[color="#0000ff"][size="3"][font="microsoft sans serif"]Sorry for highjacking your thread supergwit. That was not intended.
I thought I would start another thread for anyone who has some old stories to tell, relating to racing.
Some of you wanted to hear how and why I switched from riding a BSA Gold Star to KRs.
As I had said in an earlier post, in 1962 I was a novice rider, based here in Texas. At that time I knew Everett Brashier pretty well and Everitt was still riding. EB was from the Beaumont TX area. He held National #25 at the time. This number would years later pass to the late Cal Rayburn. Rayburn came long after my time.
Just to get off the subject for a second.....
As far as I know, Everitt still lives in San Diego CA. He is getting on in years now but is an excellent golfer and can go out and do an 82 score from what I have heard. I last saw him at the Del Mar Fairgrounds Motorcycle event in 2001 out at Del Mar CA.
I also saw many of the legends I had ridden with/against form my earlier days. Bart Markle and George Roeder (Sr) among with many others. Reswebber started to show up a couple of years after that. Joe Leonard was there, Brad Andres was there, along with Sammy Tanner. Oh well, it was a long list. Leonard, Tanner, Andres and Reswebber I never had the pleasure to ride with.
Back to Everitt.... who was living in Louisiana at the time (1962). I never raced against him because he was an Expert and I a lowly Novice. Anyway, EB had a good friend who lived in Houston named Jack Ghoulson. Jack was 34 years old, was an Expert class rider, and carried National #34 at the time. His job was at Textsteam Industries here in Houston where he was some kind of engineer.
Jack was sponsered by Harry Stelter, the owner of Stelter's Harley Davidson in Houston. Harry's father had opened this shop in the 1920's, so it was like an institution around here.
Jack and Everitt would drop by the Harley shop from time to time and that is where I first got to know them, because even though I rode a BSA, I hung out at the HD shops in my spare time.
Back in those days the National Numbers were distributed by the AMA to riders who had been to a large number of National events around the country. I never had it explained exactly how this worked, perhaps politics were involved, but you did not have to be a winning rider to get one of these coveted plates, just show up on a regular basis. This was the case with Jack. We lived in the same town, but he was never at one single race that I was at.
The reason was because he only rode National events, and I was riding anywhere I could get to any race. Novice riders could become Amatuer, then they could ride in National events in their class. All novice, amatuer, or Experts (who did not have one of the 99 national numbers) had numbers ending with a letter. Mine was 73n. The letter was a designation of a particular area of the country. Texans got n's.
OK, so it is 1962 and there is a National flat track race coming up in the fall. This was the 5 Mile National being held at Lincoln IL. Another friend of mine, Bob Anglin, a few years older than me was an Amatuer and planned to go to Lincoln with Jack Ghoulson.
Bob had a BSA Gold Star and Jack of course had his KR. They loaded the pick up and left for Lincoln in Sept for the race being held on the 16th.
The track was very dusty, according to what Bob told me when he got back to Houston.
Practice was going on in the morning and there were quite a few riders out on the track. One of them fell and Jack Ghoulson went flying into that ball of dust. Jack went down also. Carrol Resweber also went down. I believe this was the last race Carrol Resweber ever rode. He was injured, but I do not recall how bad. It was a bad wreck though.
According to the newspaper clipping I still have, Jack's neck was broken. He died
I remember reading about some of the guys you mention, like Markle--I got my first bike in about 65 at age twelve (first Harley four years later), but I was already a big fan by then. Devoured all the racing dope in the cycle magazines without really knowing what I was reading, just becasue it was about motorcycles and especially Harleys. There wasn't much going on in those days out here in the Pacific Northwest. It's exciting to me to have an exchange with someone who actually witneesed what I was reading about.
Did a little racing myself, but nothing like what you describe.
How long did you ride, Pinion, and what led you retire? What was the next chapter.
I started racing (scrambles, [color="#0000ff"][size="3"][font="microsoft sans serif"]as it was called back then) when I turned 16 in 1960. Scrambles was similar to motocross, but the machines were 650cc, 500cc and Sportsters (on occasion). We did not have whoop-de-dos and the tracks were pretty fast.
At that time there was a sport going on in Europe that was called Motocross. This was done on lightweight 2 stroke motorcycles and as we all now know, involved jumps, bumps, and soft mushy terrain for the most part. Also, it was my perception that Motocross was a rather low speed event back in those days. We did not pay attention to it at all. Later when it came to the states it became a big thing of course.
Now, I write that from my perspective as it was in 1962.
My riding was done at a local track which included a ¼ oval and a track cut through the woods using a bulldozer. The man who built the track was named Dowain Beavers. Everyone called him Father. He was 40 years old in 1960, and ....as were a lot of the group back then, a genuine character.
Beavers built this track on public land along the bayou watershed. He would 'borrow' the heavy equipment on weekends from Harris County from a road project going on on 34th street at the time. This included a maintainer and a Caterpillar bulldozer. Of course the county did not know of the loan until one day the Caterpillar Grader got a flat while Beavers was using it to grade the oval off.
How he got away with this is unknown to me, but in 1960 this was a quite different world.
Beavers was also a very good motorcycle racer himself.
For anyone who may live in the Houston area, this track was located at the northwest corner of West 34th St and TC Jester Blvd. Today the area is small rolling flood terrain and White Oak Bayou runs through it. The group of trees still stand at the corner where the entrance to the track was located.
Beavers was riding professionally in 1952 and rode a WR back then. The story goes that he was banned from riding at Riverside in '52 because of his bashing other riders. Just what I heard about him, but knowing him as I did I do not doubt that the story was true.
Beavers carried a long scar on each of his forearms where he had been stiched up from a crash in his younger days. When I knew him he rode a Harley Davidson and always had it with him when he was building out the track. He would hop on it to make a few laps during the day and it was something to see that old man blast around the track!
His bike was a rigid frame 74 cubic inch panhead. A 1952 model as I recall. Ugly as sin. He had painted(?) it with a couple of spray cans making it red with yellow spots here and there. He called the bike 'The Jackrabbit".
The 34th street track lasted for a couple of years, then in 1962 Beavers bought himself some land and a house in Rose Hill Tx, just west of Houston. Always the promoter, Father cut a full half mile oval track out back. The infield had a pond (called a 'tank' here in TX).
He graded a sharp left turn at the end of the back straight away, that went through the infield alongside the tank. There was a 4ft rise you had to make before the tank. This was the scrambles course. The oval was the flat track course, and later Beavers put a right hand turn at the end of the front straight and this qualified it as a TT course under AMA rules. Now he was open for business!
Local farm people would come over and help make sandwiches that Beavers and his wife sold on race days. We ran many, many times around that track, and that is where I received my basic training.
I was still riding my BSA Spitfire Scrambler and had not gotten my Novice license yet (so that would be sometime in 1961) and there was a race held. We were running the half mile oval, then taking the 'shortcut' turnin
I raced the local scrambles and a quarter mile flat track on several bikes, never a Harley. A good friend, though, was doing hill climbs with his CH. That's how I met him in fact. There were miles of logging rods next to my house and a buddy came over one afternoon to say some nut was out trying to climb Big Sandy on a Sportster. Of course, I had to jump on my bike and check it out, as I considered that hill my private property.
That guy, who was a friend for many years, ended crashing a small racing airplane in a dry lake bed in Oregon. There's still debate as to whether it was an accident or intentional, but his body had begun breaking down, and I know he didn't relish the idea of a future in which he wasn't able to play with his toys.
Was somewhat like you, Pinion, in that I was a win or over-the-wall type rider, a character trait that caused my dad to sit me down for a year.
I loved the quarter mile dirt track best and won a few races on a pauper's budget, but the track wasn't around more than a couple years, before insurance problems (I think) closed it down. Ironically, my highschool coach didn't want me to race because he was afraid I'd injure myself, but I hurt myself twice in sports so I couldn't race but never hurt myself racing so I couldn't play.
