Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/694857
CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE I n 1932 the local mo- torcycle shop on Pearl Street in Albany, New York, got a phone call from the governor's of- fice. It was FDR calling to see about getting his wheelchair repaired. The shop's mechanic Brownie Betar began work on the governor's chair. "I told my boss, 'These wheels don't look good at all,'" Betar said. "It's those hard, solid chuck tires. He said, 'Build him a couple of wheels.'" So Betar assembled up a couple of air tires for the governor. "When I brought that back he got on that thing and went around that great big kitchen, you'd swear he was five years old, and he said, 'Boy this is good!'" So thanks to the ingeniousness of a motorcycle mechanic, the future president was able to get around much more easily. Abraham "Brownie" Betar was not only a first- class mechanic but also a leading hillclimb racer of the late 1920s through the 1940s. He later inherited an Indian Motorcycle dealership, which, years later, was the go-to place for Indian Motor- cycle restorers. Betar was born in 1909 and like many kids of that era he went to work at a young age helping to support his family. He became a newspaper and telegram delivery boy and pedaled his bicycle everywhere. He finally saved up enough money when he was 16 and walked into "Slim" Nelson's Indian shop, then Albany's premier Indian Motor- cycle dealer in Upstate New York, and bought his first motorcycle, a 1923 Indian Chief with a sidecar, for $175. Betar became a regular at Nelson's shop and the shop owner became fond of the outgoing teenager, and within a few years hired him. Betar's eyes really lit up when he found out he was going to be paid $15 per week. He was said to have sent $10 per week to his mother and still was able to live well with the five bucks left over. Betar joined one of the busiest Indian deal- ers in the country and there was a lot of activity. Nelson's shop not only sold and serviced the Indian Motorcycles it sold; it also had a contract to service the police motorcycles of the Albany Police Department and New York State Police. Betar became an expert Indian mechanic and developed a specialty of tuning carburetors. His reputation grew and reached the doors of Indian headquarters in Springfield, Massachusetts. Indian invited Betar to Springfield to show them what he knew about setting up carbs and before long, there were regular trips to HQ for Betar, who would find rows of motorcycles for him to "tune." He was offered a position at Indian, but he turned it down due to his loyalty to Nelson. Betar became somewhat of an honored guest at Indian, not only being brought in to solve problems with bikes that weren't running quite right, engineers also enjoyed taking Betar to the MASTER OF INDIANS: ABRAHAM "BROWNIE" P104 Abraham "Brownie" Betar Betar was an accomplished hillclimb competitor.