Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

GCOLUMN TimeFor otten By Joe Scalzo eH air-raising news reached Joe Leonard: he was being mobi" lized overseas, to the European Grand Prix theater, where he and his ('f') ancient Harley-Davidson flathead 0\ were going to defend the Stars and ~ Stripes against John Surtees' and ... Mike Hailwood's MV Augustas and screaming Honda fours in a bitter and N jingoistic America vs. the rest of the world tournament circling, of all the 1-1 earth's inhospitable locals, the Isle of ro Man. ;j The year was 1961. So C low was their prestige interro nationally that U.S:s three-.. time champion, was at last going abroad to demolish such libel. But the combat never occurred, and for an excellent reason. None of the brayings of America's superiority were coming from Leonard, but were rantings from the pen of aged Floyd Clymer, super-patriot, publicity hound, and publisher of Cycle magazine. Cycle was where details of the antagonistic "Clymer Challenge" first appeared. Leonard never packed his bags. He refused to go. He really saw no reason to accept responsibility for the blood-and-guts claims being made in his name. So the farcical "Clymer Challenge" collapsed. And all around the world poor old Clymer was considered senile for daring suggest an aberration like gentleman Joe Leonard could be mentioned in the same breath with Europe's masters. This is no longer 1961. Today, a third of a century afterward, based on what Leonard's ancestor Kenny Roberts and his heirs have been doing to global Grands Prix, the decreased publisher deserved acclaim as the greatest clairvoyant of his day. Clymer identified the genius of our dirt trackers before anybody else. As for Joe Leonard, he provided the Europeans a great service, but one nobody could have guessed at the time. Had he taken the Clymer Challenge, international Grand Prix racing might have become an American dynasty in the 60s instead of the 80s. By declining to go, Leonard gave the champions of England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain 20 years of grace. Less than two years afterward, around 1963, the continent escaped another near-miss. Yet another U.S. onslaught was ready. This one also involved a publisher. Joseph c. Parkhurst, of the new Cycle World, was deploying his magazine's very own road team to Europe. But Parkhurst lacked Clymer's confidence in domestic dirt track personnel. Team Cycle World was made up of elements out of a Los Angeles amateur federation and had for a captain a totally mad Englishman expatriate named Ron Grant. But Team Cycle World, too, failed. What's more, Parkhurst missed a terrific opportunity. He could have added the colossus Dick Hammer to Team Cycle World, yet didn't. The two men met totally by chance. Parkhurst was having a swimming pool sunk in his backyard, and the hulking laborer operating the skip loader hap- a >-- 32 pened to be Hammer, who always found hard physical labor therapeutic following a Sunday afternoon spent on heavy-gauge Harley-Davidsons and Triumphs. Parkhurst wrote up their surprise meeting in his magazine, but didn't explain why he let Hammer get away. The reason, probably, was that he didn't realize who - and what - Dick Hammer was. This wasn't surprising. After all, Hammer's name seldom appeared high in American Motorcycle Association sy fiddle player to have beaten him. Hammer was astonishing. Exactly like that other monster of the road Bart Markel, who crashed his way to 28 AMA National victories, Hammer campaigned without tradecraft, without tactics, except for a violent sense of honor. His eagerness to declare war on all challengers was all he thought he needed. "More determination than the law allows," Dick Hammer once said, describing Dick Hammer. Action photography always showed his face con- greatest moments, most famous spills, and worst disappointments seasonally, took place. They actually started in 1963, Hammer's sophomore 200 miles. Fumbling mechanics switching over his Harley-Davidson from warm-up to racing spark plugs botched the job, forcing Hammer .to start last. Promising the mechanics he was going to brain them when he returned - if he returned Hammer hit full screaming revs. His Harley leaped on to the track. Daytona was different during this period. The whole circuit was crammed into a mini track in the infield barely two miles long - a wrenching series of low-speed hairpins connected by brief straights. Without the stock-car bankings to help him, where his wheel-chattering KR could have ; , - - - - . . . , 1 - exceeded 135 mph~ Hammer had to do all his ~ overtaking in the oil-slick \!; hairpins. 