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Very fitting for someone with such amazing accomplishments!
MS
By Tim May
The Columbus Dispatch
Posted Jun 27, 2017 at 7:09 PMUpdated Jun 27, 2017 at 7:09 PM
Growing up near Groveport, a young Richard “Dick” Klamfoth once saw an unused small engine and a bike. He put the two together and, voila, at age 12 his ingenuity and riding talent had him going places.
The next stop for Klamfoth, now 88, is the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America. On Wednesday in Daytona Beach, Florida, he will become the 27th motorcycle racer inducted.
He will enter with sprint car legend Steve Kinser, multi-series driver Scott Pruett, former NASCAR champion Terry Labonte and drag racer Paula Murphy. Journalist and racing aficionado Brock Yates and 1950s NASCAR star Herb Thomas will be honored posthumously.
“It’s the utmost to be in this type of celebration,” Klamfoth said before he, Beverly, his wife of 60 years, and their family headed for the festivities. “Automobile (drivers) are in there, all the main best ones like Mario Andretti, and usually they put one motorcycle racer in.
“Luckily I got enough notoriety in my days to get me in there before I die. I’m tickled to death I can do this.”
Klamfoth’s legacy was established long ago. He has been in the Pickerington-based American Motorcyclist Association’s hall of fame since 1998, and in the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum’s hall of fame since 1994.
This induction brings his career full circle, it being held a few miles from the site of the event that made him famous. Before Daytona International Speedway opened in 1959, auto and motorcycle races were held on a 4.2-mile improvised course — half on the paved A1A highway and the other half on the beach, with sandy U-turns at each end.
“It was crazy. You’d get salt spray on your goggles, you could hardly see where you were going half the time, and you’d hit 120 mph down the straightaways,” Klamfoth said. “And the starts, there were 150 guys going for it, guys running over each other. It was wild.
“I fell off hard enough to kill myself a couple of times. But I made it through.”
Indeed, he was able to win the 200-mile race three times, starting as a 20-year-old in 1949, and again in 1951 and ’52. He and Brad Andres were the only two to win the beach/road race three times before it was moved to the speedway in 1961.
Klamfoth arrived in Florida in 1948 at the urging of his longtime booster Floyd “Nick” Nicodemus, who was among those who realized Klamfoth’s talent during races around central Ohio. He earned a hook-up with the England-based Norton motorcycles’ team, led by tuner Francis Beart, and together they made Daytona history.
“I won it three times and I finished second three times,” Klamfoth said.
He won nine other national events during his career, and many other races, including the Charity Newsies at the Ohio State Fairgrounds, before hanging up his helmet to become a successful Honda motorcycle dealer. He retired in the 1980s.
He and his wife also developed the Honda Hills off-road track near their home on a ridge southeast of Jacksontown in Licking County. The home burned to the ground five days before Christmas in 2014, destroying most of his racing memorabilia, but they rebuilt on the “same exact spot because we love this place,” he said.
Now they’re going to have new memorabilia to help decorate.
“I am proud of Richard,” Beverly Klamfoth said. “He has always been the same person, whether he won all the races or if his bike broke during the race. He has never met a stranger.
“He has given his life to motorcycling.”
tmay@dispatch.com
@TIM_MAYsports
MS
By Tim May
The Columbus Dispatch
Posted Jun 27, 2017 at 7:09 PMUpdated Jun 27, 2017 at 7:09 PM
Growing up near Groveport, a young Richard “Dick” Klamfoth once saw an unused small engine and a bike. He put the two together and, voila, at age 12 his ingenuity and riding talent had him going places.
The next stop for Klamfoth, now 88, is the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America. On Wednesday in Daytona Beach, Florida, he will become the 27th motorcycle racer inducted.
He will enter with sprint car legend Steve Kinser, multi-series driver Scott Pruett, former NASCAR champion Terry Labonte and drag racer Paula Murphy. Journalist and racing aficionado Brock Yates and 1950s NASCAR star Herb Thomas will be honored posthumously.
“It’s the utmost to be in this type of celebration,” Klamfoth said before he, Beverly, his wife of 60 years, and their family headed for the festivities. “Automobile (drivers) are in there, all the main best ones like Mario Andretti, and usually they put one motorcycle racer in.
“Luckily I got enough notoriety in my days to get me in there before I die. I’m tickled to death I can do this.”
Klamfoth’s legacy was established long ago. He has been in the Pickerington-based American Motorcyclist Association’s hall of fame since 1998, and in the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum’s hall of fame since 1994.
This induction brings his career full circle, it being held a few miles from the site of the event that made him famous. Before Daytona International Speedway opened in 1959, auto and motorcycle races were held on a 4.2-mile improvised course — half on the paved A1A highway and the other half on the beach, with sandy U-turns at each end.
“It was crazy. You’d get salt spray on your goggles, you could hardly see where you were going half the time, and you’d hit 120 mph down the straightaways,” Klamfoth said. “And the starts, there were 150 guys going for it, guys running over each other. It was wild.
“I fell off hard enough to kill myself a couple of times. But I made it through.”
Indeed, he was able to win the 200-mile race three times, starting as a 20-year-old in 1949, and again in 1951 and ’52. He and Brad Andres were the only two to win the beach/road race three times before it was moved to the speedway in 1961.
Klamfoth arrived in Florida in 1948 at the urging of his longtime booster Floyd “Nick” Nicodemus, who was among those who realized Klamfoth’s talent during races around central Ohio. He earned a hook-up with the England-based Norton motorcycles’ team, led by tuner Francis Beart, and together they made Daytona history.
“I won it three times and I finished second three times,” Klamfoth said.
He won nine other national events during his career, and many other races, including the Charity Newsies at the Ohio State Fairgrounds, before hanging up his helmet to become a successful Honda motorcycle dealer. He retired in the 1980s.
He and his wife also developed the Honda Hills off-road track near their home on a ridge southeast of Jacksontown in Licking County. The home burned to the ground five days before Christmas in 2014, destroying most of his racing memorabilia, but they rebuilt on the “same exact spot because we love this place,” he said.
Now they’re going to have new memorabilia to help decorate.
“I am proud of Richard,” Beverly Klamfoth said. “He has always been the same person, whether he won all the races or if his bike broke during the race. He has never met a stranger.
“He has given his life to motorcycling.”
tmay@dispatch.com
@TIM_MAYsports