I'm afraid I don't have any racing stories to match yours. Of course, I'm curious about your "sudden retirement."
When I was out in California in either 2001 or 2002, my brother (who lives there) and I went to Del Mar. That was where I ran into Everitt Brashier. He was with a friend who lived next door to him and played golf with Everitt.
It turns out I knew this guy well. I had not seen him in more than 30 yearsI His name is James Jackson and he came to Houston from Corpus Christi TX back in the early sixties and of course we rode against each other many times.
James and I got to talking about old times and the subject of Al Gunter came up. James asked me if I knew the story of what happened and I replied that I did not.
I never knew Al Gunter, but he was a very famous racer in his day. Al once worked for Bruce Bristol BSA in Houston, but was long gone when I worked there. Bruce related many stories about Al, and of course I had followed his racing in the magazines.
As he got older, he was a regular at Ascot Speedway, then run by JC Agajenian (incorrect spelling).
James told me the story.....Al was hurt very badly in a race there and in the hospital they had to remove both legs. Gunter had a friend smuggle a shotgun inside the hospital. He later then blew his brains out on the hospital bed.
If he would not ride again then he did not want to live. That story really shocked me! I had never heard of this incident, before or since, so I have to ask if anyone else has[color="#0000ff"][size="3"][font="microsoft sans serif"]?
I have a few stories about the Daytona events I rode in but will not relate all of them now.
I rode the first one as an Amature. I made a whole 7 laps and then ran my front wheel up between a riders rear number plate and frame and went down hard. That was the newspaper clip I posted earlier.
My second Daytona was a serious effort. We our engine built by a professional (Limey Hollingsworth) in St Augustine Florida. Limey was the St Augustine Harley dealer and had been a good friend of Pridgen's when Pridg was back in his home state of Georgia years before. We left Houston with a bare frame and installed the engine at the Harley shop in St Augustine.
I landed in the hospital with a concussion from colliding with George Roeder in a short track race in Jacksonville the week before the 200 National was to be run.
Walking around holding a piece of beefsteak on my swollen right eye the rest of the week allowed the swelling to go down enough to give me some vision with it.
George Roeder and Roger Rieman were camped in the St Augustine shop along with Pridgen and I. We road tested out on the highway with George and Ralph Bernt during the week.
That race was my best Daytona I ever had. I timed trialed at 119 point something mph. The faster time trial was turned by the rider for San Diego Harley Davidson at 129 point something mph. So I was not at the back of the pack, but not at the front either.
George had given me a very good demonstration of the difference in his KR and my KR out there on that highway. Limey had arranged for a pair of Florida State Troopers to close off a 5 mile stretch of highway near the shop. This is where we did our testing. It was really cool having a cop at each end of 'our test track'.
I was out there running flat out wide open and I heard George coming up behind me. He passed me with a good 6 to 7 mph more speed than I could muster. My old KR was turning 6600 rpm with a 4:1 gear ratio. I am sure George was pulling 3.90 :1, as he certainly had a stronger engine.
Pridgen urged me to go ask Ralph to look at my spark plugs. Ralph agreed to and told me to do a test run. I did the plug run and coasted up to a stop. Removed the plugs and Ralph puts his magnifier flash light down into each plug and then simply tells me, 'open your main jet one click.' Nothing else was said. I did that an
(check this website out, Pinion--great stuff.) [blockquote]One of the friendliest racers I met at Daytona was Al Gunter in 1953 and last saw him at Daytona in 1958 by which time he was a changed man. He had been terribly mutilated in various crashes although you saw flashes of the old Al Gunter in the smile and enthusiasm. He had tried to make a career out of motor cycle racing in the 50's, this was difficult and as he got older had to compete with many up and coming younger riders. Eventually he was confined to a wheelchair and in 1976 we heard of his suicide. Al Gunter had been a very enthusiastic racer of BSA's and co-operated a great deal in our experiments. In the mid '50's he was one of the fastest BSA men in the USA. The last time I talked with him, Al said he was getting over 50bhp at the back wheel of his Gold Star racer at 8000 RPM. Harman and Collins helped him in these experiments, using special cams and special push rods to aid higher revving. At 8000 RPM I did not expect a Gold Star to last very long, which Al confirmed and said the motor was only good for a short track. Dick Mann another BSA rider who was riding Harley Davidson at Daytona in 1958. One time he handed me a factory racing Harley 45 cu. inch, flathead twin and asked if I had ever had a ride on one. I had not and he suggested I have a go. This was in front of all the Harley people and their eyes were popping out. Before anyone could sBack to top me I hopped on and a rushed up the beach. It was fantastic and felt like a Manx Norton. It steered well, brakes were good, the motor pulled hard to 7400 RPM, then the power dropped right off and you went to the next gear. Torque was strong all the way. I don't know how our BSA riders ever competed with them.
