National Championship Motorcycle Race

Meridian Speedway – Wichita, Kansas

July 4, 1922

 

Preparing for the Start

Photograph from ‘Motorcycle & Bicycle Illustrated’ magazine

 

 Eventual race winner Ralph Hepburn racing through one of the wide turns at Meridian Speedway

Photograph from ‘Motorcycle & Bicycle Illustrated’ magazine

 

Racing down the backstretch at Meridian Speedway

Photograph from ‘Motorcycle & Bicycle Illustrated’ magazine

 

Motorcycle & Bicycle Illustrated

July 13, 1922

Many Things Can Happen in a Race

Absence of Factory Domination at Wichita Championship Did Not Hurt the Race for Spectators

By W. H. Parsons

Several things seem to be indicated by the results of the 300-mile National Championship race which was held at Wichita, Kansas on July 4.  Perhaps the most important of these is that such a race can be successfully handled, at least in so far as the spectators are concerned, without the assistance of factory controlled and factory managed racing teams.

The race was not 100% without factory support.  There were a number of factory motors in evidence, but factory organization was entirely absent, and so far as the financial end of it was concerned, the riders had to look to the promoters or to the dealers of that part of the country for expenses.  Expenses were less than when factories paid the bills.

Referee W. J. “Bill” Ash Motorcycle & Bicycle Illustrated  photo

It is somewhat doubtful if a long race conducted without factory pit supervision and equipment will result in many broken records.  The pits at Wichita were handled by the interested dealers and it is to their credit that they gave remarkable service under unfavorable conditions.  Few, if any, dealers have the mobile mechanical equipment and accessories which they can take from their shops and use to organize a completely equipped quick repair shop beside the track and this is what the factories can and did do when they were giving their entire support to the championship races.  Time lost in the pits means less chance of making records.

However, the general public doesn’t care a great deal about this if they see a good contest, and they saw one at Wichita.  While there was considerable diversity in the race of speed at which the riders circled the track, there were enough riders on the track at all times to provide the spectators with plenty of thrills as they passed each other on the turns and came down the stretches neck-and-neck.

It didn’t matter if the rider who was taking the lead in an apparently desperate attempt to nose out his competitor, was really three or four laps behind the one he was passing at the moment.  It was the race of the moment that interested the spectators and they got plenty of it at Wichita.

Another thing demonstrated was that factory teams are not necessary to insure a good field of starters.  There were 14 starters when Clerk of the Course Owen Keller lined them up and, while several of the veterans were missing, there were enough of them present to insure a real race.  In addition, there were several new faces, men who had never before started in so long a race, some of whom would beyond a doubt have been barred had the contest been under factory control.  Two of them finished in the money, one in third place and one in fifth.  While they had both been doing considerable local racing, neither John Kreiger, of Detroit, who got third, or Maynard Smith, of Omaha, who got fifth, had ever appeared in Class A company for a race of any great importance.

Racing Program Click your mouse on the cover of the racing program above to view a .pdf file containing a copy of each page of the racing program for these races.  Near the bottom left of that .pdf file is an arrow you can click your mouse on to view each of the 11 pages in the racing program or your can use the slide bar that will appear on the right side of your screen. Steve Shackelford collection

Others in this quasi-amateur class who started were Rural Murray of Ft. Worth, Texas; Ora Dunham of Loveland, Colorado; Herb Jones of Augusta, Kansas; and Bert Altenread of Hutchinson, Kansas; and, while none of them lasted out the first hundred miles, still they demonstrated that they had in them the stuff to make real racers and will probably be heard from later.  Under the old system of factory support, it is quite possible that none of these men would have been allowed to start, and certainly that at least one or two of them would have been barred.

Another thing that was brought forcibly home to both riders and spectators was that a race is never won until it is finished, especially a long race.  Take, for example, the case of Kreiger and Higley, who fought it out for second place after it was clear that, barring accident, Hepburn had a mortgage on first.  Both of them were the first thirty laps working their way into the first division.  Kreiger, who was riding #8, appeared in third place in the 31^st lap.  Higley, #10, who was riding close behind, was third in the 34^th lap, but Kreiger regained the place in the next lap and held it to the 50^th when Higley again took it and hung three until the 61^st when he moved into second place because Hepburn, who had been riding there, stopped at the pits.  In the 67^th lap, Kreiger noised Higley out of second place and in the 68^th, Hepburn, who was back in the race, pushed into third and Higley was back in fourth.

