Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/397402
CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE T here was a time when a Harley-Davidson Sportster was truly the UAM (Universal American Motorcycle). Sport- sters were used of course for everyday road riding, but the well-regarded Milwaukee- made machine also exceled in just about every form of motorcycle racing competi- tion out there. Road racing check; flat track, you bet; hillclimb, oh yeah; but off- road racing? Are you kid- ding? Believe it or not, there was a time when Harley's Sportster was the bike to have in the woods. And in the early years they ran rigid frames! What's that they say about when men were men? One of those men happened to be Gerald Mc- Govern, Jr., of Grand Rapids, Michigan. McGov- ern twice won the AMA National Enduro Champi- onship, which in his era was a winner-take-all race, the famous Jack Pine, held on 500 miles of sandy trails in the then sparsely populated upstate part of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. But winning the pres- tigious off-road event isn't necessarily what Mc- Govern will be remembered for. No, Gerry's big- gest claim to fame was being the rider who held off the British Invasion one last time to win the coveted Cow Bell Trophy on a Harley Sportster in 1957. It was the last time a Harley-Davidson won the Jack Pine and the AMA National Endurance (Enduro) Championship. McGovern was from a motorcycling family. His fa- ther owned a Harley-Davidson dealership in Grand Rapids and Gerry grew up working in the shop and began racing at an early age. "He enjoyed rac- ing," said his wife Marilyn McGovern. "It was all P102 THE LAST SPORTSTER IN THE WOODS about fun because there wasn't any money, just trophies. But his family encouraged it because it was a good way to promote the dealership." Off-road racing in the 1950s was very much a man's world, almost exclusively. "In those days I don't even think most of the wives or girlfriends even went to the races," Marilyn recalls. "It was pretty much something the boys went off and did on the weekends. They raced over creeks and swamps, and he was pure mud when he came home." Gerry quickly became one of the leading off- road motorcycle racers in Michigan. He ran just about every form of motorcycle racing out there, including a lot of TTs and scrambles, but he had the most fun running the Jack Pine, the grand- daddy of long distance off-road events they called endurance (or reliability) runs in those days. The Jack Pine was the most popular American off- road motorcycle race of its era, and the oldest - its origins dating back to the early 1920s.