CN
III ARCHIVES
P108
BY LARRY LAWRENCE
Loudon Lost
E
very fall, when the AMA
releases its road-racing
schedule for next year's sea-
son, I always hope against hope
that the Classic road race in
Loudon, New Hampshire, would
somehow mysteriously reap-
pear. Perhaps some top-secret
agreement had been reached,
track changes would be made,
and we'd, once again, hear the
roar of Superbikes echoing off
the newly green New England
hillsides as summer kicked off in
earnest.
Alas, Loudon is lost, maybe
forever.
The Loudon Classic (known
until the 1960s as the Laconia
Classic) was one of the oldest,
most prestigious races in all of
motorcycle racing. New England
motorcycle clubs were early
proponents of the AMA's new
Class C racing rules of the early
1930s. The Great Depression hit
the motorcycling industry hard,
and Indian was quick to get be-
hind the new production racing
class in hopes of jump-starting
sluggish sales. It didn't hurt
that Indian, based not far away
in Springfield, Massachusetts,
