Cycle News

CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE M otorcycle racing in America reached its peak relatively early. The period of the early-to-mid 1910s witnessed unprecedented public interest in motorsports, both automobile and motorcy- cle racing. Even though motorcycle racing was barely out of its first decade, it was a time of rich diversity. Flat track, board track, road race, hill- climb and city-to-city events made up the racing landscape of the era and over a dozen American manufacturers participated directly with factory teams, or indirectly with support of enthusiast "amateur" racers. If you look at historic results it's easy to see that 1913 marked the high-water mark of racing in America in terms of factory involvement. Indian, Excelsior, Flying Merkel and Thor were the big teams of the day, roughly in that order of strength. Then there were a dozen or so other brands that raced regularly with varying degrees of support by the factories. Harley-Davidson hadn't yet formally entered the fray with an official factory team, but devotees were already racing Harleys fairly exten- sively with discreet backing from Milwaukee and its newly hired racing manager William Ottaway. In fact, it can be argued that when Harley officially entered the fray to go against the dominant Indian and Excelsior squads in 1914, that very escalation began to thin the field of makers participating sim- ply because it became too expensive to compete against the Big Three. But in 1913 there were still a huge variety of brands being raced. Pope, Yale, Jefferson, Dayton, Bradley, DeLuxe and Reading- Standard were just a sampling of the brands that finished well in the FAM National races of 1913. To give you an idea of the landscape of American motorcycling – 1913 saw a peak of domestic pro- duction. A total of 71,000 machines were sold that year with Indian leading the way with over 40 per- cent of the market. Harley-Davidson and Excelsior were the other two top manufacturers who made up the "Big Three," each producing well over 10,000 units already by 1913. Merkel at that point was a close fourth. It led the rest of the makers, pro- ducing almost double the machines of Thor and Pope, who headed up the smaller makers turning out 6500 and 5000 units respectively. National registration of motorcycles reached nearly a quar- ter million that year. Bikes were relatively inexpen- sive. The average new machine cost about $250 (around $6000 today). Growing sales stimulated a desire to read about the machines and the men who raced them, so the magazines of the day such as Motorcycle Illustrated, Motorcycling and Pacific Motorcyclist were rapidly increasing in cir- culation and ad sales. In 1913 Indian factory rider Charles "Fearless" Balke was the leading racer in America. Balke was born in Texas, but his family moved to Los Angeles when he was 15. He got a job as a tele- gram delivery boy, riding a 1.75 horsepower In- dian and he used his delivery bike to enter his first race at Los Angeles' Agricultural Park horse track 1913: THE PEAK OF AMERICAN-MADE MOTORCYCLE RACING P130 In 1913 more than a dozen manufacturers fielded factory teams in FAM racing events. Indian's Charles "Fearless" Balke was the top rider that year.

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