Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

TIME REMEMBERED Jim Davis t: r~e l~De7#Zd By Anne- Mar ie Friedmann t took Jim Davis 100 years to make the Motorspo rts Hall of Fam e - long ~ overdue, after a life spen t-on motorcycle racing.. Tod av Davis lives on the shore of the Halifa x river, in a house that' s also hom e to memorabilia that da tes back as far as 190 1 - fro m th e tin ted pho to of hi m proudly sitting on a tricycle next to his olde r bro ther; to the Hall of Fam e trop hy that rests on the coffee table, next to a letter from President Clin ton. And there are sto ries to ma tch, racing ya rns that still brin g a tw inkle to his eyes and reflect the spark of excitement he still has for motorcycle racing. By the end of the 19th century, inventor s around th e wo rld had d iscover ed that the motorization of the bicycle cou ld provid e quite a n interesti ng mod e of transpor tati on. On Ma rch 23, 1896, Jim Davis - today, the oldes t man in modem mot or cycle. hist ory - w as born in Oh io, read y to be a part of the legacy of the mot orcycle' s evolu tion for the next 100 years . Joh n Davis was a bicycle racer , but Jim didn't have any intention of following in his father's racin g footsteps - yet racing motorcycles seemed like a prett y exciting thin g to d o. A few bo ys in the sixth gra de were racing motorcycles, and Davis was soo n the proud owner of his first racing machine: a Yale, fabricated by the Consolidated Manufacturing Company of Toledo, which had purchased the righ ts fro m a Californian builder. The pr ice: a wh opping $200. "Back in those d ays, it was a lo t of money," Davis recalls. This sweet old man, aged more than a cen tury, peacefully sits in fro nt of me, with a tou ch for happiness and a certain zest for life. Jim Davis has a remarkable se nse of humor, a n d ha s often been referred as a practical joker (though in my presence, he remains a perfect gentlemen in eve rv sense of the wor d ). However , some of his shenanigans got him in hot water, and he was sometimes suspended or ~ed during his racing days. Whe n he tells his stories - tales filled with won der ful memories - Davis is just anothe r grandfather, thou gh he ne ver had children of his 0 "111 . That didn't stop him a n d h is fi rs t w if e, Lou ise , fro m enjoying their friends' children. "My wife took care of Billy (France [r.) whe n he was in di apers," Davis said. His romance of 50 years with' Louise began in 1926, with no big ceremony or wed d ing ring - thoug h the ring w ould come later. After a life filled with lau ghter, Lou ise passed away at the end of 1980. Jim tied the knot with his s econd wife, Pau line; in 1992, and has outlived her for the past four years. Jim Davis feels a s trong bond with Daytona Internati onal Speedway, as he has been friends with Bill France since 1927. At the time, France wa s a IS-yearold roaming the pits in Maryl and; he was approached by Davis and give n an invitation to try ou t his racing machine on the boa rd track . Bill took him up on the offer, and the rest is history. I Durin g the introductory yea r of the single Silent G ray Fell ow in 1908, Jim Davis be g an h is racin g ca reer o n a wood en board track in Ohio. His fa ther agreed to his racing, with Jim's promise . tha t he would continu e to attend schoo l in the earl y yea rs of his racing caree r. After the First World War, Davis graduated fro m California State University with a bu ild ing d egree (the equ ivalent of a civil engineer d iploma). His father ow ned a stone com pany in Columbus, Ohio, an d you can still find ev idence of th e Da vis' wor k there tod ay: h ist oric mon uments and buildings faced w it h the Davis Cut Stone Compa ny' s work . Jim played a big part in m any of the wo rks of art produced by the com pany u ntil its closure in 1980. They carv ed the pieces from pictu res on limestone plates, which were used to cover the walls of such hist orical la ndmarks as the State House of Columbus, where the Davis Compan y erected a statue of Ch rist opher Columbus. Also , the National Hou se of Lan caster featu res a full-sized, carved-stone statue of a gentleman (coinci dentally named Jim Davis ) wh o holds a youngster by'the hand . Davis se rve d hi s co u n try in World War I as a dri ver for top officials. Meanwhil e, he tried his best to concea l his racing background. The comma nder of his post, however, had see n him race , and conned him int o riding again by tellin g him to start a sid ecar that was sitting. in the yard . "I tol d him tha t I didn't kno w any thing about motorcycles," Jim said . His com ma nder briefed him on how to proceed and urged him to keep tryin g. N aturally, Jim finall y go t the eng ine to start and the commander later admitted having known abou t his racing fame. . His milita ry tra ining led him to enroll in the newl y formed Ohio State Patrol as a pa tro lma n and a rid in g instructor in 1933, and he remained on the force until his retirem ent som e 12 yea rs la ter . For more than a decade, Davis man aged to juggle the family business, the Ohio State Pa tro l, and his racing - aft er s triking a dea l with the a rmy and the OSP that enabled him to race du ring his service. The Yale was the on ly machine Jim Davis eve r owned , At the beg inning of his career, he raced in the 1916 Detroit 100-m iler aboard an In d ia n fa cto r y machine. He ju m ped ship in 1926 a nd became Ralph Hep burn's teammat e on the Ha rley-Davidson factory team, with a salary of $25 and with all expenses paid . "I would u sually giv e the money to the you ng rid ers who di dn' t make