Cycle News

CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE L ike hundreds of leading AMA Enduro riders, Lew Atkinson tried year after year to win the big one, the National Championship Jack Pine En- duro. Through most of the 1950s, Atkinson, from Columbus, Ohio, traveled to Lansing, Michigan for the annual Jack Pine. And several times he tried, but came up short and never won the big prize. Fi- nally in 1961 everything came together for Atkinson. His immaculately prepared Triumph 500cc Trophy didn't miss a beat and Atkinson's riding was nearly flawless. He cleared the long endurance race's numerous challenges to finally take home the old Cow Bell, the traditional trophy for the Jack Pine winner. The victory made Atkinson the 1961 AMA National Enduro Champion and as it turns out, he won the big race just in the nick of time. Starting the next year the AMA Enduro Championship be- came a series of races instead of winner-take-all at the Jack Pine. Born in 1915, Atkinson grew up in Columbus. His father was a bicycle racer and Lew and his older brother followed in their dad's footsteps as bicyclists, but by their teens had turned their attention to motorcycles. Things progressed and by the mid-1930s Lew started dabbling in local flat track races. One funny story was when Atkinson raced an Indian, he and his fellow Indian riders sometimes faced highly-partisan officiating during the height of the Harley-Davidson vs. Indian battles. "This is when a lot of the local officials were Harley dealers," said his son Ted Atkinson. "There'd be times when dad or other Indian riders would be the fast qualifier and they'd line up for the final and an official would look down, point to a little oil spot on the ground and say 'You're bike's leaking oil. Pull it off the line.'" Atkinson, riding Ariel motorcycles, earned a pair of prestigious Ohio State Amateur Flat Track Championships in the late 1930s. "He earned the number one plate and that was pretty much it with his flat track career," Ted said. "He never went pro. The war came along and pretty much put an end to that." Atkinson went to volunteer for military service after the Pearl Harbor attack, but he was turned down, being told by the recruiter that as a tool and die maker his skills were needed stateside. When racing resumed after the war Atkinson was looking for a little more casual way to get back into racing instead of flat track and he tried his hand at hillclimbing. "Dad said the only problem with that was you'd drive five or six hours to get to a hillclimb and IN THE NICK OF TIME P110

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