Today in motorcycle history, June 27, 1958

   


   

  TT Champion Jimmy Phillips dies after crashing his Harley-Davidson at Ascot Park in Gardena, California.

  Jimmy Phillips was practically raised on a motorcycle.  Born in Hawkersville, Oklahoma, but reared in Sanger, California, Jimmy began racing professionally for the famous Johnson Motors Triumphs after WWII.  Phillips came to prominence in 1948 when he won the amateur portion of the Riverside (California) National TT Championship and finished a very rookie-respectable eighth in the national.

  In 1949, Jimmy won several Pacific Coast titles and became one of the top road racers at the Torrey Pines circuit.

  The years of West Coast TT racing experience really paid off in 1951 when he traveled to Peoria, Illinois, and, riding a Triumph, swept both AMA TT Steeplechase championship races.  Only two other riders had previously held both TT titles in one year, Tommy Hayes in 1937 and Roger Soderstorm in 1950.

  Phillips contested nearly every race in the 1955 season schedule in the AMA Grand National Series despite running a motorcycle dealership in California.  He earned podium finishes at Daytona, Peoria and Langhorne, Pennsylvania.  Matter-of-fact, Jimmy finished in the top-ten in every race he entered and finished the year ranked fifth in the series.  One of the most consistent Daytona 200 performers of the 1950's, he posted four top-ten finishes in his eight appearances on the old beach course. 

 Known as one of the true gentlemen of the sport, for years afterwards the Ascot Park TT National was renamed in his honor.

 Jimmy Phillips was inducted in the AMA Hall of Fame in 1998. 

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Today in motorcycle history, June 25, 1960

  

  

 



 

  Carlo Ubbiali, riding for MV Augusta, wins both the 125cc and 250cc class at the 1960 Dutch Grand Prix.

  Fighting off fellow MV rider Gary Hocking at every turn in the 125cc race, Carlo Ubbiali takes the flag and is quoted afterwards as saying "that was toughest race I've ever had", when asked about his MV teammate, Hocking.  In the 250cc class Carlo found himself battling for every mile of the TT Assen Circuit with his Rhodesian teammate nipping at his heels. When the checkered flag is waved he would once again take the victory. When a South African reporter asks about his win, he smiles and says, "That was the toughest race I've ever had."


  Arguably one of  Italy's greatest motorcycle racers Carlo Ubbiali would retire while still in his prime at 30. His nine World Championships tie him with Mike Hailwood and Valentino Rossi for third place on the championship win list behind only Giacomo Agostini and Ángel Nieto.

   In 2001, the F.I.M. inducted Ubbiali into the MotoGP Hall of Fame.

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Today in motorcycle history, June 24, 1922

    

     



  The first of two (June 24 and August 19) motorcycle races starting in the Grunewald section of Berlin.

  Known as 'The Great Race', it was 150 laps on an unsympathetic dirt track.  The June race had nearly 500 entrants, including Freida Schiller, the lone female rider.  Two childhood friends, Wilhelm Ebstein (the eventual winner) and Willy Thiele finish the race despite Thiele having been thrown from his bike midway thru the second lap by a stray dog. 

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Today in motorcycle history, June 23, 1970

        

 

  

  MGM releases "Kelly's Heroes" in the US.

  

  While on location in London in July of 1969, Clint Eastwood buys a Norton Commando 750, two days later he fails to turn up for shooting.  Director Brian Hutton is infuriated.

  Eastwood ( starring as 'Private Kelly', the platoon's de facto leader) along with friend and cohort Harry Dean Stanton ('Private Willard') go AWOL for four days.  The duo repeat their bike adventure while filming in the Istrian village of Vižinada in Yugoslavia, this time for 6 days.  Hutton goes crazy as Clint shrugs it off.

  In an interview with Edyth James for 'Film Now!', he claims the Director "had a bug up his ass" and he didn't understand.  Flashing that impish grin he told James, "C'mon it was a new bike!" 





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Today in motorcycle history, June 20, 1965

    

  



   

  

  A car had been flipped at Weirs Beach, Laconia police Chief Howard Knowlton was told. There was fire, violence, chaos.  "It's them damn bikers."

  March 15, 1965 would be the beginning of the end of anonymity for the outlaw clubs as California Attorney General Thomas C. Lynch issued a fifteen page report that day that was based on ten years of study of, “...disreputable motorcycle clubs.” This report was the basis of most of the information that the press had to go on concerning the clubs and that's all they needed. Kind of giving a arsonist a book of matches.
  On May 17, 1965, The Nation published Hunter S. Thompson’s original, seminal article called "The Motorcycle Gangs, Losers and Outsiders". It appeared only two months after the Lynch report had been released. The double whammy of Lynch’s report and Thompson’s article in the national media started the ball rolling.

  The Weirs Beach riots in Laconia, New Hampshire, took place during the 44th Annual AMA New England Tour and Rally and made national headlines, including Life magazine. Thirty-seven bikers were arrested and some reports claimed nearly one-hundred people were treated at the local hospital. Snapshots of riot police fighting bikers had been transmitted across the country. "Bikers invade!" "Ugly, Loud, Mean and Here!", the headlines told it all. 

  Until then the outlaw clubs had basically been considered strictly a West Coast phenomenon, but after the Weirs Beach affair they became rebel anti-heroes to some.


  Knowlton, a 40-year-old chief at the time, says the incident received the media attention it deserved.
  "Oh god, yeah, it was a big thing," said the chief.
  Charlie St. Clair, a life-long motorcycle rider, was there also.
  "A lot of people running and I remember . . . I saw police chasing people into their motel rooms," St. Clair said. "I could hear gunfire, police officers firing shotguns."  

