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and accumulated a good roll but traveling around with a crowd and being a good fellow cost a lot of money." In other words, there was plenty of partying go- ing on between races. During the war years, rac- ing slowed to a crawl. Bennett began running in various cross- country and city-to-city timed events that became popular dur- ing that time. He had a contract with Excelsior and set numerous city-to-city records, such as Los Angeles to San Francisco, San Diego to Phoenix, Fresno to Los Angeles, etc. Bennett also became involved in stunt riding for movies in Hol- lywood, where he made $45 per day, a good wage in the early 1920s. Bennett oversaw the 200-plus motorcycle squadron in the film A Connecticut Yan- kee in King Arthur's Court. After the war, Bennett re- sumed racing, still with the Ex- celsior factory. By this time, the board tracks were fading away. The biggest race of the late 1910s and early 1920s was the Dodge City Classic. In 1921, it looked like Bennett would finally break through to win the presti- gious event in his former home state. His Excelsior was clocked at more than two seconds per lap faster than the next-fastest qualifier, but during the race, a rocker arm broke and forced him to retire. The year 1922 was a great one for Bennett. In April, Excel- sior sent him to the prestigious San Juan Capistrano Hillclimb in Southern California. He won the hillclimb, dethroning the dominant Dudley Perkins on his Harley-Davidson. Excelsior heav- ily advertised the Capistrano National victory. The following month a Henderson factory team assembled on the creaky and deteriorating board track in Ta- coma, Washington. There, Ben- nett rode a Henderson Four (by then owned by Excelsior) to a new 24-hour record of 1562.54 miles, breaking the seven-year- old mark held by Indian and "Cannonball" Baker by more than 28 miles. Bennett had to be helped off the bike after the 24-hour record, which was done solo. It was considered Henderson's greatest sporting achievement and the record stood for 15 years. Bennett ended the year by breaking the transcontinental record on a Henderson, mak- ing the coast-to-coast trip from Los Angeles to New York, in six days, 16 hours and 13 minutes, bettering a record set by Baker on an Ace just a month earlier. Increasingly, the cross- country record runs, once popular and accepted, were being frowned upon by local law enforcement. Bennett had to devise ways to avoid populated areas (often the only areas that had paved roads) to stay away from the police. Despite his ef- forts, Bennett was still arrested in Los Angeles during a record attempt. By the early 1920s, the Motorcycle and Allied Trades Association (M&ATA, the motor- cycling organization that was the predecessor of the AMA) an- nounced that it would no longer sanction speed contests that used public roads. In August of 1923, Bennett set the last record for the classic Three-Flags Run (Mexico to Canada or vice versa) with a time of 42 hours, 24 minutes. By the mid-1920s, Bennett scaled back his racing activities to run his Excelsior/Hender- son motorcycle dealership in Portland, Oregon. He sold his motorcycle business in 1930 and took a position as a service rep for Ford Motor Co. He retired to his ranch at the foot of Mt. Hood, near Hood River, Oregon. He died in 1969. Bennett will be remembered as one of the pioneers of mo- torcycle racing—part of a hardy breed of riders who braved the most perilous period of the sport. He rates as one of the greatest cross-country riders of all time. CN This Archives edition is reprinted from the July 7, 2010, issue of Cycle News. CN has hundreds of past Ar- chives editions in our files, too many destined to be archives themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones coming down the road -Editor. CN III ARCHIVES P108 Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives