It was his distinctive posture, the way his long back arched high above his shoulders when he tucked in on Harley-Davidson, that earned him the nickname "Camelback." Harry Otto Walker was and will forever be one of America's most popular and recognizable motorcycle racers for a good reason. He was one of the first racers handpicked by Harley-Davidson's Bill Ottaway in 1914 as he began forming the Motor Co.'s first factory racing program. It was Walker who won the first official factory victory at the International Grand Prize 300-Mile Road Race in Venice on April 11th, 1915.
In a recent article, The Grind of a Speeding Phantom, we looked into the 24-Hour distance record set by Wells Bennett on Tacoma's board track speedway in 1922. Bennett's accomplishment of riding 1,562 miles that day onboard his Henderson DeLuxe 4 cylinder took tremendous stamina and grit. Still, Bennett was, after all, an iron-assed veteran racer and a well-paid professional. This week's article takes us back to the timbers of the Tacoma Speedway once again for yet another 24-hour record attempt made by a very different man on a very different machine back in 1918.
The three Devil Dogs pose onboard one of the Japanese produced Harley-Davidson VL models, a remnant of the Japanese/Harley licensing deal brokered during the dire days following the crash in 1929. Tens of thousands of these sturdy side-valve Milwaukee v-twins were produced in the 1930’s by the Sankyo Company under licensed blueprints, tooling, and branding sold to them by Harley-Davidson. Following a falling out between the two companies in 1936 however, the machines were rebranded as Rikuo and sold without license through the outbreak of WWII, and again for a period following the war. There were also a number of VL clones produced in those years, many which incorporated this more industrial utility-trike chassis by the Aikuo, Toko Kogyo, SSD, and Kurogane companies.
The following is an original account Frank Richardson Pierce, the official referee in charge of the 24-Hour Record set by Wells Bennett on Memorial Day, 1922 as printed originally in Motorcycling and Bicycling magazine. On May 30-31, 1922, Bennett traveled a record of 1,562.54 miles in a 24 hour period at the 2 mile long board track speedway in Tacoma Washington onboard his stock Henderson DeLuxe 4 cylinder motorcycle. His 24-hour record set in Tacoma would stand unbroken for 15 years. Later in 1922 Bennett piloted the very same Henderson DeLuxe to a new record on the 1,650 mile Canada to Mexico Three Flag Dash, making the trip in 43 hours that September. The very next month, in October 1922, Bennett again rode his trusty Henderson 4 across the country, covering the 3,400 mile trip from Los Angeles to New York in a new record time of 6 days, 15 hours, and 13 minutes. The thousands of miles Bennett covered onboard this Henderson DeLuxe in 1922 alone earned him his place as one of the greatest cross country motorcyclists of all time.
