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VOL. 56 ISSUE 5 FEBRUARY 5, 2019 P103 opened his first motorcycle shop. Early on it was a repair shop that also sold used bikes. About that same time, Moore became some- what of a rarity—a hillclimber who branched out to do other forms of racing. It turned out to be a good move. In 1935 at the Jacksonville 200 (predecessor to the Daytona 200), Moore was one of the front- runners all race, and he finished a strong sixth. He'd seamlessly made a successful transition from the specialty of hillclimb to another form of racing. Based on performances like that, Triumph sent Moore motorcycles to compete on in those pre-World War days. Having support from the British maker, turned out to be a blessing and a curse. Moore showed up to race the 1940 Daytona 200 on his Triumph. Ralph's son Rick Moore said the AMA was doing all it could at the time to tip the scales in favor of the American brands Harley-Davidson and Indian. Rick claims that in- cluded trying to keep the number of entries on foreign bikes as low as possible. "Dad had already raced in the Savannah and Jacksonville Road Race Nationals, which basically became Daytona," Rick says. "And, on top of that, he'd also already raced in the Daytona 200 in 1937. Well, he shows up for the 1940 race with the Triumph, and E.C. Smith (the AMA's Racing Director) said to him, 'You're a hillclimber, so you have to race in the B class.' He basically made him race in the 100 with the amateurs even though he was already a proven pro. Smith was the last word, so there wasn't much he could do, so he raced in the 100 instead." He eventually was allowed back into the big race and, at Daytona, Moore raced Harleys, Indians, and he ended up on Nortons and Triumphs in the 1950s. Amazingly, Moore continued pro racing well into his 50s and was competitive the entire time. In fact, his best result in the 200 came in 1956—he finished 20th when he was 53 years old! Possibly the only thing that slowed down Moore's racing was the fact that his son Rick started do- ing well enough in the late 1950s, that Ralph decided to scale things back to concentrate on helping his son. Rick, like his dad, became one of the top racers in Indiana. Racing was a family affair with the Moores. Besides Ralph and Rick, Ralph's brother, Gordon, also raced, as did his nephew Delbert. After World War II Ralph and partner Ray Stearns pooled their resources and opened R&R Indian Sales in Indianapolis. Before open- ing, the partners had to empty an entire train car of Indian motor- cycles sent to them by the factory. Indian went through a tough time post-war, but fortunately the dealer- ship had also taken on Triumph, so when Indian went belly up, they simply changed the name of the dealership to Indiana Cycle Sales. Moore's dealership was one of the first in the country to sell Yamahas. But according to Rick, they had to do so many repairs of the early Yamahas, that it colored his dad's opinion of Japanese- made motorcycles and it cost them dearly. "When Honda approached dad about becoming the first Honda dealership in Indianapolis, all he could think about was the trouble he'd had with those Yamahas," Rick explains with a grin. "He told the rep, 'I don't want to sell that junk.' It was probably the worst business decision he ever made." From the time Moore started his motorcycle shop in 1946, to the time he passed away in 1977, the dealership sold 24 different brands of machines. Moore's passion for racing and motorcycling in general never wa- vered. His biggest kick was getting new riders involved. "There were times guys would come in and couldn't get approved for credit," Rick said. "My dad was always a good judge of character and if he thought someone was a good guy, he would sell them a bike and let them make weekly payments directly to the dealership. People appreciated him for that. They'd be customers for life." While Ralph Moore never quite attained supreme glory as a na- tional champion, it was hard-core enthusiasts like him, who lived and breathed motorcycles, that helped foster motorcycling into the mas- sively popular pastime it would become in the latter decades of the 20th century. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives