Hi group, Damn, forgot. It must have been all the well wishing on the list two days ago.
I forgot to send the little text I have roughly translated from my own (German language) manuscript on motor paced track racing. Here we go. Dale, is this off or on topic?
Robert Walthour, sr. Bobby Walthour was the only top class American stayer in the early years of the sport, and one of the most important US racers ever.
When he begins racing in Germany at Easter 1904, he hits it off magnificently right from the beginning. His style is described as machine-like and efficient. However, he is also characterized, like his pacer Lawson, as reckless and cold-blooded. Peacock counts more than 60 broken bones during Walthour´s carreer. Walthour finishes races after awaking from an hour-long unconsciousness following a crash, is believed dead twice, and wins the 1903 NY Sixdays riding with a gaping wound on his behind which he sustains in hour 29.
Born on January 1st, 1878, together with twin brother Jimmy, Walthour works as a telegraph despatch rider and in a bike store/shop. (Catering for both sides of the Atlantic here.) In these jobs he was able to gain all-important training mileage from a very early age. As from age 17 he started as a sprinter and was soon counted among the better ones. Jimmy Michael being his role model, he tries to make his way in the world of paced racing which he manages successfully. Bobby introduces the first motor tandem, an Orient, into his home state, to the great pleasure of all spectators.
In 1908 Walthour and his wife have managed a total of four children, and Bobby can keep his family admirably on his income as a pro. He is now in a position to be able to ask track managers for high starting premiums and has drummed up lucrative sponsorship. He is a successful racer in spite of his idiosyncratic position on the bike, moving his saddle far back plus employing a long h`bar extension to give room to his long arms.
Walthour is a superbe rider in all track disciplins and is practically unbeatable in the shorter paced distances as well as in Six Days around the turn of the century. From 1904 until 1907 he is led by Franz Hofmann, the German crack pacer. During this period of time he is one of, if not the best motor paced track riders.
The autumn of 1904 sees Walthour back in Europe. He wins many races, including the London World Championship. Later he moves to Germany, with this country being the hub of the pacing world then. Here he secures his greatest triumphs.
Walthour wins his last races at forty years of age and leaves the track only in 1920. After his last, sadly very unsuccessful, tour of the German tracks he is forced to earn his living as a night club waiter and later a workman at the Ford Motor Company. When he dies in 1949, his obituary fills one whole NY Times page.
Sources: Several issues of Sport-Album der Rad-Welt, especially 1904, p. 10f, Buck Peacock´s article on oldbike.com, and Durst in Der Radsport, Nov. 9, 1948.
What I have not seen personally is the NYT obituary. Can anyone help me there?
Toni Theilmeier, Osnabrueck, Germany.