Chapter 4 - Skill, nerve & daring

CHAPTER 4 SKILL NERVE & DARING June 25th 1924

The track was large, certainly by velodrome standards. While bicycle tracks ranged in size from two hundred to five hundred yards, the Million Dollar Speedway’s surface was nearly five times that length. Its derivation as a nine-furlong track didn’t figure, given horses couldn’t walk, much less trot on its slanted wooden surface, its two-hundred-yard bonus possibly meant to foster new automobile speed records.

Indoor velodromes had become popular across both Belgium and Holland in Ghent and Amsterdam, sheltering racers from winter squalls. European racers endured cramped, under track quarters for as long as six days, adapting direct-gear, no-brake bicycles to short, steep wooden tracks. While racers’ muscular thighs and calves suited expectations, a careful anatomist might have noted similar neck musculature, a consequence of motionless track-standing, the dark side of matched sprinting.

Similar to Barney Oldfield’s transition from bicycle to auto contests, racing stars migrated from bicycles to motorcycles or from bicycles to open-wheeled cars. Price sought to capitalize on a recent velodrome variant, one termed motor pacing, in which a motorcyclist or pacer led a bicyclist or stayer, hoping the oddly mixed format might attract fans of both genres.

Store windows displayed valance-fendered Indian Moto-Cycles complemented by lighter entries, similarly manufactured Indian bicycles. Harley-Davidson Motor Company manufactured bicycles prior to specializing in motorcycles only. Schwinn engineers had originally created the Excelsior motorcycle but later reversed course on Harley-Davidson, a bicycles-only trajectory.

Few physical characteristics separated board track racers of either genre, either panel similarly sinewy and muscular. Eric Price, a Million Dollar Speedway promoter had earlier contested Europe’s board tracks, ones in Paris, Amsterdam and London.

As questions regarding the track’s surface expanded, Danforth, Doty and Price avoided appearing together. By the spring of 1924 exposed track surfaces had largely surrendered to weather, whether from freeze-thaw cycles or periodic standing water.

Each succeeding track-day created new trackside objects ranging in size from pine wood toothpicks to wood splinters and even shards. A speeding auto occasionally dismembered a doweled-in board, creating a brief although terrifying missile. Promoters agreed on one final, however modest objective, milking the Woodyard through its final act.

Price visited Cincinnati in 1923 where the mayor afforded him a ten-minute-no-more interview. If not the Queen City, perhaps a track in nearby Newport or even Covington, Kentucky, two towns separated from Cincinnati by little more than a bridge walk. Price et al.’s plans migrated beyond Dodson or even Kansas City for that matter.

Per the 1920s police departments licensed most motor racing contests, sometimes using them to demonstrate the capabilities of their motor patrols. But their leadership hardly warmed to highspeed contests capable of board launches, flying junk or gasoline fires.

Ghastly Murder Drome injuries and deaths in New Jersey had raised flags. Structural failures there had sacrificed multiple racers’ lives, plus those of two Newark spectators. Track concerns sprouted like tree buds, high speeds and poor maintenance matching inadequate spectator protection.

Kansas City’s police chief informed Price he would issue no additional permits until better assured that the promoters had addressed their track’s deteriorating surface. While disappointed, Price stayed with his game, diverting his law enforcement colleague toward a more neutral topic, one involving a newly-created non-motorized contest, one in which two pacing motorcycles led-out drafting bicyclists.

Failing to understand what Price was getting at, the chief requested clarification. Who’s doing the racing, motorcycles or bicycles? Rather than a dense pacer-and-stayer-based explanation, Price settled for a one-word however disingenuous answer, bicycles.

While regarding Price as a pest, Kansas City’s police chief reasoned kids circling a beat-up track on bicycles wouldn’t create many board launches. The law officer had a question. Do you know any bicyclists who can pedal forty-mph? Price nodded in the negative and they both chuckled. Price got what he wanted, one more Million Dollar-based two-wheeled contest.

Western Union offices required the service of bicycle messengers, adolescents skilled in performing traffic squeezes and pinches, equally adept at bunny-hopping curbs. Devotees of drafting, sitting-in behind overtaking vehicles, bicycle messengers could also execute track stands, delicate balancing acts performed behind stopped vehicles, never dropping a foot. A rag-tag bunch, messengers breathlessly appeared in business lobbies, typically clad in flat caps, moth-hole sweaters and frayed knickers. Such messengers were oddly categorized as unionized workers joining their telegraphy counterparts, in 1924 earning fifty-five cents per hour, often more than an employed parent.

While Western Union was a more recognized firm, Postal Telegraph possessed a share of the business share, too. Beyond telegraphs, messengers typically worked side jobs, mostly delivering parcels. Executive wardrobe emergencies could be corrected by dispatches originating with the Novorr brothers, Kansas City’s Main Street tailors. Messengers frequently allied, relaying messages rider-to-rider, bicycle-based equivalents of St. Joseph’s Pony Express.

The police chief’s who’s doing the racing stirred in Price the possibility of creating a phony motorcycle non-racing event. The project's success depended upon attracting big-name moto– champions, race headliners. Price reasoned Western Union and Postal Telegraph’s seniority rosters could furnish him with sufficiently skilled bi-cyclists for his oddly named motor-paced contest. A Chicago freight agent’s mistake initiated a series of events in his favor.

Ralph Heywood and Maldwyn James were freighting race-only motorcycles to the Grand Nationals, a prominent flat track contest held every year in Wichita. The rail car containing their machines had been mistakenly removed from a train and subsequently spotted beside Union Station’s delivery track, close enough to Kansas but nowhere near Wichita.

A rather imaginative freight agent telephoned the only race-involved person he knew, Price-thepromoter, informing him two motorcycle racers were nervously guarding race-only cycles at the Railway Express platform.

Abandoning yet another Danforth-led Kanawatsugi track repair demonstration, Price rushed to Railway Express to inform Ralph Heywood and Merkel James that he would arrange their transportation to the Grand Nationals if they could assist him with what he described as a track

safety demonstration. Given Price’s apparent helpfulness, Heywood and James agreed to what sounded like a track night.

Per 1924, Kansas Citians learned of impending circuses, concerts or races through block-lettered posters, ones featuring bold black capital letters set on rainbow-shaded backgrounds. More important elements appeared in fuchsia top sections fusing into canary middle’s succeeded by less important green listings.

GRAND NATIONAL MOTORCYCLE STARS RALPH HEYWOOD || MALDWYN JAMES Recognizable and important, merging two inches lower with

MOTOR – PACED RACING

Followed by incidentals.

PROFESSIONAL CYCLISTS

3-ELIMINATION ROUNDS

10-MILE FEATURE.

The terms bicycle and bicycle racing never appeared. No event had been conducted without a heralding parade, twilight motor pacing would not be an exception. Doty and Price drove matching LaSalle’s, both fitted with gaudy Speedway hood cowl emblems.

Ralph Heywood rode with Price and Merkel James followed in Doty’s LaSalle. They were followed by sixteen additional tourers featuring dark-suited drivers and back-seated bi-cyclists. The bicycle racers were curiously attired in bet-encouraging horseracing silks, likely Elm Ridge leftovers.

More familiar with back-seated boys as Western Union or Postal Telegraph messengers, sidewalk onlooker asked the boys if they had been enlisted for Churchill Downs service. Where’s your horse?

The race card remarkably included a wiry Jewish Kid, Abe Kern’s son, George.

Touring car drivers and cyclists delivered celebratory waves to early drinkers outside the Phillips, New Yorker, Muehlebach and Senator hotels. Roaring past the Paramount theater marquee, Carl Schultz energetically raised his bike aloft, perhaps portending a win.

The procession’s final entry belonged to Kansas City’s mayor, Sam Stroker, his name placarded along the car’s front fenders. A smart politician, Stroker tossed wrapped peppermints to sidewalk viewers as members of Kansas City’s cheerleader squad glittered and pom-pom ‘ed across his back seat. Old school pols like him slowly adapted to the Nineteenth Amendment’s voting changes.

Following a lap through downtown, the convoy swept east toward Troost, a wide avenue directing them south toward the Million Dollar Speedway.

Upon his arrival in Kansas City, Louis A. Cella’s bookmaker cousin had been overheard saying Kern’s kid was a ringer, noting small physical stature would be a handicap for a conducted on a long, likely windblown track. A second speaker countered that he had witnessed Kern edge a large field of athletic Sedalia farm boys but stumbled to explain George’s rhythmic, effortless-appearing pedaling. The observer also correctly noted the leading Excelsior and Indian had been fitted with conveyor rollers to allow the two bi-cyclists to pedal in their powerful wakes, possibly exceeding forty-mph.

The venue began with a series of matched sprints bracketing sixteen entrants, a format dedicated to saving-the-best-for-last. Realizing many in his betting-and-drinking audience wouldn’t depart factories until four pm, Price reasoned they wouldn’t reach the track until nearly five-thirty.

Consistent with saving-the-best-for-last, Price sought to amuse early-arrivals, encouraging them to remain through the motorcycle-paced finale.

Believing they had paid to witness motorcycle contest, disappointment and even anger arose when Price’s race card commenced with a series of matched bi-cycle sprints. Across three preliminary heats, two matched competitors ambled around the track at reasonable speeds until they approached the two-hundred-yard flag, before balancing motionless near the track’s rail, daring one another to lead-out. Three out of four times the following cyclist ironically sped past his opponent less than a yard ahead of a heat finish.

Kansas City fans, likely tired from work, yawned and groaned, complaining about the slowness of track standing until they witnessed the next phase, blazing-fast sprints. Those convinced of the following cyclist’s aerodynamic advantage may have been surprised by the quarter-final results, evenly split between followers and leaders. Beer and bets fostered further enlightenment. The fact the racers were attired in identifiable racing silks further aided betting.

