CN III ARCHIVES
P122
BY LARRY LAWRENCE
THE ROCKFORD ROCKET
B
y all rights Bill Tuman
shouldn't have made the
main at the 1953 Springfield Mile. The stakes were
high. That was when Springfield was the winner-take-all
championship event of the
season and the rider who
won Springfield was the AMA
National Champion - and it
wasn't looking good for Tuman. In his heat race he'd
collided with another rider
and his number plate folded
over and was rubbing against
his rear tire. Finally the friction melted the number plate
enough that the rear wheel on
Tuman's Indian Sport Scout
began to spin freely.
It came down to the last lap. He was running in
last place, but typical of the mile in Springfield, Illinois, the draft had kept the pack together. As they
came out of the final turn, Tuman was looking for
daylight.
"I came out on the straightaway for the flag and
they were all lined up across the track up front and
there was no place for me to go," Tuman explained.
"Old Dick Klamfoth knew I was coming. He moved
over a little bit, I reeled up on him, took a little hide
off his arm and I was in there and got the last transfer spot."
While Tuman had gotten into the main, just barely, he had an even bigger challenge facing him in
the final. It was loaded that year with riders like Joe
Leonard, Everett Brashear, Paul Goldsmith, Ernie
Beckman and Bobby Hill just to name a few. None
was faster that day though than Californian Al Gunter on his British-made BSA. Up against a field of
American iron – Indians and Harleys – Tuman said
Bill Tuman won the AMA's Most Popular Rider Award in
1950. Here he accepts the award along with that year's
Most Popular Female Rider, Dot Robinson.
Gunter's BSA was easily the fastest motorcycle
on the track.
What saved Tuman and gave him the chance to
win the AMA number-one plate that August day in
1953? Tuman explains.
"Albert Gunter's BSA twin had 20 miles per
hour on us on the straights, but he had one problem, the thing couldn't go around a corner. So I
wound up with the number one and that was it."
Tuman was the last single-day winner of the
AMA Grand National Championship, the result
of his victory at the Springfield Mile in 1953. Tuman was part of Indian Motorcycle's famous racing team that was dubbed the "Indian Wrecking
Crew", a group of top racers in the late 1940s and
early '50s that included Bobby Hill, Ernie Beckman and Tuman.
Tuman won a total of five AMA Grand Nationals
