Today in motorcycle history, March 13, 1992

   

   

    

  The Ate de Jong directed, comedy-horror film "Highway to Hell" is released.

  Charlie Sykes and Rachel Clark are a young all-American couple that decide to run away and elope in fabulous, Las Vegas, Nevada.

  A funny thing happens on the road to Vegas, they completely ignore the warning of a local gas station attendant, Sam, when they're told to avoid backroads.  As expected, they take an abandoned backroad where Rachel is kidnapped by a zombie Hell Cop who takes her to Hell.  Charlie goes back to the gas station to ask Sam what the hell a Hell Cop is and how to save her.  Sam then gives him a shotgun with special ammo, and a car that has a very custom option.  On the highway, Charlie meets other dead people that live in Hell and even a zombie motorcycle gang.  On the road, he meets a mechanic named Beezle, with his young apprentice.  Beezle gives him tips on how to save his girlfriend.  After Charlie rescues Rachel, Beezle reveals himself to be Satan (Beezle-bub, get it?! [sarcasm]) and proposes a deal to let them, and his apprentice, go free if they can defeat a Hell cop in a race to the portal that connects Earth and the backroads of Hell.

  Confused?  Trust me, it's not hard to follow.

  It has Oscar-worthy performances by Lita Ford as The Hitchhiker girl, Gilbert Gottfried as Hitler, Ben Stiller as Pluto's Cook/Attila the Hun and Ben's mom, Anne Meara as Medea, waitress in Pluto's and dad, Jerry Stiller as The Desk Cop.

  "She Devils On Wheels" is available on DVD.

Today in motorcycle history, March 12, 1976

      

            

  

  On the evening of March 12, 1976, Daniel "Coyote" Wolf found himself in the parking lot of the Kingsway Motor Inn in south Edmonton, Alberta....

.....He was nursing a swollen, black-and-blue right hand, injured the previous evening during karate practice, and was wondering how it was going to hold up in the imminent battle.  He stood shoulder to shoulder with 22 members of the Rebels, the reigning outlaw motorcycle club of the Edmonton area, awaiting the onslaught of 40 members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment.  The Airborne, Canada's elite paratroop fighting force, was there to expand its social territory to the Kingsway Motor Inn, for many years the Rebels' club bar.  To lose the bar to the Airborne would be a blow to the prestige of the Rebels MC that could send a message of vulnerability to rival clubs.

  There was much at stake for Wolf in that parking lot: his physical well being, the territorial primacy of the Rebels, and, most important, his PhD dissertation.


  Today Daniel R. Wolf is psychological anthropologist who has worked at the University of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, among other gigs; he is the only anthropologist ever to choose an outlaw motorcycle club as the topic of his doctoral study. In fact, Coyote--the name given to him by his Rebel brothers because he wore a coyote pelt over his helmet--was the first outsider of any sort to infiltrate an outlaw bike club


  Wolf traded in the Norton for a 1955 Harley-Davidson panhead and then a '72 Electraglide--a Harley is de rigueur among outlaw bikers--and set off to join Caveman, Blues, Tiny, Wee Albert, Slim, Whimpy, Voodoo, Indian, Armand, Crash, Big Mike, Smooth Ed, Snake, Dale the Butcher, Saint, Terrible Tom, and the other members of the Edmonton Rebels. His resulting dissertation was the first of its kind. The biker subculture had been ethnographically unexplored, and Wolf eventually turned it into a popular book, The Rebels (University of Toronto Press), that reads like a cross between Hunter Thompson's Hell's Angels and Lionel Tiger's Men in Groups.

  Despite being outnumbered 40 to 23, the Rebels prevailed over the Airborne.  The paratroopers came with nunchaku (karate sticks), a steel bar attached to a chain, a blackjack, a baseball bat, and more.  A few Rebels had chains and tire irons, but most were unarmed.  One wielded an old motorcycle battery.  But the Rebels attacked together, "with the viciousness of cornered animals," in Wolf/Coyote's words.  The Airborne, soldiers trained in unarmed combat, weaponry, and riot control, dispersed when they saw a number of their fellows being beaten.  Said Wolf: "They had not yet endured and shared enough to cement those ties of comradeship that result in members presuming, and acting upon, a principle of self-sacrifice.  The Airborne may have been the finest in discipline, but they had not yet learned to look out for each other under fire"--thus proving brotherhood is powerful. 




  The Edmonton chapter of the Rebels MC folded in 1997.

Today in motorcycle history, March 11, 1958

  


  

  



  Four-time Grand Prix World Champion, "Steady Eddie" Lawson is born in Upland, California.  