Thanks for that post MW.
Great website and I bookmarked it so I can go back and look closer at it. Interesting stuff!
Although I had a BSA Shooting Star (1949) I have never seen another one since. The local dealer sold BSA Super Rockets, Golden Flashes, and a 500cc Flash, We never carried the Shooting Star. It seemed to be a model that was not imported at that time.
Just reading a short bit on the site I see names that I had forgot.....Hap Alzina, Rich Importers. These were the people who imported the BSA and Triumph MCs into the East and West Coasts and were the distributors of the bikes.
The article regarding Al Gunter's death is the only one I have ever seen, or heard of, and this is the first time I have seen this one. Thanks for finding it and posting it here. It is a little different than what James Jackson related to me, but the result was the same ending.
Oh yes, I see mention of Dick Mann, Dick Klamforth and others. Famous racers indeed.
Klamforth I believe ran his first race at Daytona in 1949 when it began, as far as I know anyway.
I tell you what, I remember when he pulled alongside my KR going down the back straight in 1964 with a big grin on his face. He was riding the single cylinder Matchless overhead cam 500cc bike that was a brand new model then. It was called the G50.
He and I ran for a couple of laps drafting off each other. Finally he was able to inch ahead of me and escape my draft with his Matchless. With out the extra cubic inches afforded to the flathead, the KRs would have had a hard time keeping up with some of those singles.
On shorter tracks (½ mile) KRs had no advantage over the British bikes.
As a one time BSA rider, I always wanted to take a 650cc (40 cu inch) twin BSA engine and turn it into a 37½ inch engine. This was done with the A-10 engine (650cc) and install a cylinder barrel off of an A-7 engine (500cc). You would use the A-7 connecting rods but bore out the cylinders and fit the 650cc pistons in there. The result was an engine that was sized around 37½ cubic inches but having the large bore and short stroke.
Bruce Bristol always told me he had seen it done and it produced a very quick reving engine on a dirt track and the large bore made it an 'oversquare' design.
It was legal to run such a machine in Class C TT races only, not flat track, because the engine size exceeded the 30.50 limit for ohv engines.
Maybe that is why I never saw such an engine built, but I always wished I had done it. At one time, I had all of the equipment needed to do it, but alas, I let go of all that priceless equipment not knowing later in life that I would wish I still had it.
Thanks again for the post........pg
#3 AL GUNTER: My father took me to the AMA Flat Track races at Ascot Park beginning in the early 60's when I was about 5 years old. Al Gunter (R) became my hero with that big ol #3 on the bike and that leather face mask he wore. I've used the #3 to this day because of Al. Sadly he came out of retirement in the mid 70's, had a horrible crash and was paralized. He never came to terms with that and committed suicide about a year later.
AL GUNTER [align=center] Al Gunter
AMA no. 54
4th in 1954
riding a Shooting Star [hr] [/align]
[align=left]A Texan, born in Houston in 1933 Al Gunter was not only a top rider who kept the Gold Star winning short track events into the 1960's. He was also a skilled tuner who was able, according to BSA development engineer Roland Pike, to get more power out of a Gold Star than BSA could.
