Carl Leusenkamp was highly regarded in the Northwest where he lived through
the 1970's and 80's. He coached riders in the Alpenrose Cycling Club at
Alpenrose Velodrome (built on land of the locally owned Alpenrose Dairy; if
you live in the PacNW and want to passively support track cycling, drink
Alpenrose milk!) raced until moving from the area in (I think) 1985 and was
a general man-about-bike-racing at various events. Was also an entertaining
and informative public speaker.
David Feldman
Vancouver, WA
<classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2002 10:45 AM Subject: Re: [CR]American Track Stars
>
> Just a quick summary and then I will put the mind to its test for dates
and such later.
> Jackie Simes was the top sprinter of the early to late '60's. He was from
NJ I believe and won the Sr. National Sprint title at Flushing Meadows in
1964. I have a photo of him with his trophy, but have misplaced my
scrapbook. When I find it I will post that photo and others to my yahoo
photo page so you can have a look. Jackie had some success in Europe as
well.
> Jack Disney was a 5 time, maybe more, National Sprint Champion from Ca.
He, I believe won the National Sprint for the last time at the Northbrook,
IL track in 1965. At that National Championships Tim Mountford used every
trick in the book to beat or make sure Carl Leusenkamp did not win the title
that year. One tactic that was used, and there were many, Tim and Carl were
matched up and Tim led out the sprint coming off, I believe turn two, bank,
when Carl went to go around-Tim wasn't at full speed Tim bumped or brushed
Carl or made contact and when Carl was pass Tim well Tim raised his hand in
protest. This was before the last 200 meters and the rules were if there was
contact before the last 200 meters and a rider wanted to protest he would
raise his hand and the race would be restarted. So the riders went back to
the line and restarted the race and of course Carl just road a full on
sprint. There was other incident that envolved a fake crash. I forget
exactly what happened, but it involved Tim and Carl again and Tim put his
bike down so the race had to be restarted again with Carl having just
completed a full on sprint to the line. Many of us that were there thought
Carl was the fastest sprinter there that year, but he lacked the experience
and knowledge of track racing to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
> Jim Rossi was a 5 time National Sprint Champion that won his last title,
again I believe, in 1963 at Northbrook. Jim was a very tall fellow that was
a gentleman in every sense of the word. At that time he worked at Oscar
Watsyns in Chicago. We paid him a visit after the Nationals as well as the
Schwinn factory before heading home.
> Carl started out in our club, the Rockville Cycle Club, Rockville, MD.
Carl won a Bronze medal at the Pan Am games as well as many titles. Carl
married Rita Hiltner, Mike Hiltner's sister. Carl passed away about 10 years
ago from cancer. If you watched the '84 Olympics you saw Carl holding Nelson
Vails in the matched sprints. Carl was the sprint coach. Carl was humble and
a gentleman in every sense of the term.
> Jackie Simes, Jack Disney and Jim Rossi road Schwinn Paramounts, as many
of the top sprinters did at that time. Carl Leusenkamp rode a W.B. Hurlow, a
chrome one, that he ordered from Ray Betts in 1964.
> michael butler <pariscycles@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:Can anyone please tell me
anything about the following riders Jackie Simes, Jim Rossi, Jack Disney and
Carl Leusenkamp, titles won, what years and make of frames used.
>
> Be lucky Mick Butler Huntingdon UK
>
>
>
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