MY FIRST MOTORCYCLE RACE
1915--1916--1917
Written by Henry N. Patterson
November 26, 1996

It is hard to remember just what year it was. But one Sunday morning at breakfast my father told me that there would be a motorcycle race that would go by our place that afternoon and I would be able to see it from our front yard. We lived at 1520 North 7th Street, where I was born. Immediately my small brain could see those racers going by and the roar of the motorcycles with a cloud of dust behind them. You have to remember that back then the streets were still dirt. Not even graveled yet.

The format of the race was for the motorcycles to race from Grand Junction to Palisade and return, which was about 30 miles. It was logical that they would start from 7th and Main Street as I recently learned that Felix Carson had a Harley-Davidson agency near that corner. They would probably go north to North Avenue and then turn east to Fruitvale corner and then north one mile to the Johnson corner and then east through Clifton and then on to Palisade. For many years that was one of the main routes. On the return trip they would come in on Orchard Avenue instead of North Avenue and that would bring them by our place.

I probably was out in the yard an hour before they were scheduled to come by. The waiting for a little boy was exasperation. I waited and waited and no racers. I began to think it was all a story. But finally I heard the POP-POP of a single motorcycle coming down the street. No dust, no roar just barely moving I thought. Where were the rest of the racers? Maybe ten minutes later a second racer came by not going as fast as the first one was. Of course, no cloud of dust and no more came by. That's it folks, my first motorcycle race.