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O'Brien Harley-Davidson's War Eagle

Let the race begin part II

Wearing Harley under wear

It was October 1957and Halloween when Dick, his wife Joyce and two daughters Pat and Peg got to Milwaukee. There were no big bucks for department heads at the H-D factory. Dick could only afford a two bedroom apartment and it would be 1970 before they could afford a house. Dick would be taking over the job of retiring Hank Syvertsen as director of racing.

The racing department, if you want to call it that, was a pitiful dingy second floor room at what is called the Millway building and stayed that way until he retired in 1983. Dick was not given much of a budget, no desk, no secretary and his tuners and engine builders were loaned to him from engineering dept when they could spare them. They were all union and couldn’t care less whether H-D won or did darn thing. It was at this time that the AMA wanted to present a better image to the public than Marlon Brando's "The Wild One", wearing black leather jackets, so the three major factories came up with team racing colors. BSA picked Red and White, Triumph picked Blue and White and my brother, God forbid, picked Orange, White and Black because he came to factory during Lucifer's Halloween. Halloween colors would not only be the trademark but in 1983 Dick would name Jay Springsteen's XR-1000 Lucifer's Hammer (see BOTT in later story). Some say Dick wore H-D colors on his backside and the funny part of it is that Bart Markel's wife made Dick boxer under shorts that were half Black and half Orange that he did not wear in public.

When Dick took over the racing department, two people drove him nuts in the early days, they were Leonard Andres and Ralph Bernt. Leonard was the father of Brad Andres and a H-D dealer in Modesto, CA. Leonard had an inside line to John Davidson and could get time on the engineering dept. dynamometer anytime he wanted, and without Dick observing the proceedings... Ralph Bernt was the foreman of H-D racing dept. and was the personal tuner of Carroll Resweber’ bike. He would not share what cams he developed or what he was doing to Carroll's winning bike, even though Carroll was on the Factory team. Ralph saved Carroll's life one day and didn't knew it at the time… We were at the 1962 Springfield Mile and Carroll was leading the race when the engine quit. It transpired that Ralph forgot to put rubber between the tank and the frame and it leaked causing the engine to run out of fuel. It was hot as hell and Carroll was drinking water like mad…no sooner did he get back to the pits, he passed out with heat prostration….

Harley Wrecking Crew

In those days there was not a factory racing team you could put your fingers on at first. There were those who's bikes were set up by factory union workers provided they got part of the riders purse and other riders who were supported by giving them free parts through a H-D dealer.

From 1957 these were what Dick would call” The H-D Wrecking Crew”: Brad Andres National Champion, Everett Brashear, Mert Lawwill National Champion, Joe Leonard Three Time National Champion and three time overall Indy Race Car National Champion, Bart Markel ( Black Bart) Three Time National Champion, George Roeder and Carroll Resweber Four time National Champion and greatest rider in the history of the AMA. At first there was a lot of resistance to get everyone to use the new team racing colours and then trying to get everyone to use the same paint scheme.

Black Bart was the worst and at one National Championship Race part of his bike had no paint at all. The AMA referee told him paint it and he did. Right after practice on ½ mile dirt track he got a can of heat resistant black paint and covered the entire bike right over the grease and dirt (yuck). Dick wanted all the team bikes up to maximum speed so they could beat the British and, by the way, the word used was not “British” in those days so lets get the facts straight.

Triumph were called Churchill Juicers, Lime Squeezers or Turnips and BSA were just Bastards of South Africa. They called H-D's Milwaukee Pig Iron or just Pigs. The problem with getting every one up to speed was everyone wanted to win and they would not share engine specs particularly cam information as there was some 20 types of cams for 1/4 mi, ½ mi, Mi, TT and Road Racing. Then there was the lying as to what gearing to use on a given track.

One time some of the factory team riders just knew George Roeder had the advantage at Columbus ½ mile dirt track with the fastest qualifying time and heat race and they knew he was religious and shy around girls so they paid two hookers to jump George in his van 15 minutes before the start of the National. George came screaming out of the van and, to make things worse, the AMA Referee suggested he's a pervert (and these were his so called team mates). By the way it didn't work, as the fear of God must have hit George all the way to the chequered flag.

From 1957 to 1969 things were fairly well matched between the 30 cu in OHV British bikes and the 45 cu in H-D flathead with both averaging 55 to 58 HP. The British wanted to go to 750 cc across the board for 1970 knowing Harley- Davidson had nothing to throw at them. What they didn't know was that the Jap's would use this rule to put the British out of business and burry H-D in road racing and to leave them racing on dirt track. What started the whole thing off was the fact that no one was selling the equivalent road bike of what they were racing. British were only selling their 40 cu in bikes and H-D dropped the 45 cu in flat head and went first to 55 cu in KH flat head and later to OHV Sportster on street sales.

New Harley-Davidson 750ccDOHC 8-Valve Vertical Twin

It was 1968 and two things happened at H-D that would have a profound impact on the future of the company. The first was AMF getting control of most of H-D's stock and this I'll cover later and the second was the death chant for the aging KR-750cc Flathead. I was working for NASA at Cape Kennedy at the time and Dick sent me a set of blue prints for a possible new racing engine. Harley -Davidson had bought out a company called Aermacchi in Milan Italy. Aermacchi made H-D's lightweight production motorcycles, 250cc & 350cc single four stroke which had variants raced in the 250/350 FIM World Championships in road racing.

Aermacchi's engineering and design work was at least 30 years ahead of Harley-Davidson and I'll talk more about that later. As I said before, Dick had only a GED from high school and I was the only one in family to have finished college. Dick had to depend on outside help on any design work. Most of it came from Dan Gurney and people he knew at the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) of which he was a member. As a designer working at NASA space centre in Florida I knew a lot of top engineers and as such I could explore their minds. Dick wanted to know the feasibility and the pros and cons between 750 V-twin and 750 vertical twin, both for road racing and dirt track. He wanted to know if a winder (high RPM) vertical twin was better then a high torque V-twin on ½ mi Dirt track.

It was agreed that on a grooved ½ dirt track it would make no difference but on a cushion track the V-Twin would always have the upper hand. Dan Gurney said to go for the V-twin all the way. Pride also had a lot to do with it, as you would guess. There were other problems with H-D building a new V-Twin in that the factory always put production bikes first and racing had to wait (some time too long…) to get parts made. The factory was also always screwing things up like heat treating and machining of parts. If Dick went V-Twin he would have to use the old KR crankcases as a basis, which were designed for only 30/40 HP. The same crankcases arrangement was used on the Sportster and they were cracking at 80 HP when modified for racing. The Aermacchi twin, on the other hand, had four valves per cylinder which meant a lighter valve spring load (webmaster note: that engine was never built but Linto did make a 500 twin by coupling two Aermacchi 250cc that fared well in GP races in the late 60’s). The engine would start out with 90 HP @ 10,000RPM and could go up to 120HP @ 12,000RPM.

Dick took the idea to President of Harley-Davidson, John Davidson and answer is in Part III titled The Last Daytona Hurrah?