Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Iy burned to the ground, triggering a predictably profane ou tb urst front its outraged owner, AI Gunter himself. Mann would have bee n profi ting from all the Harley-Davidson fratricide. H e was leading the point standings. But his own 1963 campaign was unraveling even faster . With the clima ctic September' national a t Ascot Park barely three weeks off - a Na tional wh ose outcome would win or cost him the Number One pla te - Ma nn s ud den ly had a tender posterior full of stitches after getting run down and mauled. Mann's decl ine had trul y begun tha t March at Daytona. He'd had his us ual problem of California brains dealing with Competition Congress me ntality. ry-pick at three-star tracks. It was in tha t free bo oti ng spirit tha t he he ad ed into no rthern Illinois in August. Eve rything changed in a brie f b ut violent 15 seco nds . After outqualifying everybody present by a compelling second and a half, Mann insisted on changing grooves on an especially hairy secti on of the Freep ort t rack, a nd succeeded in wrecking the whole pack. The first motor behind fum, a HarleyDavidson, caught him squ are in the seat of his leathers, then collapsed on top of him. Feeling his insides coursing out on the track, Mann wondered if he wa s going to die. An appalling old ambulance brought h im to an appalling old hospital. No AMA all over again. Mann, the bigges t wreck of them all, limped abou t trying to salvage something for Ascot. Keen, in one of his oratory moods, was exhorting him to greatness; "Bug Ma n, you can't stop now!" Somebod y had to bring all of Mann's motorcycles home from Freeport, and it had been Keen . It hadn't been a walk in the park, how ever. Around the time of Mann's accident, Keen had managed to break his ow n left foot racing at another track. Just as scornful of pain as Mann was, Keen had nonetheless high-balled straight home to the west coast; a stick had been required to depress the clutch because his left ankle was too blue and swollen to do the job. And it s till was. National. But the following Su nd ay's concluding National was on the mile at Sacramento, where Roeder was sure to score maximum points. There have been many heart -stopp ing Na tionals over the decades, but Ascot's was a major one. Mann got one bit of good fortune. Skip van Leeuwen, one of the track's many steeplechase specialists, broke d own w hile in the lead. Van Leeuwen's departure moved Mann to first. Ridin g wit h zen-like concentration, Mann then led every lap . He lapped all but the second and third place finishers and established a new Ascot speed record. Then it was quickly computed tha t even if Mann didn't score one point at o ... M ~ Q) ~ Q) :> o Z And it was further compounded by his G50 Matchless. The previous season the machin e fir st had been ruled illegal, then legal. Now, Mann learned, th e AMA was reversing itself and making it illegal all over aga in. Well conditioned from earlier skirmi shes with the Competit ion Con gress, Mann r eacted with aplomb . That is to say, he named it a swindle and eru p ted with ou trage. He p romised to make the scandal of it ring through Daytona for the week. And so it d id. Mann act ually crea ted newspaper headlines by hiring a lawyer and threaten ing the 200 miles wit h an injunction. Came th e Sun d ay of th e 200, th ou gh , Mann was where the AMA always p ut its malconten ts: on the sidelines. The season continued. Mann visi ted 13 Na tionals without scoring a win, but was steadily racking up. good finishes a nd points. This wasn 't bringing in much income, unfortunately. And so, to earn a few more dollars, Mann was visiting the smaller, harder towns to cher- d octor was on duty, so Mann now lay there wondering what his cha nces of bleeding to death were - still excellen t, he decided. (But a medic finally arri ved to stitch him up. ) Even more fortuitou s was the arrival of one of Mann's friends and guardia n angels, Bill Tuman , who ans we red the call of duty and got Mann inti> a better ho spital. But the doctor there tal ked of imprisoning Mann in a full bod y cast for th e follow ing six mon ths. Tha t scared Mann all the more. Within an hou r, he was on an ai rli ne r back to California. His life and career had been sha ttered, bu t he had the Ascot Na tional to recon. struct them . The Satu rday morning of the National came up through the smog of Azusa, Ne il Keen's home in the San Gabriel Valley east of Ascot. The driveway was filled with as tonishing wrecks . They were all of Mann's worn-out machines from the 1963 tour, including his Dayton a' G50, newly declared legal by the Keen was too infirm to try and get into the Ascot Nati onal and perform d efensive dirty work. All he could do to assis t Mann was harangue. Mann's showd own Nationa l was a TT: 50 lap s o ver Asco t's 10- corner s te e p le ch as e trac k requ ir ing 500 gea rs hi fts an d with a I S-foot ea rthen ju mp every lap. To have any chance of wi nning, Ma n n, his ach ing rump not w ithsta nd ing, wo uld ha ve to vault high er and fu rthe r than anybod y else. Making it all the more sporting was that th is was a ni ghttim e National. Mann, next to lumina ry Everet t Brasha rd, was rep uted to have the poorest eyesig h t in mo torcycledom . Nothing was tolerable b u t outrigh t victory. George Roeder, a menacing second to Mann in the standings, had belatedly d isco ver ed the combination to Resweber's old equipment. Ascot being the one track that was tra ditionall y a graveyard to Harley-Davidson, Roeder was apt to miss qualifying for "th e Sacramento the following Sunday, and even if George Roeder won everything the exact scenario which occu rred Mann still had su fficient points to earn Number One. Pandemonium! The great Ascot celebration exploded. Ricky Graham toa sted his 1993 title by writing heartfelt th ank yo u' s to all those sponsors who'd aided him. Mann, back in 1963, really had almost nobody to thank excep t Tum an and Keen . Just how prodigious the championship really was didn't come to Mann in 1964. ExactIy a year later, all healed up , he failed to repeat as Number One. Seasons passed . Factor ride rs from Triumph, BSA (Mann hi mself) and Ya maha all deprive d Harley-Davidson of National titles . But 16 long' campaigns had to elapse un til 1979, when Steve Eklund at last became the second independent champion since Dick Ma nn . In 1984, Ricky Graham became the third . Now, nine seasons later, Graham has just done it again. ~ 29

• Cover