The semi-final round featured Carl Spencer, Postal Telegraph’s senior messenger pitted against Carl Schultz, a local racing sensation along with Emmett Carpenter, a well-known motor car racer matched against George Kern. Following three rounds of preliminary heats, Carl Shultz and George Kern emerged as finalists, Schultz sporting red-and-white horizontal stripes and Kern in huge black&-white checks.

Ignaz Schwinn’s firm had manufactured both bicycles and motorcycles, including a motorized Excelsior, a motorcycle capable of speeds exceeding one hundred miles-per-hour. James’ Excelsior sported a Price-inspired roller, one spinning closely behind its rear wheel, allowing Kern to draft behind Merkel James.

Ralph Heywood, the second pacer straddled an Indian Moto-Cycle, one manufactured in Springfield, Massachusetts. His curiously named Indian sported a side-valve Daytona motor, one covering a mile on boards in 32.5 seconds at an astonishing 110-mph. Heywood’s machine bore an identical Price-inspired roller, one to accommodate Schultz.

The Cella cousin improvised a betting window, erecting a makeshift booth near the gate where he entertained a noisy line of bettors. The bet line was undistinguished excepting a short overall-clad male carrying a covered bucket.

The evening of June 25th succeeded the summer solstice by three days, a time when the Kansas City world felt warm, inviting really. Many of those present believed they had come to witness a bicycle warm-up ahead of a full-on motorcycle race. They were right, again they wrong.

With the finale set to occur in less than half an hour, male cicadas strengthened their chorus, shadows from a retiring sun extended the grandstand’s shadow and the air around it cooled. By then Dodson’s herds were well into evening quiet.

A mechanic performed throttle checks on James and Heywood’s race bikes. Above a chalked finish two floodlights directed focus for racers and spectators. Ahead of the starting gun, a twentyminute intermission evaporated in what must have seemed an instant for Kern and Schultz.

The two motorcycles roared onto the track, Heywood and James shadowing one another until slowing slightly to allow Schultz and Kern to fold-in. With the bi-cyclists in tow, the racing quartet completed a warm-up lap before the checkered flag dropped. In racing terms, it was go-time.

The finale would bring those odd dyads past the grandstand seven times before the bell announced an eighth, and charitably for them, a final lap. Motorcycle exhausts shot clouds of combustion gas and sparks at thousands of variably rough and also oil-stained boards.

The roar of two powerful race motors atop a hollow wood surface created a palpable excitement.

Over nearly fifteen minutes, Million Dollar fans erupted each time Schultz and Kern flew past.

For spectators who generally pedaled heavy bicycles at less than eight-mph, the image of a circling thirty-mph cycling pair was electrifying. A thoughtful kinesiologist might have noticed a unique characteristic in the smaller man’s pedal stroke, Kern appeared to be dancing on pedals.

Perhaps according to an unshared agreement, Heywood and James maintained speed until the fourth lap when they briefly downshifted, thereby creating huge motor roars and additional sparks.

Across the fifth, sixth and seventh laps, Kern and Schultz upped the pace. Both bicyclists bumped Price’s spinning contraptions as if to signal fresh needs for speed. The finale was as dramatic as if two freight trains had raced across Kansas City’s summer night; the race looked fast and it was.

On their final or bell lap, James a keen strategist, brought Kern halfway to the rail, pushing the Heywood - Schultz duo slightly higher. James’ attempted to furnish Kern a slight aerodynamic advantage complemented by a straight-line path to the finish. Heywood, Schultz in tow, rejected James’ strategy, situating his motorcycle just to the right of Kern’s rear wheel creating a straight-line path for his racer, Schultz.

Barring a single wheelchair viewer, no one was seated when the big moto’s closed on the two hundred-yard flag, Schultz and Kern both eying it as well. After preliminaries and pedaling at speed for twenty thousand yards, the margin of victory would likely be measured in inches, perhaps photographically defined in millimeters.

Just ahead of that important flag, James and Heywood motored away, leaving Schultz and Kern to contest their bicycle-only contest. The visual impression was one of their legs driven as if they were pistons. Given Schultz’ angular build and broader experience level, the Cella cousin set the odds at twenty-to-one in his favor. Fewer bettors favored Abe Kern’s kid, likable but not a champion.

Key features of Robert’s fifth test station were never shared. Endless roller drills at number five equipped Kern with a dynamic, lively pedal stroke, one defying cramps. A panel of judges required three-minutes to review photographic images before confirming the win belonged to George Kern.

The first person to settle with the bookmaker was an undersized mustachioed male. Onlookers likely assumed his bucket had earlier contained tools. Instead, Robert had brought stacks of worn, greasy bills, mainly singles along with silver coins, all traded for four bet slips. Post-race, they were exchanged for banded-stacks of one hundred bills. Thursday’s Star heralded

SKILL, NERVE AND DARING AT THE

DETERIORATING DAIRY WOODYARD KERN YOUNGSTER DANCES TO VICTORY