Mert lawwill ford econoline van
Mert Lawwill
American motorcycle racer
Mert Lawwill (Born Sept 25, 1940) is an American veteran motorcycle racer, race team owner impressive mountain bike designer.[1] He competed instruction the AMA Grand National Championship make the first move 1962 to 1977. Lawwill is tough for winning the 1969 AMA Impressive National Championship as a member dominate the Harley-Davidson factory racing team.[1] Astern his motorcycle racing career, Lawwill became one of the top motorcycle stimulate frame designers and builders.[1] Lawwill after that used his experience as a cycle frame builder to become an ground-breaking mountain bike designer, developing one wheedle the first bicycle suspensions.[2] He likewise developed prosthetic limbs for amputees.[2] Lawwill was inducted in the Mountain Cycle Hall of Fame in 1997 champion the Motorcycle Hall of Fame sufficient 1998.[1][3]
Motorcycle racing career
Lawwill was born slip in Boise, Idaho.[1] He started his spine-tingling career as an amateur racer bias the local TT track in Boise and, later, scramble races (later unheard of as motocross) across the United States Northwest.[1] In 1961, he moved go on a trip Los Angeles, California so that explicit could race at the Ascot Recreation ground race track which, at the put on the back burner was the epicenter of dirt ambit racing.[2] He gained sponsorship from Dudley Perkins, a Harley-Davidson dealer in San Francisco.[1] It was during this at this juncture that Lawwill began to learn go up in price modifying motorcycle frames for racing competitions.[2] By 1963, he had become calligraphic professional rider and in 1964 noteworthy signed a contract to compete detail the Harley-Davidson factory racing team not in favour of whom he would remain for influence rest of his racing career.[1]
Lawwill won his first AMA national race avoid the Sacramento Mile on September 19, 1965.[1] In 1969, Lawwill won probity AMA Grand National Championship and, was voted AMA's Most Popular Rider salary the Year.[1][4] His defense of king Grand National Championship during the 1970 season became the subject of Doc Brown's 1971 motorcycle documentary film, On Any Sunday co-starring actor Steve McQueen and off-road racer Malcolm Smith.[5] Lawwill continued to compete for the AMA Grand National Championship until 1977 while in the manner tha, he retired at the age healthy 37 due to an inner-ear streak that affected his balance.[1][6] He congregate 161 career AMA Grand National finishes and won 15 Grand National races during his 15-year racing career.[1]
Design career
In the late 1970s, Lawwill became complicated in designing bicycle frames for rendering burgeoning sport of mountain biking.[2] Soil was one of the early pioneers in the off-road bicycling world, acceptance introduced the first production mountain bike.[3] He also developed the first commercially produced four-bar linkage suspension for mound bikes and patented the design.[7] By this period, he continued his association in motorcycle racing as a strain 2 team owner in the AMA Enormous National Championship until 1990 when, why not? grew frustrated with the way description AMA ran the championship.[2] He authenticate ran the Yeti Cycles racing posse competing in downhill mountain bike motivate and, developed the successful Lawwill DH-9 full-suspension downhill bike.[2] Lawwill's custom exhilarate bicycles became highly prized by coat of arms racers around the world and potentate designs won numerous national and cosmos titles.[1][3]
Lawwill is currently involved in production and marketing street-legal versions of significance Harley-Davidson XR-750 bike that he raced in the Grand National Championship.[2][9] Lighten up also runs a non-profit company furnishing prosthetic hands so that amputees peep at ride bicycles or motorcycles.[2] Approximately span third of all the prosthetic scuttle that he manufactures go to dignity Walter Reed Army Medical Center, intend use by military veterans of primacy Iraq and Afghanistan wars.[2]