Today in motorcycle history, January 2, 1974

    

 

 
  

  President Richard M. Nixon signs the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act, setting a new national maximum speed limit.

  Prior to 1974, states set their own speed limits. The US and other industrialized nations enjoyed easy access to cheap Middle Eastern oil from 1950 to 1972, but the Arab-Israeli conflict changed that dramatically in 1973. Arab members of the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) protested the West's support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War by stopping oil shipments to the United States, Japan and Western Europe. OPEC also flexed its new-found economic muscle by quadrupling oil prices, placing a choke-hold on America's oil-hungry consumers and industries. The embargo had a global impact, sending the U.S. and European economies into recession. As part of his response to the embargo, President Nixon signed a federal law lowering all national highway speed limits to 55 mph. The act was intended to force Americans to drive at speeds deemed more fuel-efficient, thereby curbing the U.S. appetite for foreign oil. Unfortunately, it would curb America's appetite for big-blocks signaling the eventual demise of the SS Chevy's (396/454).



  The act also prohibited the Department of Transportation (DOT) from approving or funding any projects within states that did not comply with the new speed limit. Most states put their tails between their legs and lowered their speed limits, though Western states, home to some of the country's longest and straightest, wick-twisting highways, only grudgingly complied.

  And now because of Nixon, at every bike/muscle car event you go to we hear Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55".
 

 "...Go on and write me up for 125/Post my face, wanted dead or alive
  Take my license, all that jive/I can't drive 55..."

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Today in motorcycle history, December 31, 2007

  

  







  Evel.  Maddo. Trigger.  Caesars Palace.  Rio.  Buffalo Run.  What's in a name?

  On the 40th anniversary of Evel Knievel's historic crash...uh...I mean jump at the fountains at Caesars Palace in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada, Australian stunt rider Robbie "Maddo" Maddison, jumps more than the distance of an NFL football field.

  At the Rio Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas) Robbie Maddison leaps a world-record 322 feet, seven inches obliterating the previous Guinness World Record of 277 feet by Trigger Gumm.

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Today in motorcycle history, December 30, 1934

  

  

  

  

  Four-time World Champion Speedway rider Barry Briggs is born in Christchurch,  New Zealand.

  Barry Briggs not only won an World Individual Championship title four times (1957,'58,'64 and '66), but he appeared in a record seventeen consecutive World Individual finals (1954–'70).  Still not impressed?  Okay, Briggs won the London Riders' Championship in 1955 riding for the Wimbledon Dons.  Yeah, so?  He's a six-time British Champion, winning his first final in 1961 and then totally dominating the sixties, winning in 1964,'65,'66,'67, and'69. Wait there's more, proving there's no "I" in "TEAM", Barry represented the Swindon Robins winning the British League Riders Championship six consecutive years from 1965–'70.  

  Briggs retired from British league racing in 1972 after an accident during Heat 5 of the World Final at Wembley Stadium with the Russian rider Grigory Khlinovsky. As a result of the accident, Briggs lost the index finger of his left hand ("...it's just a flesh wound!").

   In 1973 Barry Briggs was awarded an MBE for his services to sport. 

   In 1990 he was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame.

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Today in motorcycle history, December 29, 1973

  

  Cal Rayborn II, back-to-back winner of the Daytona 200 in 1968 and ’69, dies after crashing his bike during a race in New Zealand.

  In 1968, the field for the March Classic was perhaps the strongest ever, with top British riders including former World Champion Phil Read, plus a strong contingent of riders on factory Japanese bikes from Yamaha and Suzuki. This was the first year the '200' truly became an international event. Harley-Davidson came to Daytona with a team of seven factory riders, but they would only need one, Cal Rayborn.


  In the race, Cal led most of the way. At one point he lost the front end of the factory Harley and slid so far that it actually wore a hole in the knee of his leathers. Rayborn would recover and lap the entire field en route to victory. He became the first rider to average over 100 mph during the 200-miler. That win established Rayborn as the premier road racer in the US.


  Even though Cal's Daytona performance in 1968 was dominating, his win the following year was even more impressive. By 1969, the Japanese had found amazing speed in their lightweight two-strokes. Beginning with pole winner Yvon DuHamel on a Yamaha, nine of the Top-10 qualifiers were on two-strokes. Rayborn, (who qualified eighth on a factory H-D), was the only four-stroke rider among the top qualifiers. During the race only Rayborn’s unmatched riding ability kept him in touch with the faster two-stroke leaders. But, one by one, the two-strokes experienced problems, all the while a white-knuckled Rayborn riding fast and steady, took the lead and pulled away for his second straight Daytona 200 win.




  It was in the spring of 1972 when Cal Rayborn turned in perhaps his most famous performance. Against the wishes of the H-D factory, he would accept an invitation to the Transatlantic Match Races in England. With Harley refusing to back him, Rayborn rode an old iron-cylinder XR owned by Harley-Davidson employee Walt Faulk. It was Rayborn’s first appearance in England. Legend has it, his teammate and friend Don Emde drew maps of the tracks they would race on a cocktail napkin. On the outdated bike and with no experience on the tracks, Rayborn went out and won three of the six rounds and tied Britains Ray Pickrell as the top scorer. It would mark the beginning of a recognition by the rest of the world that American riders, long thought only able to master oval dirt tracks, could be top contenders in International Road Racing. In the summer of 1972, Rayborn won two Nationals and had the distinction of giving Harley-Davidson its final AMA Grand National Road Race victory. It came on July 23, 1972 at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, California. It also proved to be Rayborn’s final national win.

  It became clear to Cal that his future was in road racing, and it was also clear that Harley-Davidson would be less and less competitive on the road racing circuits. At the end of 1973, he made the gut-wrenching decision to leave Harley-Davidson and accept an offer to race for Suzuki.



  Sadly, Cal Rayborn would never race in America again. In December of 1973 he died in a club event in New Zealand when the bike he was riding seized and threw him into a guardrail at well over 100 mph. 


  Cal Rayborn II was inducted in the AMA Hall of Fame in 1999.





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Today in motorcycle history, December 26, 1965

 

 

  Paul McCartney falls from his moped and chips his front tooth.  He would also get a nasty cut on his lip and be left with a scar from the accident.

  Also on the night time ride was McCartney's friend, Tara Browne, the Guinness heir whose death later inspired John Lennon to write the opening lines of "A Day In The Life".




  "I had an accident when I came off a moped in Wirral, near Liverpool. I had a very good friend who lived in London called Tara Browne, a Guinness heir - a nice Irish guy, very sensitive bloke. I'd see him from time to time, and enjoyed being around him. He came up to visit me in Liverpool once when I was there seeing my dad and brother. I had a couple of mopeds on hire, so we hit upon the bright idea of going to my cousin Bett's house.

  We were riding along on the mopeds. I was showing Tara the scenery. He was behind me, and it was an incredible full moon; it really was huge. I said something about the moon and he said 'yeah', and I suddenly had a freeze-frame image of myself at that angle to the ground when it's too late to pull back up again: I was still looking at the moon and then I looked at the ground, and it seemed to take a few minutes to think, 'Ah, too bad - I'm going to smack that pavement with my face!' Bang!

  There I was, chipped tooth and all. it came through my lip and split it. But I got up and we went along to my cousin's house. When I said, 'Don't worry, Bett, but I've had a bit of an accident,' she thought I was joking. She creased up laughing at first, but then she went 'Holy...!' I'd really given my face a good old smack; it looked like I'd been in the ring with Tyson for a few rounds. So she rang a friend of hers who was a doctor.

  He came round on the spot, took a needle out and, after great difficulty threading it, put it in the first half of the wound. He was shaking a bit, but got it all the way through, and then he said, ''Oh, the thread's just come out - I'll have to do it again!' No anaesthetic. I was standing there while he rethreaded it and pulled it through again.

  In fact that was why I started to grow a moustache. It was pretty embarrassing, because around that time you knew your pictures would get winged off to teeny-boppery magazines like 16, and it was pretty difficult to have a new picture taken with a big fat lip. So I started to grow a moustache - a sort of Sancho Panza - mainly to cover where my lip had been sewn.

  It caught on with the guys in the group: if one of us did something like growing his hair long and we liked the idea, we'd all tend to do it. And then it became seen as a kind of revolutionary idea, that young men of our age definitely ought to grow a moustache! And it all fell in with the Sgt Pepper thing, because he had a droopy moustache."

  Paul McCartney
  Anthology

  McCartney's chipped tooth and scar can plainly be seen in the promo videos for "Rain" and "Paperback Writer", which were filmed in London in May of 1966.

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Today in motorcycle history, December 24, 1999

  

  

  I came across this tidbit in the St. Petersburg Times (St. Petersburg, Florida), published December 24, 1999. 

  NEW PORT RICHEY -- An auto crash left a Pasco motorcycle deputy with a badly broken leg Thursday, the third accident involving the Sheriff's Office's "newly minted motorcycle unit" in the last three months.




  Riding his 1999 Honda Police bike, Deputy Ted J. Clegg, 44, was trying to overtake a traffic violator about 11:20 a.m. when a Chevrolet turned into the deputy's path on State Road 54 at Madison Street, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. The deputy's motorcycle struck the car, flipped over and skidded to a stop, the FHP said.



  Clegg's right leg was broken in three places, but he suffered no other injuries and was conscious at the scene, said Pasco County Fire-Rescue District Chief Doug Drape. Clegg was flown to Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, where he underwent surgery Thursday afternoon but appeared to be in stable condition, said sheriff's spokesman Jon Powers.


  The FHP is investigating the accident. The Chevrolet's driver, Jamie L. Olney, 26, of New Port Richey, was not hurt. No charges have been filed.


  With Thursday's crash, all three of the sheriff's motorcycles have been in accidents since the motorcycle squad began work in June, Power said.

  Perhaps some "newly minted motorcycle training" would have helped.

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Today in motorcycle history, December 23, 2007

    Evel Knievel vs Richard Hammond: The BBC Christmas Special.

  Shortly before his death, Evel Knievel was saluted by 'Top Gear' presenter Richard Hammond in a BBC2 Christmas special. The 60-minute television program "Richard Hammond Meets Evel Knievel" aired on December 23, 2007, less than a month after Evel died.

  The show was filmed in July 2007 around the annual "Evel Knievel Days" festival in his old home town of Butte, Montana. Knievel was clearly in severely declining health, but he still displayed the same piss and vinegar that he had his entire career.

  Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD). www.nabd.org.uk