Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

dreamed of for three or four years. When we arrived in San Francisco, my "manager" and I, Servetti, not knowing me from Adam and not believing anybody else, had arranged for me to ride a customer's cherry bike. But Harold Emmick was Servetti's tuner, and little did I know at the time that I'd be racing Harold's two sons, Ron and Gray, years later. So, getting back to fate again, the flJ'St night out I ran very well. It was at Belmont, California, a fast quarter· mile. I.t was a single groove track but everything I'd ever learned told me to diamond it off, go outside, and dive under. In the main, I passed seven guys on the outside before I got to Larry Headrick and the real battle began. He was trackwise. I never could get quite far enough around him. Then all of a sudden I was ahead, and that's when I became very impressed with Headrick. He kept brushing my leg. Every time I'd try to square off and pinch him, here would come that big Harley front wheel ... and I finally got a second. Naturally, the Triumph dealer who'd promised me the motorcycle was will· ing to build two of them now. They took a brand· new bike - it was nice, silver - took the lights off, put the cams in, geared it, broke it in and had it ready for next Friday night. Of course all the well-wishers wre great. They'd say, like "Don't pass on the outside; it's not the sman way to get around the place." And being at the vigorous age of 16, I was saying, "Yes, yes, I understand." Bat I had my own ideas as to what side I was going to pass on. After the first night's running they handicapped you by your finish. We started side by side, nine men on big bikes on a quarter-mile track about 25 feet wide. And every row was hard. I never will forget the great cham· pion Headrick before the start of the main event. We had each won our heats and I had beat him in the trophy dash. He looked over just before th~ flag and kinda winked at me as if to say, "Everything'S gonna be okay." At 16, I probably couldn't analyze what he meant, and actually there wasn;t time anyhow. But I took it as a reassuring gesture that we were gonna have a good battle and may the best man win. So the flag dropped and we all dashed away. In jockeying for position 1 found a hole and shot up to around third or fourth and on the next lap moved up to second. Then we had a caution flag and coming around the comer 1 saw about three bikes lying on the track. They stopped us because there on the track lay the Number One rider with a broken leg. Then we restarted and I won the race, but felt that it was a rather hollow victory even though I was running against all the good guys and it was a tough circuit - Shorty Tomkins, Paul Albrecht, George Cooper, the McAfee brothers, Charlie West and Kenny Eggers. I could sec that on the bigger tracks the Harley was superior, horsepowerwise, and I felt that with Headrick out it would be worth the chance. I went down and talked to him about riding one of his motors on the mile. He was agreeable because he was in a cast and needed some money. Looking back on my career I made the right move for sure as I won every Amateur event I was in all over the U.S. - starting with Bay Meadows. San J06e mile, Springfield where I set a record that stood for five or six years, all the races ... until the end of the season. Then 1 tangled with this tough little Texan, Albert Gunter. Before he blew at Shreveport, Louisiana he really did a good job, and then we went to Texarkana, Texas. For the first time I was worried about a new rider beating me. It was unusual after all the victories. So I was really hanging it out even though it was one of those backyard three-star events, and I didn't realize I had a commanding lead on Albert's Triumph with the hog. I don't know fully what happened to this day, I rememher starting to slide down. It was just when we were coming around with the sun right in our eyes and a rough rrack. The last thing I remember was picking it up when it caught a rut, and over the high side I went. That's explanation in itself. So I proceeded home like a beaten dog, with my tail between my legs and enough points to make Expert. By this time Larry Headrick had decided to retire from active competition, leaving two berths with Tom Sifton for Kenny Eggers and me for the '52 season. Tom Sifton, "the Northern Calfiornia Great White Father" they used to call him, has contributed so many National Champions to racing - Jim Young, Sam Arena, Larry Headrick, Al Rudy, Kenny Eggers, Charlie West and yours truly. And this was with the gentleman's agreement that Eggers would have the best equipment and I would have second best. Second best in that stable was far better than anything else I could get, and I