Jim Davis: Motorcycle Racing Legend
When people talk about early American motorcycle racing legends, Jim Davis is one of the names that has to come up. His career ran from the rough pre-AMA years into the early national championship era, and he was successful under the Federation of American Motorcyclists, the Motorcycle and Allied Trades Association, and the American Motorcyclist Association. By the time he was finished, Davis had won more than 50 national events under the FAM and M&ATA, then added another 21 national wins under the AMA.
That would be enough to make him important, but Davis was more than a list of results. He raced for Indian, Harley-Davidson, and at times British machinery. He won on dirt ovals and board tracks, survived the factory rivalry years, pulled one of the better-known rule-bending stunts in early racing, and stayed active in motorcycling long after he quit competing. For readers who follow vintage motorcycle racing, his life is a straight line through the wildest and most dangerous years of the sport.
From Ohio Bicycle Roots to Motorcycle Racing
James Davis was born March 23, 1896, in Columbus, Ohio. Racing was already in the family. His father had been a bicycle racer, and Davis grew up around the idea that two wheels were something to compete on, not just something to ride. In 1913, while accompanying his father on a business trip to Savannah, Georgia, Davis saw his first motorcycle race. He came home hooked and talked his father into buying him a Yale motorcycle.
His first motorcycle race came at Lancaster, Ohio, when he was still a teenager. Davis rode a borrowed Indian twin, won the race, and took home a pair of rubber goggles and a quart of oil as the prize. It was a modest start for a rider who would eventually become one of the most decorated racers of his era, but the pattern was already there: Davis was light, determined, and comfortable pushing machinery harder than most people thought possible.
Indian Notices a Young Ohio Racer
By 1915, Davis was doing well enough in Ohio amateur racing that people around the local Indian dealership were talking about him. During a visit from Frank Weschler, Indian’s head of sales, the Columbus dealer talked up Davis’s ability and recommended that the young rider be given a factory machine. The sales pitch worked. Within a few weeks, Davis had a new eight-valve closed-port Indian factory racer.
That was a serious motorcycle for a rider barely out of the amateur ranks. The eight-valve Indian was one of the purpose-built racing machines of the period, far removed from an ordinary street motorcycle. Factory race bikes like that were built for speed first and everything else second. They were light, fast, and unforgiving, exactly the sort of machine that could turn a promising local rider into a national name if he had the nerve to use it.
The 1916 Detroit Breakthrough
In 1916, Davis left Ohio for his first national event, the FAM 100-Mile National in Detroit. He was only 20 years old and weighed about 120 pounds, so he must have looked badly outmatched beside the more seasoned factory racers. Once the flag dropped, the doubts disappeared. Davis led the entire 100-mile race and came away with his first national victory.
He followed Detroit by going to Saratoga, New York, and winning again. Back-to-back national victories put him on Indian’s payroll and sent him around the country as a factory rider for the Wigwam. That early run also shows why Davis lasted so long. He was not just fast for one afternoon. He could travel, adapt to different tracks, and win against the best riders the factories had.
War, Escort Duty, and a Return to the Track
Just as Davis’s career was taking off, World War I pushed motorcycle racing into the background. Davis was drafted into the Army, but his reputation followed him. His commanding officer recognized him from the racing circuit and helped get him assigned to motorcycle escort duty. Instead of going overseas as an ordinary soldier, Davis spent the war transporting officials stateside. Knowing how he rode, they probably arrived on time.
After the war, Davis returned to racing as one of the strongest Indian factory riders in the country. He competed in the years when dirt-track racing, long-distance championship events, and board-track speedways all overlapped. The board tracks were especially unforgiving. They were steeply banked wooden speedways where racers ran at tremendous speeds with little margin for error. Davis’s ability to win on both dirt and boards is part of what separates him from riders who were specialists on only one kind of track.
The Phoenix Telegram and the Move to Harley-Davidson
Davis’s Indian career ended in 1920 because of one of the more famous stories in early racing. He wanted into an invitation-only race in Phoenix, Arizona, but he was not on the list. Instead of accepting that, Davis reportedly faked a telegram from M&ATA president A.B. Coffman to get himself admitted. He got into the race, but the trick cost him his place with Indian.
