Cycle News

VOLUME 57 ISSUE 10 MARCH 10, 2020 P127 Jack's first motorcycling job was working for BSA importer, Alf Child. Then, during WWII, Jack served a stint in the Navy and was stationed at the Naval Air Station in Livermore, California. There he survived a near-fatal motorcycle accident after be- ing hit by a drunk driver. It was in the Navy when Jack first took up photography. He would go on to become one of the leading motorcycle racing photographers of the 1950s, an early adopter of the 35mm format popularized by Leica, his camera of choice. Shortly after the war, Jack began his career at Triumph. His daughters said his job, combined with their mom's strict adherence to saving money and investing, meant the Mercer family had a stable upper-middle-class up- bringing. The family even vaca- tioned in Europe and traveled around, much to the delight of the girls, in a motorcycle mounted with a double sidecar, courtesy of Triumph. The trip included a visit to the races at the Isle of Man. The 1950s was a time of dynamic growth for Triumph in America, and Jack was a signifi- cant part of that. Triumph's U.S. headquarters moved from New York to Baltimore, and the Mer- cers made the move. Jack's life was all about motorcycling. When he wasn't on the road working with dealerships, he was at a race photographing and reporting, while Eddy, with the girls, was in the pits doing whatever race-relat- ed work needed to be done. "I remember Daytona and the beach, going off and playing in the woods at Laconia," youngest daughter Laurie remembers. Jack was undoubtedly a peo- ple person. Bonnie said instead of staying in hotels on the road, he often stayed in the homes of his Triumph dealers. "The cook- ing was so much better," Laurie added. "He just loved to get to know people, too. Often times he would take the dealer and their family out to dinner. And that was a special occasion back in those days. People didn't go out to eat like they do today." The upshot of Jack's friendli- ness was that he seemed to instinctively know if a person might be successful as a Triumph dealer. One example was a racer and mechanic from Elyria, Ohio, named Bill Kennedy. Kennedy met Jack at a race and asked if he could become a Triumph dealer. Jack saw that even though Kennedy had little to no money, he had desire. Jack was on his way to Chicago to set up a new dealership. He gave Kenne- dy a demo bike and told him if he could sell it before he came back, he'd set him up with a dealership. Two days later Jack returned, Bill had sold the bike, and Jack set Bill and his wife, Joan, up as a Triumph dealer. That was the early 1960s, and Kennedy's Sport Cycle is still in business today. Triumph recognized the talent they had in Jack. When you see photos of national Triumph meet- ings, Jack is always front and center with the top executives of the company. That made it even tougher on Jack when Triumph began struggling in the 1970s facing the onslaught of more technically ad- vanced Japanese machines. Like a lot of the Triumph faithful, it was a painful time watching the company fall behind and never recover. After Triumph, Jack worked for accessory company's Beck/ Arnley and then KK Motorcycle Supply, the company he worked for when he retired. His customers loved Jack and dubbed him "Happy Jack." Jack leaned into the nickname and took to giving out t-shirts to friends with an illustration of Jack with a beam- ing smile, captioned, "Official Member of the Happy Jack Club." Rick Moore, whose family owned a dealership in Indianapo- lis, recalls Jack showing his dad a new low-cost helmet and touting how much profit they could make selling them. "My dad agreed to buy 10 of them, but when the shipment came, there were 100 helmets! My dad was mad, but you just couldn't stay mad when it came to Jack." Jack passed away from cancer in 1988 at the age of 71. Motorcyclist editor Bill Bagnall wrote of Jack, "He liked every- body, I'm sure that everybody whom he met liked him. They couldn't help but be fascinated by his wit and sparkle." CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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