a man and a motorcycle had ever reached the 100 mph mark.