Indian fired him, but Davis did not stay unemployed long. Within 24 hours, Harley-Davidson signed him. It was a perfect example of how competitive the factory racing scene had become. If Indian was willing to cut him loose over the telegram, Harley was just as willing to put a proven winner on its own team.
Dodge City and Harley’s Banjo 2-Cam
Davis’s first big Harley-Davidson victory came almost immediately at the 1920 Dodge City 300. Dodge City had already become one of the great names in American racing, and Harley-Davidson had been building its factory reputation there since the famous Dodge City 300 battles of the 1910s. By 1920, the race still carried real weight for the factories, riders, and spectators.
For that race, Harley-Davidson chose a pocket-valve version of its new Ottaway-inspired “banjo” 2-cam engine. The decision was not just mechanical. Harley management believed there was public-relations value in racing a machine that at least looked more like something the public could recognize. Up to that point, both Harley-Davidson and Indian had relied heavily on exotic purpose-built race bikes available only to factory men. Davis’s Dodge City win helped Harley prove that its new direction could still beat Indian on one of the country’s biggest stages.
Davis stayed with Harley-Davidson through the mid-1920s and continued winning major events. The years were dangerous and competitive. Factory riders faced long-distance heat, rough dirt, wooden speedways, mechanical failures, and other riders who were just as willing to lean on the throttle. Davis became known not only for speed, but for being fearless. Joe Petrali, who would later become a Harley-Davidson legend through hillclimbs, dirt tracks, and Harley’s Daytona Beach land-speed record, called Davis one of the most fearless riders he had ever competed against.
Back to Indian and the AMA Championship Years
For the 1926 season, Davis returned to Indian. He won three national titles that year across dirt-track and board-track competition. At Rockingham, New Hampshire, he added important class wins and records, including races for 750 cc and 45-cubic-inch machines. Those class results matter because they show Davis was not winning only by having the largest or fastest motorcycle. He was competitive across displacement classes and track types.
His biggest season came in 1928, when he won six national titles and was named AMA national champion. He repeated as AMA national champion in 1929. His final AMA victory came in 1930 at Syracuse, New York. After that, he did not win another national title, but he kept racing competitively until 1936.
By the end of his racing career, Davis had entered roughly 1,500 events and covered about 30,000 competition miles. Sources vary on some of the exact trophy and medal counts, but all of them point in the same direction: Davis was one of the most successful racers from the early American motorcycle racing era.
The Machines Davis Raced
The motorcycles under Davis changed with the sport. His first Indian factory racer was the eight-valve closed-port machine that put him on the national stage. In the 1920s, he moved between Indian and Harley-Davidson factory machinery, including the Harley-Davidson pocket-valve banjo 2-cam used for Dodge City. These were not ordinary road motorcycles with number plates hung on them. They belonged to the same specialized factory-racing world that later produced machines such as the DAH Harley-Davidson factory racer: narrow-purpose competition bikes built to win specific kinds of events.
The board-track machines of the period could run at speeds that still sound wild today, especially considering the tires, frames, brakes, and safety equipment of the time. Many racers rode without the kind of stopping power a modern rider would consider basic. Davis’s long career is remarkable partly because he survived the same tracks and machines that made the board-track era infamous.
After Racing
Davis retired from professional racing in 1936, but he did not leave motorcycling. He helped establish Ohio’s motorcycle police work and served for years with the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s motor division. He also became a longtime AMA official, referee, starter, and flagman, working the sport from the other side of the starting line as American racing moved from the board-track years into events such as beach racing at Daytona.
Ironically, the only serious motorcycle racing injury usually associated with Davis came after his racing career was over. In 1948, while waving the checkered flag, he was struck by Don Evans and badly injured. Even that did not separate him from motorcycles for good. Davis remained part of the racing world and became one of the last living links to the board-track years.
A Long Life in Motorcycling
In 1984, Davis received the Dudley Perkins Award, the AMA’s highest honor, for his lifelong contributions to motorcycling. He was later inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame, adding official recognition to a reputation that racers and fans had already understood for decades.
Jim Davis died in Daytona Beach, Florida, in February 2000 at 103 years old. Some sources list February 5 and others list February 6, but either way the point is hard to miss: one of the men who helped define early American motorcycle racing lived long enough to become its storyteller. If riding motorcycles is supposed to shorten your life, Davis did a pretty good job of complicating that theory.