Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128158
llllM\IE I~EM\ IEM\JBIEJr{JEID Dick Hammer On the factory Triumph 500 at CaI'IsbacI In 1967. HIs leathers stili show the scars of hIs crash at D~na earlier that year. radiation treatment necessary to finish the job. This led to another six years of cancer-free living, just enough time to begin to believe that it was gone for good. He thought it was until he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000. Now was he ready to call it qUits? Heck no. Hammer bought a trailer and set it up in the parkjng lot of Lorna Unda Hospital so he could be close by for what turned out to be a successful 38-day treatment program. Hammer had not been out of the hospital for long when a dermatologist noticed something on the top of his head. It was initially diagnosed as a non-malignant blemish, so Dick didn't worry about it that much. But he later got a second opinion and it turned out it was skin cancer. He was treated for the skjn cancer, but in the months to follow, a tumor developed save time, Dick sat on the rag, figuring he would clean the shield after he got back on the track. Before he could do so, however, the rag was sucked into one of the bike's Amal carburetor throats. Hammer couldn't get the rag all the way out of the carb, and with the reduced horsepower he now had to ride harder to catch Nixon. A few laps later, the hard charging Hammer got into tum one too fast and fell at over 100 miles per hour. The crash broke Hammer's collarbone. While most riders would have waited for medical help to arrive, Hammer got up quickly and bump started his race bike. He then proceeded to ride the nearly 100 miles to the finish and ended up seventh. Then he got medical attention for his broken collarbone. Hammer quietly scaled back his racing activities in the late-1950s, but he had already made his mark on the sport by then. To this day, his name is synonymous with the number 15 and the famous "Never Say Die" photo of him sideways at Ascot. With racing behind him, Hammer got into the construction business and eventually became a successful General Contractor in San Clemente, California. Business was good and Dick enjoyed life along the coast. In the years to come, however, he would again need to call upon his uncanny 40 JUNE 12, 2002' cue I • determination to see himself through some great challenges ... this time to his health. In 1988, a friend of Dick's who was a nurse noticed a lump on hjs neck. She said it looked serious to her and that he should get it checked. He did, and it turned out to be a cancerous tumor. Hammer was a smoker in his younger days and admits that when he first got the news that he had cancer he thought his days were numbered. "I thought I was going to die, so I figured I would sell my business and learn to play golf," Hammer said. "I just played golf every day and that saved my life. I'd walk 18 holes every day, and I would read about what I could do about my health. That's alii did." His doctors prescribed a treatment of surgery to remove the tumor and follow-up radiation. Hammer was told that if he could go five years cancerfree, he was in the clear. He enjoyed six years of cancer-free living, but then it came back. This time, the cancer was near the trachea and lungs. The only option doctors could offer was a high-risk surgery that had only a one-in-five rate of success. Rather than accept the probable failure, Hammer gave his doctors the goahead. He survived the surgery and committed himself to the rigorous n • _ s behind his right ear. It was determined that the tumor was an effect of the earlier skin cancer that had spread down the right side of his head. Hammer knew the drill for the treatments, but he soon became concerned that the doctors did not have a successful cure in progress. Hammer had read extensively about can- that Dick would take for three months. Dick says the tumors did, in fact, shrink significantly, but they were not going away completely, so he went to a surgeon in California who did surgery and radiation, and the problems behind the ear were cleared up. It's hard to imagine how much pam and trauma Hammer has gone through these past 14 years. He admits the days following a radiation or chemotherapy session are really tough to endure. But once he gets feeling better, he gets out on the golf course as soon as he can and he feels like a new man again. He says most doctors have given up on him, but he is working with the City of Hope now to battle his most recent flare-up. He is pretty matter-of-fact about getting into a treatment program with his current team of doctors. "The last tumor that showed up is under my armpit. They cut the tumor up, made a culture to test it and carne up with a chemotherapy that is just right for that type of cancer," he said. Just another day in the life of Dick Hammer. He has been playing golf and fighting cancer exclusively since 1988. Just as he did in his motorcycle-racing days, he is determined to keep meeting the challenges that come at him, always lookjng ahead and working on a solution. Give up? Dick Hammer wouldn't know how. CN Editor's Note: Don Emde is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum. cer and was as knowledgeable as many doctors on the subject. So he contacted a doctor in Texas who was experimenting with holistic medicine. This doctor brought him in and prescribed a regimen of 50 pills a day Dick Hammer petti and longtime friend SkIp Van Leeuwen (right) meet at a recent Trailblazers banquet. The two have been pals sInce their high-school days. They got Into motorcycle racIng together.