Cycle News

CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE T hree-time Daytona 200 winner Dick Klamfoth is 86. He was holding court at the Lima Half- Mile last week with wife Bev at his side. They were holding a raffle to raise money for the Daytona 200 Monument (www.daytona200monument. com) a project that has been the Klamfoths pri- mary purpose in life it seems since he retired from running his Honda dealership. The monument was dedicated in 2002, but spaces for named commemorative bricks are still available. Klamfoth is one of the few remaining racers who raced as far back as the 1940s and while his hearing is not the greatest, the memories of his racing days are still vivid to him. Even though I've interviewed him several times before I take any chance I can get to hear more from Klamfoth, or any rider from that era, and record them whenever I get the chance. At Lima I asked some different questions and that led to some great stories that I'd never heard before. He talked about how motorcycle racing practically died during World War II. The problem, besides the obvious of having many of the racers off serving their country, was rationing. Things like gas and rubber were in tight supply, so traveling to get to races (or anywhere for that matter) was out of the question. "You got a gas card and were only allowed a gallon and a half per week for a motorcycle," Klamfoth recalled. "But I was on a farm so I didn't have to worry about having enough gas." During high school when Klamfoth's 1936 Indian Pony ran low on fuel he'd just siphon some gas from his family's farm tractors. "I got around everywhere," he laughed. After graduating high school Klamfoth traded the Pony in and bought a 1939 Harley, which he en- tered in endurance runs. Now you've heard the sto- ries of those 1940s endurance races, where riders unbelievably rode big Harleys and Indians through the woods. The old saying goes, "That's when men were men," but according to Klamfoth you didn't necessarily need to be a big brawny guy to hustle those big V-Twins through the woods. "I was 100 pounds when I graduated high school," Klamfoth laughed. "And I won some of those runs on that Harley. I blasted through the mud. That's where I learned to do dumb stuff on a motorcycle." The war was over by the time Klamfoth gradu- ated from high school in Groveport, Ohio, in 1946. Incidentally, Klamfoth said only he and one other kid from his high school rode mo- torcycles. He and his buddy took their first big adventure away from home when they rode from Groveport to Springfield, Illinois to watch the resumption of the AMA National Championship at the Springfield Mile. The two kids from Ohio, watched Chet Dykgraaf nip arch-rival Kenny Engle by about three-feet in the 25-mile race. "We had no money," Klamfoth recalls. "We slept in a sheep barn with a bale of straw for KLAMFOTH'S MEMORIES P126 Dick Klamfoth talks to a fan who actually got to watch him race back in his prime. PHOTO BY LARRY LAWRENCE

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