Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 31 AUGUST 5, 2014 P107 freighter for England. He spent the entire summer competing in British motorcycle racing events. Post- war restrictions prohibited foreigners coming to Eng- land to work, but BSA devised a novel plan to work around the restriction by hosting McDermott as a stu- dent on stipend. When he finished second to leading British scrambles and trials rider Bill Nicholson in the prestigious Cotswold Scramble, McDermott became a sensation among the British motorcycling press. They dubbed him a natural. McDermott didn't limit himself to trials and scrambles racing, either. He also qualified for the popular British Speedway League. McDermott's dream summer culminated with the ISDT, held in Wales in September. Riding for the BSA team, McDermott raced the entire week without arriv- ing late at a single checkpoint, earning him the cov- eted gold medal. "Dick Mann and I were talking about this once," McDermott said. "It seems like it's always the easy rides where you win or earn gold. The heroes are the guys who had all kinds of problems and still manage to get a silver or bronze. It was the former for me at the Six Days. It seemed like everything went smoothly except for one day when I crashed going through a ditch and my bike ended up against one of the beauti- ful Welch stone walls with some broken spokes. "The rear wheel was so bent that the tire rubbed the frame and the canvas was showing through. For- tunately, a friend put some straight spokes in for me, highly illegal I might add, and I was lucky enough to get through and earn a gold. It didn't mean much to me at that age, but it became something to treasure over the years." Since McDermott raced under the Auto Cycle Union (ACU) banner, the British equivalent of the AMA, his accomplishment at home went unno- ticed for decades. For years, Bud Ekins was con- sidered the first American to compete in the ISDT since the inaugural 1913 event. The modest Mc- Dermott said he was too busy with the routine of everyday life to speak up for himself. Finally, in the late 1990s, legendary racer Dick Mann and John Taylor, a Bultaco and Ossa distributor, spoke up for McDermott, and his accomplishment in 1949 was at long last recognized in his home country. McDermott served in the Air Force during the Kore- an War. After leaving the service, McDermott went on to earn a reputation as a solid competitor in AMA nationals. He scored third in the 1950 Daytona 200 on a factory BSA Gold Star he largely built himself while in England the summer before. In 1954, McDermott finished third again and was part of BSA's famous top-five sweep at Daytona. McDermott was the only rider on a single-cylinder machine. The other BSA riders were on special twins shipped over from the factory especially for Daytona. It was the first time one company had swept all top five positions at Daytona. In addition to his Daytona success, McDermott was also a top runner at many of the other AMA nationals of the day such as the infamous mile in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, and the popular Laconia National in New Hampshire. He scored a podium result at Laconia in 1956 and went on to finish the season ranked ninth in the AMA Grand National Se- ries, despite running a limited schedule. On the regional flat track level, McDermott was a two-time New York State Champion and also twice won the New England States title. By the late 1950s, McDermott, who with his wife, Alma, was raising eight children, began to scale back his racing endeavors. For the better part of 20 years, McDermott worked as a service manager for Volkswagen, while maintaining a small part-time motorcycle dealership and repair shop. In 1978, he became a Harley-Davidson dealer in his hometown of Glens Falls. A family business, the dealership grew tremendously and is now located in large facility in Fort Ann, New York, in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

• Cover