M. L. Fredericks, nicknamed "Curley" (or "Curly"), was an American motorcycle racer.
Fredericks was born in Denver, Colorado. [1] In 1921, he became the American Motorcycle Association's Class A (stock) champion, riding for Indian. [2]
On August 21, 1926, riding an Indian Altoona racing bike at Rockingham Park in Salem, New Hampshire, Fredricks turned a 1.25 mi (2.01 km) lap in 37.4 seconds. In doing so, he set a record of 120.3 mph (193.6 km/h), fastest ever on a board track. [3] The record still stands. [4] [5] [6]
Fredericks was also 1928 AMA National Champion, on a 45 cu in (740 cc) Indian. His victory on 4 August 1928 would be the last ever recorded on a board track. [7]
Fredericks was inducted into the AMA Hall of Fame in 1998. [8]
Ralph Rodolphus Hepburn was a pioneer American motorcycle racing champion and an Indianapolis 500 racing driver.
Mert Lawwill is an American professional motorcycle racer, race team owner and mountain bike designer. He competed in the AMA Grand National Championship from 1962 to 1977. Lawwill is notable for winning the 1969 AMA Grand National Championship as a member of the Harley-Davidson factory racing team. After his motorcycle racing career, Lawwill became one of the top motorcycle racing frame designers and builders. Lawwill then used his experience as a motorcycle frame builder to become an innovative mountain bike designer, developing one of the first bicycle suspensions. He also developed prosthetic limbs for amputees. Lawwill was inducted in the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1998.
Raymond Scott Russell, a.k.a.Mr. Daytona, is an American former professional motorcycle and sports car racer. He is a former World Superbike and AMA Superbike Champion, has won the Daytona 200 a record five times, and won the Suzuka 8 Hours in 1993. Russell is the all-time leader in 750 cc AMA Supersport wins. In 2005, he was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame.
John Douglas Chandler is an American former professional motorcycle racer. He earned a reputation as one of the most versatile racers of the 1980s and 1990s. Chandler is one of only four riders in AMA racing history to win the AMA Grand Slam, representing national wins at a mile, half-mile, short track, TT and road race. He was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2006.
The Excelsior Super X was a motorcycle manufactured by the Excelsior Motor Manufacturing & Supply Company from 1925 to 1931. It was the most famous Excelsior motorcycle manufactured by that company and was the first American forty-five cubic inch motorcycle.
Dick Mann was an American professional motorcycle racer. He was a two-time winner of the A.M.A. Grand National Championship. Mann was inducted in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1993, and the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1998. He was one of the few riders to ride motocross and Observed Trials as well as dirt flat tracks, TT and road racing.
Eddie Hasha was an American motorcycle racer on board tracks early in the twentieth century. His death contributed to the demise of the board tracks. He was nicknamed the "Texas Cyclone" since he was from Waco, Texas, United States.
Calvin Rayborn II was a top American professional motorcycle road racer in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Oscar Hedstrom was a co-founder of the Indian Motocycle Manufacturing Company.
The Harley-Davidson XR-750 is a racing motorcycle made by Harley-Davidson since 1970, primarily for dirt track racing, but also for road racing in the XRTT variant. The XR-750 was designed in response to a 1969 change in AMA Grand National Championship rules that leveled the playing field for makes other than Harley-Davidson, allowing Japanese and British motorcycles to outperform the previously dominant Harley-Davidson KR race bike. The XR-750 went on to win the most races in the history of American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) racing.
The following outline is provided as an overview of motorcycles and motorcycling:
American Flat Track is an American motorcycle racing series. The racing series, founded and sanctioned by the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) in 1954, originally encompassed five distinct forms of competitions including mile dirt track races, half-mile, short-track, TT steeplechase and road races. The championship was the premier motorcycle racing series in the United States from the 1950s up until the late 1970s.
Ray Price was an American motorcycle drag racer and is credited as the "Father of the Funnybike". He was also a renowned designer, engineer and the first drag racer to be sponsored by Harley-Davidson. He also developed the first wheelie bar, and the two-speed automatic racing transmission for drag racing motorcycles. This was the first transmission that enabled the first motorcycle to ever achieve 200 miles per hour (320 km/h) and has now become standard in the sport. Price also created the Pro Fuel drag racing class. Price is an inducted member of five halls of fame including the American Motorcycle Association Hall of Fame, Sturgis Motorcycle Hall of Fame, the North Carolina Sport Hall of Fame, and the North Carolina Drag Racing Hall of Fame.
Dudley B. Perkins was an American champion motorcycle hillclimb competitor and Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealer. The American Motorcyclist Association's highest award, the AMA Dud Perkins Lifetime Achievement Award, was named after him in 1970, and he was its first recipient.
Edward Carroll was an American motorbike racer. He was one of the original factory test riders for the Indian Motocycle company and a member of the first generation of men who raced motorized bicycles. Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, Carroll was practically raised in the backyard of the giant Hendee Mfg. Co. factory. At twelve, Carroll rode his first "gasoline-fired" two-wheeler and mastered the "run, push, and jump-on style" necessary to get the clutchless cycles underway.
Albert William "Shrimp" Burns was an American dirt and board track motorcycle racer in the early 20th century. Riding for Harley-Davidson and later Indian, he won multiple races in California and later the east coast and the midwest. He won the national championship in 1919, and was inducted in the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1998.
Thor was an American manufacturer of motorcycles and motorcycle parts especially engines, founded in 1901 in Aurora, Illinois. From 1901 to about 1907 it made engines under license for Indian Motocycles of Springfield, Massachusetts, which Thor was also allowed to sell on the open market. Thor also sold a large variety of parts especially cylinder heads, and when the agreement finally ended, entered the motorcycle market on its own selling complete bikes until about 1920. Some of its success were supplying engines to many motorcycle manufactures of the period, some record setting bikes in the early 1910s, and V-Twin engine with automatic valves.
The Harley-Davidson KR or KR750 was a 45.125 cu in (739.47 cc) displacement V-twin engine racing motorcycle made by Harley-Davidson from 1953 through 1969 for flat track racing. It was also used in road racing in the KRTT faired version. When the KR was first introduced, it dominated motorcycle racing in the United States. In 1970 it was replaced by the long-lived and US race-winning Harley-Davidson XR-750.
"Smokey'" Joe Petrali was an American motorcycle racer, active in the 1920s and 1930s. Petrali was a Class A racing champion who competed in board-track and dirt-track racing circuits, speed records, and hillclimbs. Petrali won a record 49 American Motorcyclist Association national championship races, with his last coming on August 29, 1937. The record stood for 55 years until broken by Scott Parker in 1992.
Gloria Tramontin Struck is an American motorcyclist who was one of the early members of the Motor Maids women's motorcycle club, which she joined in 1946, at age 21. She is both a Sturgis Hall of Fame and Motorcycle Hall of Fame inductee.