  "That's a fact," Knowlton confirmed. "No.6 birdshot. Right in their asses."
  Knowlton estimated that more than 50 state troopers, dozens of local cops and specially trained riot police, plus the National Guard showed up.

  Then came the reports, from across the country...

  Photos showed a bus packed with suspected rioters heading for jail; national guardsmen, wearing helmets and pointing rifles and night sticks, escorting lines of bikers down the street; and the car that started it all, upside down and smoldering after allegedly nudging a motorcycle.
  One line from a The New York Times article read, "Laconia's streets have been full of long-haired, inarticulate young men riding cycles bearing such names as 'Cold Turkey' and 'Bad News.' "
  One Boston paper reported the police blamed the riot on "a handful of Californians who call themselves 'one-percenters' and who have been the source of trouble in Western states."

  St. Clair said, "The outlaw clubs they were blaming were on the West Coast. They weren't even here."

  When asked if he believed the police deserved some blame for the riot, St. Clair said, "I do. Look at police standing there with their German shepherds and their whole demeanor. It was oppression, almost."

Today in motorcycle history, June 13-17, 1960

  

    

   
    

  The 1960 Isle of Man switches all races to the Snaefell Mountain Course and the Italian MV Agusta team proceeds to kick ass in all four solo classes.

  The legendary John Surtees* takes the six-lap 500cc Senior with a flawless ride aboard his MV four-cylinder, nicknamed "fire engine". He would lead from start to finish and in the process raise the lap record to 104.08mph.

  His MV teammate, and countryman, John Hartle fought off the Norton contingent to finish second, with Mike Hailwood heading the pursuers in third place.  Norton's finished the 500cc by blasting across the line with eight bikes in a row, third place to tenth, Mike Hailwood to Ralph Renson. What a sight, and sound.


  Surtees' luck ran out in the six lap 350cc Junior, which resulted in the first-time TT victory for Hartle. Surtees was ahead for the first four laps, but slowed when he lost third gear. Hartle took full advantage to win easily, with Surtees holding off the Scotsman Bob McIntyre on a Joe Potts AJS.

  Rhodesian Gary Hocking would join MV in 1960, just a year after his TT debut, and was impressive in the five-lap 250cc Lightweight race, leading throughout in front of another all-Italian epic between Carlo Ubbiali and Tarquinio Provini. On the last lap Ubbiali, riding for MV, smashed the lap record, much to the dismay of his great rival aboard his Moto-Morini.

  Carlo Ubbiali made his intensions clear right from the start of the three-lap 125cc Ultra-Lightweight race by shattering the old lap record. The race turned into another MV sweep, with Hocking second and Luigi Taveri (riding under the Swiss flag), who had joined MV from MZ third.

  *It turned out to be John Surtees last TT before going on to his career in car racing. It was an apt swansong.

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Today in motorcycle history, June 12, 1953

  

    

  Leslie Graham, a racer, a mechanic, a man among men, is killed at the 1953 Isle of Man aboard an MV Augusta. 

  Leslie Graham started racing in the dirt at Liverpool's old Stanley Speedway and in the mud at Stropshire's Park Hall Oswestry circuit, riding used Dot-JAP bikes in 1929.  By 1936 he scraped enough money together to buy a 250cc OHC OK-Supreme with a burnt valve. He rebuilt it, and entered it in the Ulster Grand Prix. After completing a lap of the Clady Circuit, the lower-end seized. He rebuilt and entered the 1937 North West 200, after 8 laps it sucked a valve. He rebuilt the motor once again, this time for a race at Donington and, lo-and-behold, he won. After the victory he was approached by John Humphries (the son of OK-Supreme's founder) and was offered a job building OK's OHC motors. 

  In summer of 1938 on an OHC OK-Supreme he entered the South Eastern Championship on Layhams Farm (Croydon) "mountain mile" grass track. Les took home the 20 lap Matchless Trophy as he set the track record.  He left OK-Supreme after a dispute and entered the Isle of Man TT riding a Rudge powered Chris Tattersall of St. Annes (CTS), and was running fourth on the second last lap, when he spun a bearing. Heavy sigh.

  After the war Les Graham returned to racing as a member of the AJS factory racing team and riding an AJS Porcupine won the first Grand Prix Motorcycle World Championship in 1949, in the  prestigious 500cc class. The Championship began with Graham leading by 90 seconds in the 1st round, at the 1949 Isle of Man TT. With only a few miles to go, the magneto drive sheared and he pushed home to finish 9th. He won round 2 at Bremgarten in Switzerland. Round 3 was the Dutch TT where he finished 2nd to Nello Pagani. He failed to finish in round 4 at Spa in Belgium. Round 5 was the Ulster Grand Prix in which he would win and collect the fastest lap. The final round was held at Monza in Italy where local hero Nello Pagani on a Gilera won. A rider's best three finishes counted. Les had two wins and a second, Pagani had two wins and a third. Les Graham took the title even though the Italian's overall score was higher.

  Graham rode an MV Agusta to their first ever 500cc win, plus the fastest lap, in front of a crazy Italian crowd at Monza in 1952. This was followed by a second win in Spain. He finished the season second to Gilera's Umberto Masetti in the championship.


  Finally, in 1953, Graham would win an Isle of Man TT, winning the Lightweight 125cc class for MV. Tragically, in the Senior TT, he lost control of his bike at high speed, as he took the rise after the bottom of Bray Hill, and was killed instantly. Carlo Bandirola and the rest of the MV racing team withdrew from the Championship that year as a mark of respect.

  Robert Leslie Graham served as a pilot in the RAF during World War II. He was assigned to the 166 Squadron from 1940-1946, flying Lancaster bombers over Germany. He attained the rank of Flight Lieutenant and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in December 1944 for bravery.

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