figured I could make up the difference. As it happened. that year we were doing a lot of experimenting with cam action and had numerous blowups while leading several important races - like Del Mar, and leading at Portland. It was turning into a hectic first-year Expert season. Not winning a National title yet, I was becoming rather ... what would you call it? Not nervous. Not agitated. Aggravated, I guess. In racing that season, though, one major thing happened that was to open the history book for Joe Leonard and motorcycle racing. Being a young kid in San Diego, I'd watched a lot of auto racing and had been impressed with such greats as Bill Vukovich, Sr., Johnny Parsons, Walt Faulkner, Johnny Mantz, Frank Brewer, Manuel Ayulo and Cal Niday. Seeing th06e guys and wanting to be like them someday, the thought occurred to me about switching from bikes to autos at that early stage of the game. But I decided on really pursuing the motorcycle career. We raced a few local races and Kenny Eggers became very upset because I beat him regularly. He even went as far as to moan to numerous "Won three National Championships that year." Leonard receives trophy for nine-mile National victory at Milwaukee in 1955; AI Gunter 1541 was second, Paul Goldsmith 131 was third. "Then I tangled with this tough little Texan. Albert Gunter." Their rivalry began in 1951. and here are Gunter and Leonard. 10 years later. mixing it up at Tulare. Calif. people, which in tum got back to Great White Father. And Tom, being a real sportsman and honest gentleman, naturally didn't approve of this. So he talked to Kenny, and K~nny decided to find another stable. Which as you can sec was very good for me in moving up to getting the number one equipment. Funny how fate is. Nineteen fifty-three it was. I didn't go back East to the first Nationals speaking of Charity Newsies and a few of those half-miles, Virginia and Pennsylvania. But my first big National event was Bay Meadows, California and I WOll that very handily, with all that horsepower. We'd finally gotten the right cam promes and had about a horse or so on the field. I went on ,and won four National Championships that year. But I didn't recejve the Number One because at Springfield, in bidding for the win against Al Gunter, Everett Brashear and Bill Tuman, an ill-fated rock hit my spark plug wire and knocked me out. I finished fourth. And the AMA at that time was giving the National Number One away to the man who won Springfield, Illinois, one race, the 25-mile National Championship. Which was rather unfair. So the AMA decided in 1954 it would be on a points basis. We'd had a fairly good year, though, and I was over-elated at finally winning a Championship ... four to be exact. We started out 1954 and boy, everything was excellent - winning eight National Championship titles, setting numerous records over the country and winning the Number One title for the first time. In 1955 we ran into a few mechanical failures, only winning three National Championships as I recall, and after eight that seemed rather a suppressing year. Brad Andres had bought· my 1954 motorcycle and won the Number One title on my year-old bike. In 1956 we got all geared up to go and I regained my title. I won ... Ierome see, how many championships? Two or three, I believe, that year. I started out 1957 and I had been trying to win Daytona Beach since 1954. It took me four years, and I was up with the front-runners Ed Kretz, Sr. and Paul Goldsmith. The three of us had a blanket race for two years until they dropped out or I dropped out and someone else won. In 1957 I took off and won by a rather large margin. I was battling with AI Gunter and it was a sec-saw until the pit stop. Charlie West and I had planned ahead and knew that this could be an advantage. I didn't stop for water or any fooling around. I stopped merely for five and a half gallons of fuel and two quick quarts of oil, which took a total time of nine or 10 seconds. Against Albert's 28-second sto~ you can sec what position this put memo I then proceeded on to victory, lapping all but Albert. Lapping third place, which I believe was Gene Thiessen. So I was very happy. I'd finally won the big one. Oh yeah, I went from Sifton to Charlie West in 1957. I forgot to put that in. And Charlie and me was hot. We ... uh, jeez, you know that's a long time. I don't exactly remember how many titles I won - 27 in my career, but we'd have to look in the records to see how many I won that year. I think it was four. Then this fellow Carrol Resweber came along, in '58, and he was doing quite well. In fact, he'd done quite well in '57 as an Amateur. And I had negotiated about this time with th~ great :rroy Ruttman, 13

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