  Eddie Lawson's grandfather taught him how to powerslide a motorcycle on the dry lake beds in the California high desert. So, it was only natural that he began his motorcycle racing career in the Southern California dirt track circuit.  When it became increasingly frustrating to get a win on dirt, he switched to road racing.  It was on that rubber-scarred pavement that Eddie found his calling.  In 1979, Lawson finished the season second behind "Fast Freddie" Spencer in the AMA 250cc road racing National Championship.  Afterwards, he was offered a ride with the Kawasaki Superbike team and won the AMA Superbike Series in 1981 and 1982.  He also won the AMA 250cc National Championship in 1980 and 1981 for Kawasaki.



  Eddie took an offer from Yamaha to ride in the 500cc World Championship as Kenny Roberts' team-mate for the 1983 season.  He would spend the entire '83 season learning the ropes of the Grand Prix circuit.  Patience is a virtue.  The next season Lawson began winning regularly and won the 1984 World Championship.  After winning two more titles for Yamaha in 1986 and 1988, Eddie totally blindsided the racing world by announcing he would be leaving Yamaha to sign with their arch-rivals Rothmans Honda as team-mate to his own arch-rival, Australia's 1987 World Champion Wayne Gardner.  By switching teams, he also fulfilled his desire to work with the legendary wrench Erv Kanemoto (Gary Nixon's 1973 Kawasaki H2R).  After Gardner crashed and broke his leg during the third round at Laguna Seca, Lawson went on to win the 1989 title for Honda, becoming the first rider to win back-to-back championships on machines from different manufacturers.

  In 1990, Lawson and Japanese rider Tadahiko Taira, won the Suzuka 8 Hours endurance race on a Yamaha FZR750R.

  Eddie Lawson was inducted in the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999. 

Today in motorcycle history, March 10, 2003

  
  

    

  World Champion Grand Prix motorcycle road racer, Barry Steven Frank Sheene MBE dies. 

  A larger than life character, Sheene enjoyed a following wholly disproportionate to the popularity of his sport.

  Even people who did not know the difference between a fairing and a footpeg were touched by the glamour that surrounded Sheene; it was said that, at the height of his career, his name on the racing program was worth an additional 10,000 spectators to the race organizers. This was partly due to his engaging personality; but principally it was a tribute to his devil-may-care attitude, and to the grace he showed when suffering for his sport.

  Barry Sheene was born at Holborn, London, on September 11 1950.  His father Frank, a retired motorcycle racer himself, presented his son with a Ducati 50cc when he turned five. At school Barry was told by his geography teacher, "It is no use you thinking life revolves around motorcycling. Motorcycles are never going to make you a living."  With that thought he quit school at 15 and found work as a motorcycle delivery driver.

  Sheene first started to race in 1968, winning his first races at Brands Hatch riding his father Frank’s 125cc and 250cc Bultacos.

  He became the British 125cc champion at 20, and finished second in the World Championships for that class a year later.  Sheene won the newly formed Formula 750 European Championship for Suzuki in 1973.

  At the Daytona 200 in 1975 he suffered multiple injuries when a blown rear tire caused him to have a spectacular crash, (one of many in the career of Barry Sheene), at 175mph.  He later recalled: "I could feel the skin peeling off my back for 200 yards."  He broke his left thigh, his right wrist, broke six ribs and a collarbone.
  When he recovered consciousness in hospital, his first words were: "Nurse, you wouldn't by any chance 'ave a fag would you?"  Later he commented, "Had I been a racehorse, they would have shot me." 

  Sheene would recover and only seven weeks later he would win his first Grand Prix.

  In the 1976 season, he won five 500cc Grand Prix races, bringing him the World Championship. He took the Championship again in the 1977 season with six victories.  

  Sheene's battle with Kenny Roberts at the 1979 British Grand Prix at Silverstone has been cited as one of the greatest motorcycle Grand Prix races of the 1970's.  After the 1979 season, he left the Heron-Suzuki factory team, believing that he was receiving inferior equipment to his team-mates.  He shifted to a privateer on a Yamaha machine, but soon started receiving works equipment. In 1981, Kenny Roberts was the reigning World 500cc Champion for the third time, and Barry Sheene, now on a competitive Yamaha, was determined to regain the championship. Ironically, while Sheene and Roberts battled all season they let Suzuki riders Marco Lucchinelli of Italy and American Randy Mamola beat them for the top two spots. Roberts finished third and Sheene fourth for the 1981 championship.

  Barry Sheene was a colorful, exuberant character who used his good looks, grin and London accent to good effect in self-promotion, and combined with an interest in business was one of the first riders to make a shit-load of money from product endorsements. He is credited with boosting the appeal of motorcycle racing into the realm of the mass marketing media. Sheene was a superstar, famous beyond the boundaries of his sport.  He loved women (he claimed to have lost his virginity when he was 14 on a snooker table in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields), he enjoyed a drink, and was rarely seen without a Gauloise (cigarette) between his lips - at one point he had a hole bored in his racing helmet to enable him to take a drag on the starting line immediately before a race, he lived a 700-year-old manor house in Surrey once owned by the actress Gladys Cooper, he was chosen by Faberge to promote Brut aftershave lotion, he drove a Rolls-Royce.

