Cycle News

VOL. 52 ISSUE 31 AUGUST 4, 2015 P105 Two legs, preferably long, were also a specialty of Gunter's. He loved women and they loved him back, according to one of Gunter's longtime friends and competitors Neil Keen. Keen should know because Gunter had managed to seduce Keen's then wife causing the demise of that marriage. It wasn't the first marriage Gunter broke up (including his own) and it wouldn't be the last. "You'd be off working on your motorcycle at the races and you'd look around the pits and there was Albert [Gunter] chatting up your wife or girlfriend," Keen said. "Getting into the pants of as many of the wives or girlfriends of his fellow racers seemed to be one of Albert's favorite hobbies." Unfortunately for many of the women who fell for Gunter's looks and charm, they found out soon enough that they were simply a short-term fix. He constantly needed high-octane fuel to power his life in the fast lane. And the funny thing is many of the riders stayed buddies with Gunter even after his interludes with their exes. In contrast to his thrill-a-minute lifestyle, Gunter gained the reputation of being an innovative self- taught engineer. He was a tinkerer who was con- stantly testing his ideas on the track. He claimed to be the first to use a swingarm on his flat track bikes when everyone else was running rigid frames. He also was an innovator in using flow meters and dy- nos to tune engines and was the first to chemically harden then hand-cut his Pirelli race tires. His BSAs produced horsepower that even the factory mar- veled at after Gunter performed his magic on them. He also helped Bell develop a full-face motorcycle helmet and he was the first to wear a prototype of the original Bell Star. "He was secretive about his inventions," remem- bers Sammy Tanner. "You'd walk by his pits and he'd have a towel covering up his motorcycle because he didn't want you to see what he was doing to his bikes. Sometimes he'd wait to the last minute to come out to the starting grid and then he'd have his mechanic with a shop rag or something covering up his engine. I think half the time he was just trying to psych the rest of us out." And it wasn't all head games and trick engineer- ing—Gunter could race. That was evident from his rookie season when he won an AMA National on a Half-Mile in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1952. He was fast on every type of track. If there'd been a Grand National Championship in '53 Gunter would have been in the running for the championship. He was on the podium at five of the nationals that season, all aboard BSA. He finished runner-up to Joe Leon- ard in the '57 AMA National Championship. For a decade Gunter was a leading contender, continuing to win on the newly-established AMA Grand National Championship circuit. He won the Sturgis Half-Mile in '54. He won the St. Paul Half- Mile in '55, the Peoria TT in '57 and he absolutely owned the infamous half-mile at Ascot Park in Gar- dena, California, in the early 1960s—winning three nationals in four years. Gunter suffered a serious head injury in a crash at a road race in Garden City, Kansas, in Septem- ber of 1964. He came back and raced after that, but according to friends was never the same. He made a few comeback attempts throughout the late-'60s and early-'70s. At the San Jose Mile in 1974 for example, Gunter raced, but was way off the pace and failed to qualify. Gunter, now in his 40s, who'd once raced riders like Ed Kretz, Sr., Joe Leonard and Paul Goldsmith, was now racing guys like Kenny Roberts, Gary Scott and David Aldana—two, maybe three racing generations re- moved from the riders of Gunter's youth. Gunter still craved that adrenaline rush and it finally caught up with him. He came back to race his beloved Ascot Park late in '75. He got into a tank-slapper and hit the wall. He was paralyzed. Six months later he took his own life. One can only speculate, but perhaps the prospect of life with- out his regular adrenaline rush was too much for Gunter to contemplate. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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