As an individual he was more complicated, perhaps even contradictory. Described by Dick Mann as "... a great mechanic and one of the smartest and shrewdest riders he ever knew" he was also described by Neil Keen as "...handsome to a fault, as charming as a bird, and as eccentric as the March Hare." Yet he could also be very abrasive and would deliberately unsettle other riders by adjusting his gloves, goggles and bike position to delay the start of a race.[/align] [align=center] [align=center] [/align] [align=center]Al Gunter and Norm Smith at Daytona 1954[/align] [/align] Although starting with a Triumph dealer in Oakland, and sometimes rode Harleys, Gunter moved to BSA and made his name on that marque.
In 1952 he was the first person to win a National on a BSA, riding a 500cc Star Twin at Shreveport.
1952 was his first Daytona finishing 5th, In 1953 he didn't finish, Although he came 4th at Daytona in 1954 he won at Sturgis later that year. On the trip there he was accompanied by a young amateur he had taken under his wing, Dick Mann.
1957 not provided Gunter with his best result there but also one of the legendary Daytona stories.
During pre-race testing with Dick Mann they stopped for plug checks. Relations with the police at Daytona were not always good and on this occasion the sheriff turned-up and decided to arrest both for speeding, excessive noise and riding their bikes without lights or license plates. In response, Gunter took off! Pushing Mann into his car the sheriff took off in hot pursuit and called an APB for Gunter.
[align=left]With many police now mobilised Gunter was finally tracked-down and arrested in his motel room where he was calmly watching television. Since the back road and the motel were in different counties, the BSA boss Ted Hodgson had to post bond and bail both out of two different county jails in time to compete next day.[/align] [align=center] [align=center] [/align] [align=center][b][color="#fffff
MW.....
What a great posting! Keep it coming. I perused the Bart Markle page regarding his passing last year. I did not know he had passed away. I saw him at one of the Del Mar Events several years ago when they had the 'Legends of MC Racing ' gathered.
Reading the Gunter I saw another name I had forgotten somewhat.....Neil Keen.
Keen was an Expert rider and carried National #10 plate on his bike. Seeing his name reminded me of another incident and a personal encounter with him.
I was an Amatuer and decided to ride the Dodge City Kansas race at the Rally that year.
Dennis Schoenfeldt was ready to go with me. I drove a beat up 1955 Ford at the time, but Dennis had just bought a brand new 1963 Corvette Stingray Convertable. We drove up to Kansas in the Vette, pulling the KRs on a trailer.
At the Dodge City half mile track, we were running practice laps. My KR was running well and the track was hard and fast. I noticed a fellow out by the track edge was standing there taking photos with his camera as I came sliding through the turn.
I also noticed this fellow was Neil Keen, another of my BSA heros who I had followed in the magazines. I thought, 'He's taking pictures of me?!'
I guess my slides impressed Neil. I finally fell going through the turn and went down hard. That carb hanging out on the left side of the engine got ripped off the bike.
The intake manifold and carb were torn off the engine, so I was done for the day.
Sitting in the pits, totally dejected, Keen came walking up and introduced himself. He asked me what the problem was and I showed him the parts. He said, wait a minute, I have a manifold. He came back in a few minutes and hands me an intake manifold for a KR. I tried to pay him something for it but he refused to take it.
I installed the manifold and the carb back on the bike. Finished good enough in the heat race to advance to the Amatuer final, but found myself on the far outside end of the starting line up.
The race started and I got into the first corner in a good position. Close to the end I was only in 2nd place, but my front wheel was right on the back of Buddy Elmore's Triumph who led.
Buddy's bike exploded in front of me. I dodged the junk flying up in the air and won the Amatuer final. I never saw Neil again that day, but needless to say I was very indebted to him for his generousity.................pg
New thread for old stories......
Al Gunter
[/align] [align=center]Al Gunter and Norm Smith at Daytona 1954[/align] [/align] Although starting with a Triumph dealer in Oakland, and sometimes rode Harleys, Gunter moved to BSA and made his name on that marque. 
[/align] [align=center][b][color="#fffff
