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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1200048
VOLUME 57 ISSUE 2 JANUARY 14, 2020 P107 paying national) at the 1963 Peoria TT National featured, for the first time, the 250cc racing bikes. Bart Markel won the '63 Peoria Light- weight National on a Harley-Da- vidson Sprint (ironically the Heavy- weight class that year was won by a Triumph with Sid Payne). Significant in that '63 Peoria Lightweight race was the little- known fact that it marked the first entry by Japanese machines into AMA Grand National Champion- ship racing. Three riders, Larry Williamson, Tom Clark and Jack Simmons, entered Peoria that year on Yamahas, and it was Peoria's own Williamson who took the top honors of that trio finishing fifth. That gave Williamson the distinc- tion of being the first rider to race, finish and score national points at an AMA Grand National aboard a Japanese-made motorcycle. Then in 1964 the AMA took the Peoria Lightweight class concept a step further and announced a stand-alone AMA Grand National Road Race featuring the Light- weight-class bike. It was a 100- mile national held at the Nelson Ledges road course in Garretts- ville, Ohio, July 5. Washington DC's Larry Schafer scored his one and only AMA National win that day, riding a Harley-Davidson Sprint. Buddy Elmore was runner- up on a Yamaha and Ducati- mounted Donald Twigg took third. Surprisingly, the 1965 AMA Grand National Championship season was one stacked with a record number of seven road races in the 18-race series. Road race circuits in Wentzville, Missouri, Greenwood, Iowa, Meadowdale, Illinois and Upper Marlboro, Maryland, joined the traditional road races of Daytona Beach, Florida and Laconia, New Hampshire (moving for the first time to the newly completed Bryar Motorsports Park in nearby Loudon, New Hampshire). Nelson Ledges Lightweight National was also back on the 1965 calendar wedged between the Wentzville Road Race and the Castle Rock (Washington) TT. In the Nelson Ledges race Roger Reiman led the early going on a Harley Sprint, but his bike expired after just a few laps putting Mann and his Yamaha in the lead. After a brief challenge by Gary Nixon, be- fore Nixon's Yamaha expired, it was Bultaco rider Jody Nicholas moving up to battle Mann and then take the over the top spot. Nicholas pulled away to a commanding lead before his machine quit about halfway through the 80-mile race. That put Mann and his Yamaha back in the lead for good. 1964 winner Larry Schafer nailed down the runner-up spot on a Harley and George Mont- gomery was third on a Bultaco. Mann took a large mid-season lead in the standings due to his strong road race performances, but he would eventually be caught and ultimately finish second to Harley-Davidson's Bart Markel in that year's championship. Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki all continued to improve their larger displacement two-stroke racing machines and four years after Mann's lightweight win at Nelson, Suzuki and Baumann finally broke through to beat the more estab- lished makes in an AMA National with the big bikes, but the little remembered national at Nelson Ledges in '65, gives us a little more to consider when discussion turns to the first Japanese maker to win a national in America. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives The start of the 1965 Nelson Ledges road race national saw Harley- Davidson rider Roger Reiman (1) leading early over Bultaco-mounted Jody Nicholas (58), Yamaha rider Gary Nixon (9) and others.