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.

Today in motorcycle history, March 4, 1970

  


  

  The first Spaniard to win the 500cc World Championship Alex Criville is born in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. 

  Itching to race motorcycles since the day he came out of the womb, Alex Criville falsified his age in order to start racing  in 1985, at the age of 14.  Proving to everyone he was ready, he won the Criterium Solo Moto, a national series for 75cc Honda streetbikes.

  A seeming "natural", Criville started his international career in the now-defunct 80cc World Championship on team Derbi, taking a 2nd place in his very first race in 1987.  Alex also won the 125cc World Championship in his first attempt.  

  He joined the"Sito" Pons 500cc team in 1992 and became a full factory Honda rider in 1994, as Mick Doohan's team-mate on the Repsol-backed Hondas which would become a dominate force in 500cc and MotoGP racing.

  Mick Doohan's career-ending crash in 1999 opened the door for Alex, and he took six wins, including his 100th 500cc start at beautiful Donington Park (England), clinching the World Championship. However, he finished 9th in 2000 and 8th in 2001 and was canned by Repsol Honda.  Criville planned to spend the 2002 MotoGP season with the d'Antin Yamaha team, but was forced to retire due to undetermined health problems, the main symptom being fainting spells that started during the 2000 pre-season, and had continued over the following 2 years.  Fainting spells + motorcycles = put the kickstand down .

Today in motorcycle history, March 3, 1943

  


   




  

  The Bournbrook War effort continues to step up.   From the 22nd of January to the 3rd of March production at Ariel hits 2,250.











  With the outbreak of WWII, Ariel developed the W/NG 350 (348cc) OHV single specifically for military use.   Based on the Val Page designed Red Hunter model that won the Scottish Six-Day-Trials, the W/NG went into production in 1940.




  The French military immediately placed orders for the W/NG, but the British War Office only rated it as "fair – for use only in emergency purposes".  Then following the loss of vehicles caused by the evacuation of Dunkirk in May 1940 the "emergency purposes" became necessary, and Ariel turned over as many motorcycles as possible to the war effort, including converting civilian machines – many of which still carried Ariel tank badges painted over with green or sand paint.






  Ariel models VH & VG (500cc OHV single), NH & NG (350cc OHV single), and VB (598cc single) models were put into military service, although most were used for training and Civil Defense.  The British Army, RAF, Ministry of Agriculture and Women's Land Army all used Ariel W/NG 350's






  Ariel supplied W/NG 350cc motorcycles from 1940 to 1945 which featured dual triangular tool boxes, pannier frames for bags, rear carrying racks and headlight masks.  At the time due to the shortage of rubber the handgrips were made from canvas and footrests from steel.   As the war progressed, aluminium also became scarce and pressed steel was used for the primary and timing covers.

Today in motorcycle history, February 28, 2010

  

  

  

  The 2010 Superbike World Championship season kicks off at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit on Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia.

 

  Phillip Island hosted its first Superbike World Championship (a.k.a. SBK, World Superbike, WSB, or WSBK) in 1990, taking over from Sydney's Oran Park Raceway as the Australian round of the series.

  Oran Park was established by the Singer Car Club in 1962 and closed in January of 2010 when it was sold to the Government of New South Wales with the land to be used, sadly, as a housing development.  The circuit was known for where London-born, 45-time Grand Prix race winner, six-time World Champion, James "Jim" Albert Redman MBE reigned supreme.

  The season will end at Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours, ex-home of the Bol d'Or 24-hour motorcycle endurance race.  Magny-Cours is located in beautiful central France, about 160 miles from Paris.

Today in motorcycle history, February 26, 1970

  

  

  

  The tension between Evel Knievel and NFL pretty-boy Lance Rentzel nearly comes to a boiling point on TV's Merv Griffin Show.

  Motorcycle daredevil  Evel Knievel and Dallas Cowboy Lance Rentzel nearly go to blows over the football player's uber-hot wife, Joey Heatherton.

  Accused of  "inappropriate" gestures aimed at the football star's wife, Evel winds-up but, calm is restored when the country singer and future sausage king, Jimmy Dean ("Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette") steps between them. 

  Also appearing with Evel, Lance, Jimmy and Joey this Wednesday afternoon are the comedian Woody Allen, singer Abbe Lane and The Sunny Girls of Sweden.

Today in motorcycle history, February 25, 1947

  

  

  Leonard B. "Len" Keller is born in Rockford, Illinois.   At the young age of 21, Len Keller would become a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his actions in Vietnam.

  Len Keller was awarded the Medal of Honor, the country's highest award for valor, by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 "for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty" for his actions May 2, 1967, in the Ap Bac zone in Vietnam, his citation reads...




  "Leaping to the top of a dike, he and a comrade charged the enemy bunkers, dangerously exposing themselves to the enemy fire.  Armed with a light machine gun, Sgt. Keller and his comrade began a systematic assault on the enemy bunkers, the two men charged and cleared seven bunkers that had ambushed a previous unit as well as their own," the citation continues. "The ferocity of their assault had carried the soldiers beyond the line of bunkers into the tree line, forcing snipers to flee."

  The two men chased the snipers, cleared a path for their unit and, when they ran out of ammunition, returned to help the wounded.



  The other soldier, Specialist 4th Class Raymond R. Wright, also received the Medal of Honor for his actions that day.    Wright died in 1999.   Both soldiers were members of Company A, 3rd Battalion in the 60th and 9th infantry divisions.

  Leonard Keller died October 18, 2009, from injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident.  He was leaving the Fleet Reserve Association Branch 210 in Milton, Florida, when his custom-built, Harley-Davidson trike overturned.  The trike rolled several times and landed on top of him.  He was taken to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, where he was pronounced dead.  He was 62.

  On November 30, 2009, Keller was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.  

Today in motorcycle history, February 24, 1990

   

  


  


   

  Publisher, promoter, hot-air balloonist, motorcycle rider and motorcycle collector Malcolm Stevenson Forbes dies at 70 in Far Hills, New Jersey. 

   Known for his extravagant spending on parties, travel, and for his collection of homes, yachts, aircraft, art, Faberge Eggs and motorcycles.  Malcolm Forbes grabbed life by the balls.  And squeezed 'em hard.

  Forbes came to motorcycles late in life (he was 60) but, by the time he picked the first bug out of his teeth he had already bought another.  And another.  And another.

  Malcolm founded the motorcycle club, "Capitalist Tools" using his estate in New Jersey as the clubhouse and for the meeting place for tours that he organized for fellow New Jersey and New York riders. Tours ranging from the shorelines of both Oceans to the Great Wall of China.  


  Forbes had a climate-controlled garage with a collection of over 60 motorcycles.  Though  the collection was known to be mostly Harley-Davidson's he also had  a super rare (only 412 were ever built), ultra-cool, 1982 Bimota SB3 with a Suzuki GS1000 engine.

  He was also instrumental in getting legislation passed to allow motorcycles on the cars-only Garden State Parkway in New Jersey.     

  Malcolm Forbes was inducted to the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999.