Cycle News

CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE I n the photography world one of the biggest stories in the last 10 years was the discovery of the Vivian Maier collection. Maier worked for about 40 years as a nanny in Chicago pursuing pho- tography during her spare time. She took more than 150,000 photographs during her lifetime. During her lifetime, Maier's photographs were unknown and unpublished, and she never printed many of her negatives. Racing enthusiast David Sites may have uncovered the motor- cycle racing equivalent of Vivian Maier. Early this year, previously unpublished photos of AMA Grand National racing in the 1960s and early '70s began being shared by dozens of enthusiasts on Facebook. The photos, originally posted by Sites, were taken by former DC-area motorcycle dealer Bob Myers. Myers played a key role in the history of Triumph motorcycles, both through his sponsorship of many great racers, and as the representative of U.S. Tri- umph dealers in the negotiations between Triumph factory management and workers in the mid-'70s. In addition, he was a huge supporter of racing. Friend John Healy said, "When Gary Nixon was still wet behind his ears, Bob took him into his home and gave him a job so he could race motorcycles." As it turns out Myers was also an excellent racing photographer and he'd take his camera with him to hundreds of races over the course of a decade. Like Vivian Maier, Bob Myers never sought to have his photography published. Instead they were for his own enjoyment and he would oc- casionally frame some of his favorites and hang them up at his shop. That's what makes this find so unique—not only is the photography top-notch, but most of it had never seen the light of day. And the photos likely would have remained hidden away in a filing cabinet were it not for David Sites. Sites is a family friend and over the years Myers sold him rural property, in the early days, so Sites could have a place to practice motocross riding. When Myers passed away last year, the Myers family gave Sites the first option to buy Bob's old house. As Sites and the Myers family were going through Bob's possessions, they came across the filing cabinet of photos. "I started looking through them and they were really good," Sites said. "I started just taking pictures of some of the photos with my iPhone and began posting them on FlatTrack.com's Facebook page and I got a great response from them. I just wanted to do it to honor Pop (what many of his friends called Bob Myers) and he NEWFOUND TREASURE P104 This Bob Myers photo of the 1964 Springfield 50-mile National with Dick Hammer leading was taken from an old Polaroid instant print and copied with David Sites' iPhone and then posted on Facebook.

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