any money at the track that weekend," Davis . recalls . "I was on the Harley-Davidson or Indian payroll. I didn't race for money." Throughout hi s ca reer, Da vis es timates he won a total of $15,000 in prize money. Back then, the racin g equip me nt wa s shipped by the factory via express train, and the riders also used the train as their main form of transportati on - in both the United States and Canada. "We used to insure our equipment for the amo un t of the pri ze mon ey, in case th e equi p men t d idn't arri ve on tim e," Da vis said . " It hap pened four or five times that we didn't get our machine on time." In the lat e ' 20s, thi ng s were getting better, an d they tra veled in the original cross-coun try TWA flights from LA to Columbus - for $100. The trip cons isted of four stopovers, including a chan ge of plane in Wichita, Kansas . Da vis is one of th e most d ecorated riders in the history of mo torcycle racing. No matter where he started - on the front row or the back row - he usuall y crossed the fin is h line in front of the field , or closely behind the winner. After spinning tir es on boa rd, clay and d irt tracks for nearly 40 years, Davis owns a record 175 championship medals - 95 of them gold. In addition, Davis has also held speed records, including the one he set in 1929 on a dry lak e in California when he reached speeds of 157 mph . He is also the only rider to hav e earned what were formerl y the thr ee highest honors in Am erican moto rcycle-raci ng hi story: th e Ha rley-Davidso n Awa rd for winning the 300-m ile Na tiona l Champion sh ip go ld m ed al ; th e Fed e ration o f Ameri can Moto rcyclists' National Competitor gold med al; a nd the American Motorcycli st Associatio n National Championship gold med al. In America, h e b rough t Yale, Indian and Har ley-Davi dson to the top , and in Australia he rode Dou glas, JAP, BSA and Triumph mot or cycles. It was onl y in Aust ralia that Da v is rod e a machine fitted wi th brakes - something he neve r used in his U.S. racing career. In 1929 he was honored by the Sport Compan y of America as the grea test and most fearless mo torcycle racer that the industry had ever seen. "I liked to go without bra kes, because yo u had to use your own judg ment (in order to stop safely) ," Davis ex p la ins . "Wh en you h ave brakes, you w an t to stop anywhere else, and when you rid e aro und 100 mph, it could lock the wh eel up and some time s yo u cou ld go d own and tum into a human porcupine." On the eve of World War II, the Davis Cut Stone Company began build ing war p rod u ct s. A t th at time, Da vi s retired from racin g to concen tra te on building ships, bu t he maintained his passion for racing by beco ming the AMA Nati on al starter. "I was getting tired of bei n g o n th e ro ad all the time a n d I decided 1 had to loo k a head to life with my wife, Lo uise, " Davis said. The closest finis h Davis recalls ever flaggin g was at Lakewood Park, a mile d irt track in Atlanta, on Augus t 8, 1948 . The race fea tured a battle between thre e racers : Bobby Hill, Bill Hu bbert an d Canad ia n Bill Ma thew s. "T hey fi n is hed so close tha t yo u ha d to ha v e a good e ye ( to ca tch the wi n ne r) ," Dav is sa id . "There were thr ee judges, and out of the ju dges and the starters , I was the one to make the decision. This race was for the cha m pionship, an d I s a id, ' N o bo d y cou ldn't tell which one' , of th ose kids won the race: I called for a tie and issued e ach of th em a National Ch ampionship gold medal. Bill Math ew s was g ive n the third-place finis h." Followin g h is two decad es in the AMA - a tim e th a t sa w ra cing move from the beach at Dayto na to the Speed wa y - he pa ssed on the checkered flag to his good fr iend Duke Pennell, who rep laced him as the National starter and referee after his retirement in the early 196Os. "I got kind of tired of it," Davis said. "The n I tu rned it over to a friend of mine and he still d oes it." . Si nce th en , Jim Davis ha s been a gu es t spea ker around the cou n try a t various events honoring his legacy. "One time , I got on the platform and I sta rted telling s torie s," he recall s . "I tal ked fo r 35 m in ut es, then I lea ned down to the pre sid ent of the league, and asked him, 'How mu ch time do I have?' He said, 'Keep going - yo u're saving the sho w : Then I co nt inue d with another story ." A popu lar speaker, Davi s wa s twice flown to Southern Ca lifornia las t year fo r a promotional p hoto shoot of the centennial of the mo torcycle - a nd he retu rned in October for the annual event at Del Mar. Davis is a hu mb le man who d oesn't like to talk much abou t his own acco mplishments. He mostly prefers to speak highly of others - men like Bill Fra nce, the founder of NASCAR, and his sons; E.C. Sm ith, th e man in ch a rg e of the AMA in the ea rly days; his racing teammate Ra lph H epburn , w ho died in a crash w h ile qualifyin g fo r th e Ind ia napolis 500 as Jim looked on; Duke Pennell, the current AMA starte r; racing legend Bobb y Hill; an d World Champions Eddie Lawson and Freddie Spencer , both of wh om he met in the '80s . He recently played his last ga me of golf with Pennell, but the pair still meet regularly for lun ch. For his 100th birthday, he rod e in the pa ce car a t 140 mph a ro u n d Daytona Internati on al Spe ed wa y' S banking, and he is lookin g forward to his next birthday party - plan ned for Bike Week 1998. Young at heart, Davis is an inspiration. In fact, you'd like to grow up to be 0 just like him.

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