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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128393
By Scon ROUSSEAU • :rhe Convergen,ce ground. Haaby was gaining ground, and Lawwill knew it. The situation forced a change of strategy for Lawwill, one that would cost him the race on lap 12. "I remember that Mert started running my line, and it just didn't worlk quite as well for him, and I managed to sneak under him," Haaby says. "The time was fast because the track was fast. Any time you could run on the pole the track was fast. When it was more of a cushion we would run in the high 22s, but when we could run on the pole we would run in the middle 22s." Haaby, followed by Lawwill and Mel Lacher, went on to win, earning his third weekly main-event victory in a row at Ascot. But the convergence of Haaby, Harley and history comes in this little-known fact: May 10, 1968 marked the first time in Ascot history that HarleyDavidson swept the podium, the brand doing the deed in both the main event and the trophy dash. The occurrence triggered an interesting comment from Cycle News reporter Carol Sims in her coverage of the event. "Though history had been made by the one-twothree Harley sweep (and probably surprised even a few people in Milwaukee), it left one with the feeling that this was less an upset than a sign of things to come," Sims reported. Haaby would go on to have a decent run with the Harley team, but it wasn't a very long one. "I raced with Harley for all of 1968 and half of 1969," Haaby recalls. "That's when they made the big change to th~erhead valve 40-inchers [750s], and they weren't very competitive. We were still riding our flatheads, and then I just worked out a deal with BSA to where I was going to leave Harley, and Harley said okay, and I went back to BSA. I retired not too long after that." Although he did spend several years liVing in Southern California, during his racing days, Haaby has always been a Northern California kid. Now 59 years young, he still lives near Sacramento, where he has remained in the car business for the past 30 years. "I've had a few stores and sold a few stores, and now I'm getting ready to open another store," Haaby says. Haaby also said that he still reads Cycle News, and Factory Harley-Davidson rider Dan Haaby (22) made history at Ascot on May 10, 1968. Haaby beat Mert Lawill (18) and Mel he still follows dirt track a Lacher in the first all-Harley sweep of the podium in the track's history. little bit. "I haven't done it a lot because it got to be such a Goldies at the weekly Ascot Pro dirt track shows could couldn't stay down there, because it got greasy. "I remember that he was running it in there, and the Harley parade for so long that I didn't have much interbe a tough uphill battle, not because of inferior equipcases were quite wide," Haaby continues. "In fact, we est in that," he says. "But I am watching the new Suzukis ment but rather because of the track itself. ''Ascot was really a strange racetrack because it was used to have to weld little plates on the case to keep it now to see if they can get competitive." Perhaps Dan Haaby might enjoy seeing a day when extremely tacky," Haaby recalls. "We used to run those from denting in when we'd bounce 'em off the ground. It was like a steel shoe for the primary." Suzukis go one-two-three in a twins main event. case-hardened Pirelli tires with cuts. A lot of time, the Some I I laps into the main event, Lawwill was bend- After all, he was there when Harley-Davidson did it at moisture would come up during the evening, and it ing it in so hard that he actually lifted both wheels off the Ascot in I968. CN w,ulg!lit ~inf §f slippery down low. [BSA rider] Sammy actory Harley-Davidsons and Ascot Park went together like peas and carrots for most of the Southern California speedrome's legendary existence, but there was a time when being on a Harley meant being at a disadvantage at Ascot. For much of the 1960s - the recent Archives tale of Elliott Schultz and Shell Thuett's Royal Enfield standing as it notable exception - BSA Gold Stars ruled the Ascot roost. It wouldn't last. Part of Northern California flat tracker Dan Haaby's past includes an interesting historical convergence that speaks to this very subject, as Haaby made the switch from BSA to Harley in 1968, and on May 10 of the year, he put another stitch in the rich fabric of Ascot's legacy. Haaby had been riding for BSA from 1965 through 1967. "The Gold Stars were the hot ticket then," Haaby says. Unfortunately for BSA, the Gold Stars were also the ticket by which Haaby gained a paid admission to the Harley-Davidson factory racing team in 1968. Haaby explains how that happened. "I had won the 8-mile National at Ascot on a BSA in 1967, and I was friends with Mert Lawwill," Haaby says. "We traveled together back then because when I was an Amateur I had ridden for Dud Perkins [Lawwill's sponsor]. I won the Ascot opener as a Novice riding for Dud, and then Mert was riding for Dud. Harley had been watching me for a while because Dud Perkins was friends with Dick O'Brien, and he had been telling Dick to watch me. They asked me if I wanted to try the Harley for 1968, so I went over to Harley." Even though he would be armed with factory-backed Harley KR750 twins, Haaby knew that racing against the F 94 AUGUST 31,2005 • CYCLE NEWS Tanner was real fast at Ascot at that particular time because he would always run a real high line there. He had that figured out, and he would run it almost every single week. Ascot was just a funny track, and that's how it got to be considered so dangerous, bec;'use you could run from the pole all the way out to the fence." Ascot track was a dangerous joint. Many a racer had lost his life trying to tame it. But Haaby wasn't really scared ofthe place. "We used to run a little track in Sacramento called Three Star Raceway, and it was almost exactly the same shape as Ascot," Haaby says. "It was a decomposed granite track that they put a lot of water on. Riding Bultacos on it was like riding a tacky track, and so moving on to Ascot was kind of like a natural for me." After getting a few setup details worked out on the KR, Haaby proved that he had rhythm at Ascot by winning back-to-back main events early in the '68 season there. The May 10 race would give him the chance to make it three in a row. The only problem was that on this particular evening, Lawwill was going like greased lightning. Earlier in the night, Lawwill had set a new, fivelap track record, and when the main event field roared off the starting line, Lawwill was out front again and pulling away on the low pole, with Haaby in hot pursuit, running a line midway up the track in the turns. "I remember that Mert was running low, and it got kind of slippery toward the end of the main event because the moisture started coming up," Haaby recalls. ''As the race went on, he started to lose traction on the pole. The pole really was the fastest way around the track - I don't care what anybody tells you - but you just