When Ray Weishaar, who took the lead at the drop of the flag and held it until he spilled just as he was turning into the stretch to complete the 81^st lap, Kreiger moved into first place, Hepburn into second, and Higley into third.  Kreiger held the lead until the end of the 105^th lap and then gave way to Hepburn who kept the lead until the finish, except for the six laps between the 122^nd and 127^th laps when Kreiger again headed the procession while Hepburn replenished his gas and oil tanks.  Hepburn not only held his lead but increased it steadily, which was a very lucky thing for him because he broke a chain about eight laps from the finish and the lead he had was a very handy insurance against the same sort of grief that came to Kreiger a little later on.  Kreiger held second place from the 128^th lap to the end of the 192^nd when he also broke a chain coming into the home stretch.  At the time, he had eight laps lead on Higley and it looked like easy second money for Kreiger.  A new chain was put on but that broke also and before Kreiger got rolling, Higley had made up the eight laps and was in the lead.  It was a pretty race between them for the last eight laps but Higley hung on to second place to the finish.

 Then there was Weishaar.  He started out like a house afire and had lapped the field in the first 20 miles.  His fastest lap was made in 1:03 which is equivalent to little better than 85 m.p.h.  This, considering the rough condition of the track, was too fast as was demonstrated later on when a rear axle gave way and Ray took a spill.  He led for the first 80 laps, every one of which was worth a $5 bill to him, as there was $5 a lap extra prize money up for the first 100 laps.  Ray was out to get the whole $500 but fate was against him.

Then there was Maynard Smith who got fifth money though he was flagged off the track after he had completed his 141^st lap.  He was still rolling when the leaders finished the race and therefore, was entitled to his prize money though he was so far behind them that he could not have finished the distance before dark.  He was thought to be out of the race early in the afternoon.  In fact, he was off the track for nearly half an hour and had no idea of starting again when Walt Whiting, who was running the Harley-Davidson pits, woke up to the fact that so many of the riders had dropped out that Smith had a chance for the money if he would get back in the race and keep rolling until the race was over.  So that’s what he did.

As for Speck Warner, who has come to look upon fourth place as his by right and squatter sovereignty, he just kept going round and round and managed to reel off 181 laps before Referee W. J. Ash decided the crowd had been given its money’s worth and flagged Smith and Warner, where the only two left in the race and were having a nice little social tour taking in the scenery around the track, off.

So you see it was not always to the swift that the money goes.  In a long race, many things can happen.  It is never over until it’s done.  John Seymour and Jim Davis will quite agree with this sentiment.  They started out to follow Weishaar’s rapid pace, and playing around in second and third place for the first 25 or 30 miles but it was too hot to continue on the rough track and they were soon out of the race entirely.  Even Wells Bennett, who managed to get up into second place for a couple of laps early in the day, decided that it was going to take more than speed to win the race.  So he eased down and got set for a long ride.  As a matter of fact, he covered more distance than Smith, who got fifth money being in his 155^th lap when he went out with a broken cylinder.  This happened only a few minutes before the flag called the race to a halt, and if Bennett could have kept going ten minutes longer, he would have been in the money and Smith would have been in sixth place but, also in the money as there were six prizes up.  The promoters saved sixth money, there being no one rolling to claim it.

My opinion after watching this race is that the participation of factory teams under the conditions as they were in 1921 is not necessary to the successful promotion of a race meet in so far as the spectators, riders, or promoters are concerned.

On the other hand, there will be few new long distance records made without organized factory support and supervision of races.  The absence of factory control is favorable to the development of new racing talent.  We had it demonstrated several times in 1921 that outsiders need not apply at any of the big national championship race meets.  The factories didn’t want to bother with giving pit service and other assistance to independent riders astride their machines and the members of the factory teams resented the intrusion of “upstarts” who tried to “horn” into the game.

Everything considered, it may well be that the factories in their refusal to longer support racing teams have, instead of lessening racing activity and interest, given it renewed interest and impetus.

One thing that the promoters of the Wichita race learned and which it might be well to pass on to other promoters of future important championship events, was that the riders, when left to themselves, are very slow to send in their entries.  As a matter of fact, the Wichita promoters did not know until the night before the race who, or how many starters there would be.

This is wrong.  Promoters who put on legitimate races are entitled to better treatment at the hands of the riders.  It is my suggestion that whoever plans to promote an important national championship at any future time, fix a date for closing at least 20 days before the event and stick to it.  A 30-day limit might be even better.  Then the promoter should make a clean cut announcement of just what the prize money would be and all other conditions surrounding the race and make it very clear that the riders could take or leave it, even to going so far as to say that if there were not sufficient entries on the closing date to make a good race, none at all would be held.  I don’t think there would be any lack of entries for any really worth while event if such conditions are laid down and the promoters make it clear that they mean business.

The 14 riders that made up the starting field:

 

 

 

The Winners Circle Left to right:  Race promoter Floyd Clymer; unidentified; race winner Ralph Hepburn; unidentified; Wichita Indian motorcycle dealer Hal H. Bowman; and Curly Fredericks July 4, 1922 - Meridian Speedway, Wichita, Kansas – photograph from ‘Motorcycle & Bicycle Illustrated’ magazine

 

 

 

 

The official finishing order of this race as recorded by the American Motorcycle Association:

 

 

 

 

 

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