15 Off the road as much as ~ on, frequently skidding ~ down onto the grass to oc . 5 rnak e emergency passes, m a U handful of laps Hammer caught the first stragglers;' '!! following a few more laps, e: he' 9 overtaken 70 bikes to ~ reach 10th. Other riders reported III later that Hammer overtook them so rapidly they didn't it know who he was, and by the time they did, he was out of sight. He sped to second place, exceeding t!;le 6800 reV limit at will. And with 175 miles behind him, he was leading. That was when his motorcycle laid down an oil slick and dropped dead of piston failure, swollen connecting rods, and God knows what else. In 1964, a rea r tire exploded just as Hammer was attacking at full speed across the bankings. He had a fresh carcass fitted, then rejoined the rna ra thon impossibly far behind. He couldn't win, but couldn't stand not being out there battling, either. In 1965, on a Triumph instead of a Harley for a change, he had just charged past the ultimate winner Roger Reiman in the rain when he blew out another tire. In 1966, he detonated an engine, but not before making the acquiantance of the future god Cal Rayborn, whom he altered and enlightened. During 1967, within 24 hours, Hammer had the two outstanding, futile rides of his career. During Saturday's 250cc 100-miler, Hammer .and ultimate winner Gary Nixon exchanged the lead a dozen times. And to get that close to Nixon, Hammer, who just like 1963 had had to start last, passed 80 riders, also like in '63. But then his modified X6 Suzuki Hustler vibrated loose its brake pedal. Sunday in the 200, Nixon and Hammer, both on Triumphs, got it on all over again. Their war erupted after Nixon did something he was to regret very much. He taunted Hammer by gesturing at him to keep up with him if he could, and afterward learned what hell it was to make Dick Hammer angry. Chopping inside and outside of lapped traffic in as desperate a series of swerves, dives, and plunging maneuvers as Daytona ever wi tnessed, Hammer made Nixon think he was liv- I e 5 seasonal sfandings. Indeed, the only significant pavement meets he ever won in his life were Daytona's 100-mile sprints for the 250cc's in 1963 and 1964. Both years he employed the same underpowered Harley-Davidson flyweight against Yamaha riders who had 15 mph on him across the high bankings, but no chance whatsoever when Hammer caught them on the infield. Yet there was another way of judging talent. And with old Clymer in temporary disgrace, the wisest racing mind in the country in 1963 belonged to Neil Keen, the most radical member of Ascot Park's notorious BSA Wrecking Crew, and the only one to have his own psychiatrist. Keen was himself a diabolically fast and radically unpredictable road racer. His views commanded respect. With Joe Leonard off driving race cars, and with Carroll Resweber gone as a result of injuries, Keen held that the U.s:s best road racer was his own Birmingham Small Arms kinsman Dick Mann. But the land's fastest was a different story. According to Keen, that macho accolade was a toss-up between George Roeder of Ohio, with his wheelbarrow handlebars, or Hammer of southern California. But after Roeder had permitted Jody Nicholas to defeat him on the very last lap at Loudon, Keen came squarely down on the side of Hammer; Hammer, Keen maintained never would have permitted some pris- sorted into expressions of rage. Before he got into motorcycle racing, his legend said, he used to administer the rage via fisticuffs. . Hammer also possessed brillance. Better than any road racer of his era, he . could find and hold the absolute edge between control and disaster for as long as he was in the lead. He had the reflexes, the coordination, and the strength to grab back control just when a crash seemed irnrninent. He'd mastered this, it was said, as a scrambles participant growing up in the influence of the celestial Jim Goldsmith. "1 was hanging it out superbly," Hammer used to explain. He knew he was good, and that the pits and grandstands alike were watching him. So what might have occurred had fate arranged for this fastest of all u.s. road warriors to compete on, say, the Isle of Man? Maybe disaster. Hammer quite possibly would have crashed and burned and never made the turn at Creg-ny-Baa. For Dick Hammer, stunning as he was, had one self-admitted flaw. Whenever he fell behind, he reverted to utter panic. He went beserk. To catch up again he rode faster and faster until finally, inevitably, he crashed. It was why he rarely. finished races. It's why he rarely got the national tributes he deserved. Daytona was where all Hammer's

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