An Iconic Racer from the 1950s
The American Motorcycle Association announced the death of Everett Brashear, according to CycleNews. He was 93 and passed away in Los Angeles, California.
Brashear was one of the top AMA flat track racers in the 1950s, helping make the sport popular in his day. He managed to win 15 flat track nationals and many regional races. He became an AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer in 1998.
Brashear was from Texas and born in 1926. He didn’t start riding motorcycles until he was 19 and by 1949 he was making a name for himself in the novice racing ranks. He moves up as an amateur and then up to the expert level.
He won his first flat track national in Sturgis, South Dakota. It was both his and Harley’s first win with its new KR race bike. From there he continued to win races.
He retired from racing and worked at Johnson Motors, which distributed Triumph motorcycles. It was short-lived. He came back and won another AMA National in Sacramento in 1960. After some injuries due to crashes, he decided to hang it up, though he did come back and race more later in the 1960s.
It’s sad to see such an important figure go, but it is wonderful to look back on his illustrious career and think about what it must have been like to be a great of the flat track racing world back in the 1950s. We want to thank him for the work he did in the motorcycle industry over the course of his long career.