  Even journalists were not immune to his charm: Tina Brown, interviewing him in 1978, found Sheene "small in build, sparky in manner; the kind of boy your mother would hate at first and end up deliriously darning his underwear."

  In 1978 he was appointed MBE, the Queen telling him at his investiture, "Now you be careful, young man."

  In July 2002, at the age of 51, Barry Sheene was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus and stomach. Refusing to submit himself to conventional chemotherapy treatments, Sheene preferred to rely on a diet of herbal teas and raw vegetables. "I know it's off the wall," he remarked, "but I'll do it my way - and if it doesn't work, that's my funeral."

  He died peacefully surrounded by his family at a hospital on Queensland's Gold Coast in 2003, aged 52.

  On a side note, the obscure Eric Idle song "Mr. Sheene" which describes "Mr. Sheene's riding machine" appears to be about Barry Sheene.  It was released as a B-side of the 1978 single "Ging Gang Goolie" and is credited as released by the Rutles-offshoot duo "Dirk and Stig." 

Today in motorcycle history, March 7, 1970

 
  

  Hollywood actor or motorcycle rider?   This weekend the answer is...motorcycle rider.  Steve McQueen competes in the Lake Elsinore Grand Prix.

  Steve McQueen competes in the 3rd Lake Elsinore Grand Prix.  In a field of nearly 500 bikes, McQueen rides his Husqvarna 405cc over the 10 mile course. 

  William F Nolan quotes Steve's account of the race in his book 'McQueen':

  "When you're runnin' with the top ten, as I was, you're really honkin' on pretty good an' what happpens is that with so many bikes choppin' up the dirt the holes in the course get worse...deeper with each lap.  I was comin' out of a wash under a bridge with this road dip ahead and I just kinda took one of those big jumps where you're sure you're gonna make it but you don't.  And I didn't.  My bike nosed into the dip, which was, like, deep - and I went ass-over the bars into the crowd.  Didn't hurt anybody but me.  My left foot was busted in six places."


  This wasn't enough to stop him however, as he got back on his Husky and finished the race, finishing in the top ten.

   The King of Cool.

Today in motorcycle history, March 6, 1900

   

  

  Builder of the first chopper, internal-combustion engine pioneer, Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler dies at 65.

  When Gottlieb Daimler joined Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz as technical director in 1872 he met up with Nikolaus Otto, inventer of the four-stroke-cycle, also known as the Otto Cycle, a system characterized by four piston strokes (intake, compression, power, and exhaust).  It was during this time he became convinced steam engines were an outmoded form of power for the future.  Wilhelm Maybach, a man who also understood the drawbacks of steam, soon joined the quest to produce and perfect the gasoline engine.

  In 1881 Daimler and Maybach set up a factory for developing light weight, high-speed internal combustion engines.  At first, the development of a reliable self-firing ignition system seemed impossible, but after many a long night an air-cooled single-cylinder engine operating at 900 rpm was developed.  This new design was 770 rpm faster than Otto’s engine.  Daimler and Maybach patented this design in 1885. 

  Daimler then built what is considered by many the first gasoline powered motorcycle.  This engine with workable controls was installed in a two-wheeled wooden frame with two outrigger wheels.  Soon they then added a king-queen seat, sissy bar and apes.  On the tank they painted the name 'Reitwagen'.


  On November 10, 1885, Daimler’s son Paul, 17, completed the first run on the motorcycle from Cannstatt to Unterturkheim and back (about eight miles).  Given the conditions of roads at the time, it could hardly have been a comfortable ride.  The only problem was that the heat of the engine set fire to the saddle.  Next stop - Sturgis.

Today in motorcycle history, March 5, 1976

  

   

  

  Steve McLaughlin wins the very first AMA Superbike Championship Series race held at Daytona International Speedway.

  

  Steve McLaughlin's #83 BMW earns a place in the motorcycle history books by winning the inaugural AMA Superbike National Championship race at Daytona.  McLaughlin won this seminal event riding a Butler & Smith BMW R90S in a photo finish over BMW teammate and eventual series champ Reg Pridmore.  The photo shows Steve won by mere inches.  Inches.

  

  As impressive as McLaughlin’s racing career was, he is even better known for being one of the true visionaries in the history of the sport.  He was a driving force behind getting the AMA to grant national championship status to Superbike racing.  McLaughlin also later became known as the father of the World Superbike Championship, which launched in 1988.

  

  Interesting motorcycle fact: Steve's father, John, also an AMA Hall of Fame member, was a leading desert racer in Southern California who came to national acclaim by winning the prestigious Catalina Grand Prix.

  Steve McLaughlin was inducted into the AMA Hall of Fame in 2004.