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VOL. 55 ISSUE 26 JULY 3, 2018 P119 the club lost hugely. Teams came to Elgin a few days prior to the race so riders could practice on the course. Appar- ently lavish accommodations were not the order of the day, even for factory riders in 1913. The Elgin Daily News reported that most of the riders camped alongside the racecourse near the pits. With this being Chicago-based Exclesior's home race, the factory entered 14 riders at Elgin in hopes of winning with sheer numbers. Indian had six entries, Merkel five, Yale with four, Harley-Davidson, Jefferson and Dayton had three entries each and Thor had two. There were also entries from Reading-Standard, DeLuxe, Silent Flyer and Pope. Elgin fans had their own rider to cheer on in local racer Snowdon Lonberger, who gave them great hope when he qualified second on his Indian. Seems that Lonberger had pre-ridden the course dozens of times getting the jump in terms of track knowledge on his com- petitors. Excelsior's massive effort seemed to pay off, at least early on, when their rider Bob Perry took the lead for the first 10 laps of the race. On lap 11, Indian's Charles "Fearless" Balke moved up and took over the lead. Balke recorded the fastest lap on the circuit at eight minutes and 32 seconds, that's right at a 60-mile- per-hour average, remarkable considering how primitive the spin- dly, bicycle-like machines were in 1913. For Balke, Indian had made a special race bike specifically designed for the Elgin course. Balke led most of the remaining race, except for a brief period when he pitted and was passed by fellow Indian rider Charles Gustafson, but Merkel's Lee Taylor dogged him all day. Taylor made a bid for the lead in the late going, but a tire puncture on the final lap took him out of contention for the win. Lee limped home in sixth, first non-Indian finisher. In spite of the tremen- dous speeds riders were capable of reaching at Elgin, there were few accidents. Reading-Standard's Gray Sloop crashed twice but escaped with nothing more than a few bruises. Indian rider William Teubner actually crashed through a fence in rounding a hairpin curve. His motorcycle was slightly damaged and he was forced to pit for repairs and still managed to come home in fifth. Californian Balke finished the 250 miles in four hours, 34.52 minutes, averaging 55.4 miles per hour. Indian swept the top five positions, with Indianapolis' Can- nonball Baker finishing second, just over three minutes behind Balke. Balke earned $500 (nearly $13,000 today) for his win. It was paid out in gold coin! Baker took home $250 for second and Gus- tafson $100 for third. After the event the news was not so good. In spite of the club reporting 5000 spectators, it lost $2000 on the event (over $50,000 today). The club re- mained optimistic, a spokesper- son saying they hoped that with better weather the next year, the event would become profitable. But it never happened. Perhaps discouraged by the low spectator turnout, the Chicago club never at- tempted to put on the race again. The Elgin 250 might have been a seminal race in American motorcycling. Had the event been as successful as it was predicted, motorcycle road racing might have taken off in this country as it did in Europe. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives As it turned out, a strong lineup didn't guarantee a huge spectator turnout for the Elgin 250.