Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/763593
73 www.thunderpress.net THUNDER PRESS nJanuary 2017n There are also pictures (mostly not that great since quality photos of these eight- valve machines and engines are almost as rare as the bikes), which hopefully reveal just how different the details could get! All in a day's work at the time… but a real riddle for historians. I mean these things are so rare in the fi rst place, that coupled with all the tweaks and tricks that racers tried on 'em in the day it's hard to say that any of the handful of survivors are "original." Not to mention the stuff the factory did (or might have done), courtesy of Ottaway and individual rider preference. Add the fact that factory records are nonexistent, so no real proof exists on the subject one way or another. What are we left with? Mostly, published race results from the time, some photos, the patent and, of course, a precious few machines. The patent is ground zero, race results affi rm H-D's winning ways historically, but it's the photos, then and now, that are the intriguing part of the legacy. Only those… and the machines that exist today (including "repros" for the well-heeled), forming tangible, all-too-scarce links to that legacy of "Aces on Eights." Motorhead Continued from page 69 Finally, and strangely… it's another 1923 model… with a twist (or two)! This "Statnekov" 8V was acquired from Boozefi ghter legend John Cameron who bought it from the estate of English racing genius Freddy Dixon. Statnekov fi nally sold the bike to Harley to put in their museum. Yes, when you see the eight-valve racer that H-D now owns, it's this one. Sounds simple. Yeah, right! To begin, it's an early single-cam "banjo" case engine! Were they really still building the fi rst-iteration engine in 1923? The heads appear to be the "mid- dle" version of three types used… namely the "kidney" port type, available, by the way, with or without exhaust headers. Dixon was a racer's racer and to me, it seems a virtual certainty this thing had/has been messed with so much for so long that dating it to 1923 is a dart board guess. This is partly why! Mr. Dixon himself, standing behind one iteration of his 8V race bike… the one in the Museum! Except, like Washington's cherry tree hatchet, already, the head's been replaced once and the handle twice! I mean, look at it! The non-Harley cradle frame has a tube looping under the engine, the tank has cutouts, there's a hand shifter for the non-Harley two-speed gearbox, and that friction damper on the fork was never a Harley part! There's rear stand and modifi ed rockers on the springer… shall I go on? OK… I will! Here's the same bike, same famous rider/tuner… different date… probably a couple years earlier. Looks a little more "factory"… no tranny, no shifter, no cradle frame. Except for some details, the only really unusual item that meets the eye is that burlap bag-looking thing where the carb should be. Legend has it that there might just be two British carbs mounted under there. The factory never did it… but Dixon probably did. The point, put in simpler terms, is this bike was/is a race bike. A damn fast, highly compet- itive and (for its time) technologically superior racing machine for over a decade. All race bikes get tweaked and tricked out from frame, to fork, to engine and every single thing in between, in order to gain a competitive edge, and all eight-valve Model 17s are race bikes. Pedigree is secondary to performance in racing. You'll never see a "stock" one… even in a museum. I'm just glad these bikes survive (in whatever form) to show us how it was done… and done well… back in the day!