Cycle News

CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE Q uick, name the first American to score a premier class podium in GP racing. If you're like the average road racing aficionado you might have guessed Kenny Roberts, Steve Baker or maybe even Pat Hennen, but the fact is you'd have to go back a decade earlier than those American road racing heroes to find the answer to that question. The answer to one of the most challenging GP trivia questions of all time is none other than Buddy Parriott. Don't feel bad if you've never heard of Parriott, only the most ardent racing fan of the 1960s or maybe the few still around who raced with him remember the talented, but rather obscure Southern California racer. Parriott's second-place finish to the great Mike Hailwood in the 1965 United States Grand Prix at Daytona International Speedway, marked the first time in history an American rider scored a premier class GP podium. Perhaps the biggest reason Parriott is not well remembered today is that besides his two USGP appearances at Daytona in 1964 and '65 and a victory in an international event at Sebring, he mainly raced only club events in Southern Califor- nia. He rarely raced AMA Nationals; in fact, he was once suspended by the AMA in the late 1950s for participating in non-AMA-sanctioned events. When Parriott passed away in December of 1987 it probably would have gone un- noticed had it not been for a friend Bill Bagnall, the former editor of Motorcy- clist, who wrote a short notice in Cycle News' "In the Wind" sec- tion. So the memories of just how talented Parriott was as a racer are largely confined to his fellow competitors who had the chance to see him in action. Parriott passed away before the motorcycling community re- ally appreciated the significance of his 1965 GP podium, and very little has ever written about him. Fortunately David Edwards, then editor of Cycle World, helped rectify the shameful lack of recognition of Parriott when in 1992 he took the opportunity to interview several people who were close to Parriott and wrote an excellent piece about Buddy. For the first time a picture emerged of this obscure American racing hero. Buddy Parriott was born in 1927 and was the son of renowned Southern California dry lake speed record holder and motorcycle drag racer Sam Parriott. Buddy began riding at the age of five, his first motorcycle was a minibike made from an Indian frame, powered by a Cleveland two-stroke, riding on airplane tires. He began his racing career in the post-World War II boom of racing activity. He won his first race, a TT event in Chattanooga, Tennessee, while sta- tioned back East in the Army. In the early 1950s, Parriott was considered one of the leading up-and-coming racers in SoCal and might have THE FORGOTTEN AMERICAN GP HISTORY P132

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