The
restoration of Vintage Racers, whether its cars, boats, planes, or
motorcycles has always piqued my interest. Racers have a unique
problem vs. other items of vintage, they are often destroyed during
competition, or cannibalized and updated to remain competitive in
future seasons destroying their original configuration. When they are
no longer competitive, they are essentially useless, and the now
outdated “one-off” performance parts available at the time are
very hard to find even if they were commercially produced. Because of this increased difficulty, going down this path can indeed drive you knuckin futty!!
Just
like all of the early transportation industries, at the turn of the
century Racers led the way when it came to innovation in the
motorcycle industry. This is when racing was extremely dangerous.
Race cars of the day like Ford's famous, Barney Oldfield piloted, 999
had a wooden frame and a tiller style steering wheel and certainly no
rollcage. Board Track motorcycle racers of the day had no brakes and
riders wore, by today's standards, no protective gear. A wipe out on
a board track was often accompanied by foot long wood slivers
penetrating your body if you were lucky, or death. Many sporting
events and types of racing disappear over time do to lack of
attendance, this was not the case with board track racing, it was the
deaths of riders.
“Motorcycle
board track racing was the deadliest form of racing in the history of
motorsports. Hundreds of lives were lost, both racers and spectators,
during the relatively short-lived era of the boards. Yet in spite of,
or perhaps partly because of, the dangers, motorcycle board track
racing in the 1910s was one of the most popular spectator sports in
America. Races attracted crowds of up to 10,000 fans. Young riders
knew of the dangers, but chose to ignore them because the payoffs
were so lucrative. Top racers could make $20,000 per year racing the
board tracks, nearly a half-million dollars in today’s currency.”
Today's
spotlight is about the re-creation of a Board Track Racer, an OHC
Excelsior! What many modern Motorcycle enthusiasts do not realize is
that there is really nothing new in motorcycles. The very earliest
examples of motorcycle racers had many of the so-called modern
performance features. 4 Cams, 2 Cams, 4 valves per cylinder, Overhead Cams, you know... all those performance buzz words used by today's motorcycle manufactures. The only thing that held these designs back, back in the day
was metallurgy and manufacturing techniques available to the talented tinkerers, mechanics, and engineers of the day.
The
Excelsior brand was built in Chicago, IL and used frames built by
Schwinn. They were fast in the day and it did not take long for them
to start breaking records.
“On
December 30th, 1912, Humiston circled the banked one-mile oval on his
direct-drive Excelsior in 36 seconds flat, to become the first
motorcyclist in the world "officially" timed at 100 mph.
One week after his milestone accomplishment, "The Humiston
Comet," (as he was promptly nicknamed by the press) surpassed
DeRosier's record for 100 miles, trimming nearly seven and a half
minutes from the fatally injured rider's best time.
Excelsior
had won the race to the magic 100 mph mark and they had smashed the
Indian-held record for the 100-mile distance as well. The publicity
was enormous. Every school boy in America knew that a man had
traveled at 100 miles per hour on a motorcycle, and that he had
accomplished this feat on an Excelsior built in Chicago.”
Think about that for a moment.... for those of us who have exceeded 100mph on modern motorcycles, how fast would you be willing to push an old Board Tracker??? An engine on a glorified bicycle frame, sans brakes or protective gear, running around a steeply banked track made of wood... THINK ABOUT IT!! Absolutely knuckin futty!!
Well Excelsior, just like any company with a quality racing program did not rest on its laurels, it continued to innovate. That innovation led to the Bevel Drive OHC Racer. Overhead cams are quite common today, back then not so much, and how to drive the camshafts was another thing entirely. Excelsior chose a beveled gear drive arrangement, and it worked.
Well Excelsior, just like any company with a quality racing program did not rest on its laurels, it continued to innovate. That innovation led to the Bevel Drive OHC Racer. Overhead cams are quite common today, back then not so much, and how to drive the camshafts was another thing entirely. Excelsior chose a beveled gear drive arrangement, and it worked.
This
particular OHC Racer however was short lived, and it was over before
it could make its mark. The program died with it's best rider, board
track racer Bob Perry on January 2, 1920. Bob Perry was close
family friend of Ignaz Schwinn, owner of both Schwinn Bicycles and
Excelsior. Upon hearing about the death of his friend, Ignaz
destroyed the remaining OHC Excelsior's leaving nothing but a few
photographs as evidence of the innovative and significantly
historical racing machine's existence.
This
is where this story takes an incredible turn, the re-creation of a
Racing Legend, based only on photos and intuition using modern metals
and manufacturing. You think you have seen art? Maybe you have seen
restorations that are amazing with flawless repairs and paint that
brings the project to better than new status.. What about
fabrication? Have you seen some great fabricators that can see
something in their head, fire up a welder or get in front of an
english wheel and BAM! there it is? How about talented machinists
that can create impossible things out of a chunk of metal???
Well,
here is an absolute work of art, that is not only functional, but is
as close as possible to the original as you can get without using a
single original part. Here is the Excelsior Bevel Drive OHC Racer
re-created by Paul Brodie of Flashback Fabrications.
If
you admire those that take the time to restore and revive vintage
racers, please take the time to check out his blog and follow along
as he recreates an incredible piece of Motorcycle Racing History. Not
only did he build these from scratch, he also put the engine in a modern chassis to race in vintage road racing classes so that he could iron
out the engine and make necessary changes for durability, just like
they would have done back in the day of factory board track racers!!
Talk about Knuckin Futty!!!
Here
is a link to follow to Flashback Fabrications Blog,
There are tons of quality photos to drool over, and if that was interesting, please check out the other links
provided about Board Track Racing.
Thank you for re-creating and preserving history Paul Brodie!!!
Dan
Hendrickson
