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Exhibition Not an Ostrich: & Other Images from America's Library

CHARLES E. REED. Ray Weishaar, Winner of 100-mile race. Time: 2 hrs. 1 1/2 mins. World record. Norton, Kansas, October 22, 1914

Charles Reed. Weishaar Winner 100 mi. race, Norton, Kan. Oct. 22, 14. Time 2 hr. 1 1/2 min. World record, ca. October 27, 1914. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (04.00.00)
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CHARLES E. REED. Ray Weishaar, Winner of 100-mile race. Time: 2 hrs. 1 1/2 mins. World record. Norton, Kansas, October 22, 1914

Ray Weishaar was one of the most popular motorcycle racing stars of the 1910s and 1920s. Nicknamed the Kansas Cyclone, Weishaar commemorated his victory in the Kansas Short Grass Motorcycle Club’s one-hundred mile race with a formal studio portrait that was made into a popular postcard. He became part of the Harley-Davidson’s “Wrecking Crew” in 1916. The team’s mascot was a small pig, which they took around the track on victory laps. Because of this mascot, Harley-Davidson motorcycles are called “hogs.”