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VOL. 53 ISSUE 25 JUNE 28, 2016 P111 Short Track Championship in 1936. Hillclimbs gave Spiegelhoff his first taste of competition, but he quickly turned his attention to flat track racing. He bought his first race bike by taking out a loan against his car. He picked up the bike on a Saturday morning and by the end of the weekend had worn out the tires after spending most of Saturday and Sunday riding lap after lap learning to broad slide around the mile dirt oval of the Milwaukee State Fairgrounds. By the late 1930s Spiegelhoff was one of the leading racers in the Midwest. He began rac- ing and winning for Indian. It was said one of the reasons Indian picked up Spiegelhoff was to rub it in a bit with archrival Harley-Davidson by having a rider from Milwaukee, and one who worked for Harley at one time no less, running for the Wig- wam. He raced in Canada and finished second in that country's national championship in 1938. Also in 1938 Spiegelhoff was the star rider and winner at the very first Black Hills Rally event in Stur- gis, SD. There he was given the nickname "The Milwaukee Demon." The rally at Sturgis would go one to become one of the biggest annual gather- ings of motorcyclists in the country. Spiegelhoff began to shine on the national level in the late-1930s. In 1939 he set the fastest quali- fying time at the prestigious Springfield (Illinois) Mile and finished fourth in the final. In 1940 Spie- gelhoff finished runner-up at Springfield to Melvin Rhoades. That would prove to be his best finish at Springfield. For years, Spiegelhoff would be one of the favorites at the race, and even though he led many times and earned a number of top-five finishes through 1948, he never seemed to have luck on his side at Springfield. Racing slowly began to return in 1946 and Spie- gelhoff took the victory in one of the first nationals after the war. He won the infamous Langhorne (Pennsylvania) 100 on his prewar Indian Scout. Langhorne, which was held on an egg-shaped oiled-dirt mile oval, was considered on of the most grueling races of its day. Luck was again with Spiegelhoff at the Day- tona 200 in February of 1947. It was the return to racing at Daytona after the war and the event drew close to 30,000 spectators to the beach course. Over 140 riders raced in the 200 miler. Ed Kretz and Floyd Emde battled for the lead early, while Spiegelhoff ran third. A brush fire started in a field next to the track and for a few laps the riders were forced to ride through flames before the blaze was brought under control. After six laps, Emde dropped from the race with engine problems and on lap 12 Kretz's bike snapped a chain. That left Spiegelhoff in the lead. Bobby Hill steadily closed the gap on Spiegelhoff and three-quarters of the way through the race had caught the leader, but in the process had burned up his brakes. Hill faded back in the field. In the end it was Spiegelhoff winning over fellow Indian rider Ted Edwards, of Atlanta, by one minute. The Daytona victory put Spiegelhoff in an elite category and was the highlight of his career. Spiegelhoff was small in stature at 5' 4" and 150 pounds. His racing style was said to be one of the smoothest of his era and many younger riders try to emulate his technique. Spiegelhoff retired from racing after the 1948 season. He and his wife Clare raised two daugh- ters. The two opened a dealership, Spiegelhoff's Motorcycles, Sporting Goods and Bicycles in downtown Milwaukee. Johnny sold the bikes and motorcycles and Clare kept the books, wrote advertising copy and television spots. According to friends, this dealership closed in 1954 when Indian Motorcycles were no longer available. Spiegelhoff died in February of 1975 while vacationing in Mexico. He was 59. He was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1998. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives