Four stars of the Indian racing team John U. Constant, Charlie "Fearless" Balke, Eddie Hasha, and Frank Hart during the races held at Fort Erie, Ontario in July 1911.
Meet Martin Schroeder, here showing off his factory works Harley-Davidson 11k racer after his run in the 1914 Savannah 300 mile endurance race. A Savannah local, Martin acted as Vice President of the Savannah Motorcycle Club and was an avid racer in regional events throughout the teens. As VP of the infamous SMC Martin helped clean up the clubs reputation and aligned them with the FAM, playing a large role in coordinating competitions in the area including the 1913 and 1914 Savannah 300 endurance races. For the 1914 event, Martin was selected by Harley-Davidson to be one of their factory supported competitors, one in a ensemble of eight men who comprised Harley's first ever factory works team. And what would a factory racing team be without factory racing machines?
A remarkable scene captured overlooking the Indian camp, known as the Wigwam during the FAM National Championship in July of 1911. The races were held at the track in Fort Erie, Ontario, just across the river from Buffalo, NY near Niagra Falls. By this time Indian, the manufacturer from Springfield, MA was the team to beat, having been one of the first American companies to support a racing program and engineer machines specifically for racing. Many of America's first racing stars were a part of this legendary team, many of whom can been seen in this photograph. A handful of the 14 riders fielded by Indian are gathered at the team tent with a handful of their hastily unpacked motorcycle crates littering the camp. Those with a keen eye can pick out (from left to right) team members Don Klark, Dan Willis, Eddie Hasha, EG "Cannonball" Baker, John U Constant, Ed Stauder, Charlie Balke, and Frank Hart. Oddly, some riders typically associated with Indian like AG Chapple and Morty Graves joined forces with WJ Teubner and Arthur Mitchell on the Merkel team for the event. Another man known to race for Indian, Lee S. Taylor donned the Emblem jersey, and among the other notable entrants was L. Steinhauser on a rare Bradley. In predictable fashion Indian took the most podium spots that weekend, with Anderson, Hasha, Constant, and Hart each taking the top spots. After the points were tallied it was Indian's Frank Hart (seen standing in beanie and goggles 2nd from the right next to Charlie Balke who is wearing a Goodyear jersey) who took home the Bosch Trophy that weekend.
Many of you have seen this emblematic photograph of four men posing proudly atop their Indian motorcycles on the sands of Ormond Beach, "The Birthplace of Speed" near Daytona in 1909. I am sure far fewer of you have caught a glimpse of this shot however, of one of the machine's after going down on that gritty surface at top speed. The bike belonged to one of the four Indian riders, Birmingham, Alabama's Robert Stubbs, dealer and one of Indian's earliest racing stars. He was asked to accompany Indian's chief engineer Carl Oscar Hedstrom along with teammates Walter Goerke and AG Chapple to Ormond Beach in order to stretch out the new lot of Indian racing machine's to their limits. Each man from the "tribe" reached and broke new records at the 1909 Carnival of Speed with the exception of Hedstrom, who was reported as being too busy tinkering with his Simplex powered Hot Shot, which had too large a displacement to qualify for any FAM record runs. During a run on Wednesday afternoon Stubbs met and exceeded the limit of his powerful Indian twin racer, and at over 80 mph, undoubtedly the fastest creature on the planet earth at that moment he went over the bars. Stubbs not only came out of the incident unscathed but smiling, an unusual emotional break for a typically stoic man according to all photographic accounts... his machine however was done for the day.