Larry Lawrence | July 4, 2021
Cycle News Archives
COLUMN
This Cycle News Archives Column is reprinted from issue #TK, DATE. CN has hundreds of past Archives columns in our files, too many destined to be archives themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, in the future, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones coming down the road -Editor.
Treasured Survivor
Motorcycle racing’s early days were brutal. There was little to no thought about rider safety. Instead, there are photos of 1920s-era road races where unprotected telegraph poles, fence posts, and even spectators lined the course in its fast sweepers. Countless riders were killed on America horse-racing tracks, hitting thick wooden fences with little more than a leather cap to protect them. Of all the forms of motorcycle racing, board track had to be the most lethal. Riders were on the very edge of traction with total-loss oiling systems wetting down the boards. An ugly front-page-making crash on a New Jersey board track that killed riders and spectators started an outcry as motorcycling as a blood sport.
The link to that cruel past in our sport gradually faded, but, amazingly, there was one high-profile ex-champion who, not only survived the era, but lived to the ripe old age of 103. Jim Davis was the link to motorcycling’s deep past, and he was sharp as a tack, granting interviews all the way to his final days. I had the privilege of sitting down with Davis at Daytona in the mid-1990s. I asked for a half-hour and that turned into a 90-minute interview filled with amazing stories of races, motorcycles and the personalities of a century of motorcycle racing, all told in Davis’ unique and humorous demeanor. It was perhaps the most important interview I ever had the chance to conduct.
Born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1896, Davis’ father was a bicycle racer and, as a boy, Jim also enjoyed bicycling. He started riding a Yale motorcycle when he was in fifth grade.
“There were five or six other kids in my neighborhood with motorcycles, which still had pedals on them, and we were always racing each other,” remembered Davis. “I won the first official race I entered and won a pair of rubber goggles and a quart of oil. I was on top of the world.”
In 1915, Davis happened to be at his neighborhood Indian dealership when Frank Weschler, head of sales for Indian, came to visit. The owner of the dealership introduced Davis and told Weschler of the 19-year-old’s racing exploits. The dealer asked Weschler if he might send Davis a factory Indian racing machine. Davis never expected anything to come of the casual meeting, but a few weeks later the dealer called Davis into the dealership. Davis was thrilled to find a brand-new eight-valve closed-port Indian factory racer with his name on it.
By 1916, Davis was well known in the area of Columbus, but he had never been out of the state of Ohio and rarely even outside his hometown. The Columbus Indian dealer took Davis to Detroit to race in the FAM 100-Mile National. Racing for the first time against unfamiliar competition, Davis, who weighed all of 120 pounds, looked at the group of grizzled veteran racers lined up for the Detroit final and considered them a pretty rough-looking bunch. Starting from the outside of the front row, Davis put his Indian first into turn one and was never headed for the entire 100 miles.
“After the race, a guy came up to me and asked how much money I won,” Davis recalled. “I didn’t know anything about it. When I went up to the podium, they gave me a gold medal and $100. I couldn’t believe my eyes! A hundred dollars was a lot of money in those days. I felt like the richest man in the world.”
After Detroit, Davis took a train up to Saratoga, New York, to race another National, and again he won. Davis was somewhat taken aback by his sudden success.
“I didn’t know whether I was that good or everyone else was that bad,” he said.
After winning his first two Nationals, Davis’ life changed dramatically. Suddenly, this homebody from Ohio was traveling all across the country racing. Indian put him on the company payroll, paying him $25 per week plus expenses.
With the USA entering World War I in 1917, racing slowed to a crawl. Davis was drafted into the Army. When he got off the train at the Army base in Chillicothe, Ohio, Davis was recognized by a commander, and he assigned him motorcycle-escort duty. He served out the war stateside, transporting and escorting important military and government officials in a sidecar rig.
In 1918, Davis married his wife, Louise, through a Justice of the Peace in Springfield, Illinois, on the spur of the moment after fellow racer Gene Walker needled him for not being married. Davis said that after Walker found out he and Louise were married, he told Davis that he convinced all the other riders to let Davis win the race that weekend. Davis was fastest in qualifying and went on to win the event easily.
“To this day, I don’t know whether I won that race fair and square or the boys let me win,” Davis admitted. Davis’ employment as a factory Indian rider came to an abrupt end in 1920. Davis went to a race in Phoenix, only to find that it was an invitational and that only two riders of each motorcycle brand would be allowed to ride. Two Indian riders were already invited to race. Not one to be easily deterred, Davis got the referee to agree to let him race if he got a wire from M&ATA president A.B. Coffman. Davis went to the Western Union office down the street, and, through the persuasion of a big box of chocolates, convinced a young lady working there that he merely wanted to pull a gag on a friend and got her to fake a telegram that simply read: “Permit Davis to Ride,” signed A.B. Coffman. Davis then paid a young boy a quarter to ride his bike to the track and give the telegram to the referee. Davis watched as the ref opened the telegram and then waved Davis over and permitted him to race. The following week Davis paid dearly for his shenanigans when he was suspended for a year by one A.B. Coffman. To add insult to injury, Davis was also fired from Indian for the incident. In less than 24 hours after being fired by Indian, Harley-Davidson quickly hired Davis, took care of his suspension, and he continued to race the rest of the season.
For the kid who had rarely been out of his hometown while growing up, motorcycle racing carried him across the country and even overseas. Davis won numerous races in Australia on a variety of machines, mostly British.
After his retirement from racing, Davis was instrumental in forming the motorcycle division of the Ohio State Highway Patrol. He worked for the Highway Patrol for 14 years. Afterward, he went to work for his family-owned architectural business. He also became an official for the AMA.
Davis recalled two moments as the most memorable events of his years as a starter. One was the time he flagged the only dead heat in AMA history, when Bobby Hill and Billy Huber crossed the finish line simultaneously in Atlanta on August 8, 1948. Another was at Daytona in 1948 when he was hit by Don Evans’ crashing bike, just as Evans was receiving the checkered flag. That incident sidelined Davis for a year. Ironically, it was his only serious injury from racing.
He became a celebrity in the latter years of his life. He frequently spoke at gatherings of motorcyclists, entertaining crowds with humorous tales of his life and times in racing. Davis remained sharp even beyond his 100th birthday and was always happy to grant interviews to writers and reporters.
Davis died on February 5, 2000, in Daytona Beach, Florida. He was 103. One of the few links to the very beginnings motorcycle racing in America had lived long enough to see a new century.CN
