Because it was there! Remember…when referring to the reason why George Mallory climbed Mount Everest… because it was there! “Iron Man” Fred Ham rode a newly designed Harley Davidson EL (commonly called a knucklehead) model for 1825 miles setting a 24 hour solo record back in 1937. You can read more about Fred and his story at Motorcycle Museum Hall of Fame. My friend Dale Walksler of Wheels Thru Time Museum in Maggie Valley, North Carolina has had a dream to challenge Fred Ham’s record set in 1937 for some time now. It would be quite an accomplishment, and would take a lot of preparation and planning. He planned to use exactly the same model bike, but this time the bike would be 70 years old but completely rebuilt at his Wheels Thru Time Museum. He had told me his plans a number of months earlier.

Dale had just the guy in mind to ride his bike to challenge Iron Man Fred Ham’s record…a guy that is either crazy or is an Iron Man too: Wayne Stanfield of Costa Mesa, California. Wayne is well known from Great Race fame, winning the coast to coast event 5 times and now chief operating officer of the Great Race. Wayne once competed solo in the Great Race from Ottawa, Canada to Mexico City on one of Dale’s restored Harley’s and won second place! So, Dale worked it out to rent the Talladega Super Speedway in Lincoln, Alabama for 24 hours so they could challenge Iron Man Fred’s record.

I saw Wayne the week before at our Regional Great Race event in Irving Texas. He reminded me that he was planning to fly back to Alabama after our regional race to do the 24 hour solo ride on Wed April 4th. He said he had been training for the solo endurance ride by dieting, and trying to get by on less sleep, and doing 50 pushups each hour. I had to see this deal…it sounded fun! I figured the least I could do was show moral support for Dale and Wayne the last few hours of this challenge, so I took off Thursday morning headed for Talladega. Cameron and Theresa thought it sounded fun, too so I had company. Cameron is a pretty darn good photographer so….he took the photos.

We got to the Speedway at about 1:30PM Central just in time for Dale to flag Wayne in to the pit so they could change the primary chain. (They went through several during the 24hours. Apparently the primary chain gets pretty hot under this extreme condition and sometimes stretches and could break) They took only minutes to brake it down, change the primary chain and fill the bike up with gas. Dale told me later that his bike had only gone through a half a quart of oil during the 24 hours. Pretty good I thought especially since Wayne was averaging 90 to 100 miles per hour around the 2.82 mile track. I gotta see if I can get Dale to build my next antique Harley engine!

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Dale had quite a crew there for support, so when Wayne would scream in, everyone had a job including someone to take care of Wayne like hand him water and a chair or direct him to a place to pee. (Sorry, mom, but everyone was wondering I am sure, so I just said it). Theresa even helped out by giving Wayne a shoulder rub while Dale and crew were buzzing around the bike for one of his pit stops. Wayne would stop for only minutes about every hour. Dale had buddies there to work the stop watch, record the time and lap, guys for helping work on the bike and handing Dale wrenches and guys there for just morale support.

It was great to see “Iron Man” Wayne Stanfield ride around the track on that old Harley knucklehead. Nothing sounds quite like an antique Harley buzzing past you at 100 miles per hour.

Well, they tried but didn’t break Iron Man Fred Ham’s record. They had some engine trouble (because of bad gas) early and had to replace a cylinder which killed too much time on Wednesday. But Wayne did ride that Harley solo for close to 1400 miles in 24 hours in the cool, no…it was cold Talladega air. He said his teeth were still vibrating when he got off the bike. Dale was really proud of the accomplishment of his team. I was too.

It was a great effort by a cool bunch of guys. My cowboy hat is off to Dale Walksler, who is one of the hardest working guys I have ever seen…..and to Ironman Wayne Stanfield. Check out Dale’s website at http://www.wheelsthroughtime.com.

From the road,

Corky