Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1076136
CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE A collection of old motorcycle magazines was recently given to me to peruse and possibly use for research. As I dug deep into the pages, I came across an article looking back at Lee Taylor's 1914 victory at the FAM 300-Mile Na- tional Championship race in Savan- nah, Georgia. The Savannah event was held on the roads around the city called the Grand Prize Circuit, the same course that hosted the Vanderbilt Cup, at the time one the most prestigious auto races of the 1910s. The FAM 300-Mile Cham- pionship was also one of the most important motorcycle races during a golden age of the sport when a dozen or so American motorcycle makers were involved in racing. Lee Taylor is in the Motorcycle Hall of Fame, primarily for his win in the Savannah race, but over the years very little information was found on him and there is no biography on the Motorcycle Hall of Fame's website. I decided to take a dive into try- P102 FINDING LEE TAYLOR Motorcycle Company. Taylor rose to fame in 1910 by racing a "flying machine" on the mile dirt track of Columbus Driving Park in Columbus, Ohio. Taylor and his Emblem beat the airplane, a Wright Model B, flying above. Em- blem used the feat of Taylor's vic- tory over the plane as a major part of its PR and advertising materials. Taylor found racing success with Emblem and he likely would have stayed with the company, but he gradually found that Emblem was not serious about racing. Emblem was happy for Taylor to race pro- duction bikes, but that would only get him so far against factory racing specials, so in 1913 he took an of- fer to race for Flying Merkel. At the Elgin National Road Race in 1913, Taylor was lead rider for Flying Merkel, a team billed as the "Yellow Jackets." The race bikes were painted bright yellow and team riders donned yellow and black riding gear. Flying Merkel teammate Ray ing to find info on Taylor. It was diffi- cult and long process, but thanks to a research librarian at the Columbus Metropolitan Library named Chuck Cody, I was able to piece together a least a trace of Taylor's life. From Cody's research it appears Taylor was born and raised in the area of Uhrichsville, Ohio. The prob- lem with researching Taylor was that his last name was so common and he sometimes went by Lon or L.S. Taylor. The census of 1900 shows him living in nearby Tuscarawas, Ohio, married to Allie with a daughter of two named Erma. The census listed Taylor's occupation as station- ary engineer. There are vague news- paper articles that indicate he may have been racing in local events in eastern Ohio as early as the middle of the 1900s, which would have put him among the earliest generation of motorcycle racers. First mentions of him in trade publications show him working at the American Machine Company in Columbus, Ohio, the city's dealership for the Emblem (Above) Taylor used this stunt—racing an airplane—in 1910 to help launch his racing career. (Left) Lee Taylor got his career started racing Emblem motorcycles.