Murray bike easy rider
A few Crocker OHV kits were apparently sold to the public. These first Crocker OHV conversions had a 500cc (30.50cu”) capacity, and when tested in the Crocker-built speedway frame, proved satisfactory in power output, out-performing the Rudge engines which were then dominant in Speedway. This proved satisfactory, and in 1932, Crocker set about producing an OHV conversion for the Indian motor the bolt-on cylinder and head echoed Indian factory racing practice of 1925/6, when their OHV Indian ’45’ was timed at 126mph, running on alcohol. In response, Crocker put his engineering skills to the test, building a speedway frame to accept a ‘101’ Indian Scout engine 45cu” (750cc). In 1931, the staggeringly famous American dirt-track rider Sprouts Elder, who had been ‘Thrilling the Millions’ from England and Australia to Argentina, brought the sport of Speedway to the US, and it rapidly gained the same popularity as in the rest of the world, as the best-attended and most lucrative sport of all. The Crocker ‘conversion’ engine, from an Indian Scout, in a Rudge speedway frame. This address would become legendary as the home of Crocker motorcycles. 1924 was a big year for Al Crocker with a new wife and infant son, he took over the Kansas City Indian dealer/distributor, but by 1930, the call of the West could not be ignored, and he sold his dealership to ‘Pop’ Harding, then purchased the Freed Indian dealership at 1346 Venice Blvd in Los Angeles. Crocker surely knew Eddie Hasha, given his position in the industry: Gertrude and Al had one son (Al Junior), in 1924, the year they were married. Spectator deaths generally mark the ‘end of an era’ for races (just as with the Mille Miglia ). On Sept.8, 1912, four schoolboys were killed (along with Hasha), and ten spectators injured, when Hasha’s 8-Valve Indian went out of control, slid along the top safety railing on the banking, and clouted the four boys, who were craning their necks over the railing for a better look. By 1919, Crocker had opened an Indian dealership in Denver, Colorado, and there met, and eventually married, Gertrude Jefford Hasha, widow of Eddie Hasha, a famous ‘Board Track’ racer involved in the most notorious motorcycle racing disaster of the era.
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Rider Sam Parriot with Al Crocker at Muroc Dry Lake. Al Crocker developed a friendship with the Indian camp, and some published accounts suggest he worked at the Wigwam, others contend he never did. In the natural course of a racing career, he met and conversed with the pioneers of motorcycle manufacture and racing in those early days, including Oscar Hedstrom and Charles Hendee, the chief engineer and owner of the Hendee Manufacturing Co, makers of Indian ‘Motocycles’.
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His first job was with the Aurora Automatic Machine Co, builders of Thor motorcycles, and Crocker not only developed Thor engineering, he was a keen and successful racer during 1907-09. Albert Crocker, born in 1882, had an engineering degree from Northwestern University’s ‘ Armour Institute ‘, an engineering school. Al Crocker, Sam Parriot, and Paul Bigsby at Muroc dry lake in 1940 Parriot recorded 136.87 mph on Jwith the ‘parallel valve’ engine. What is definitely known is they have skyrocketed in value in the past decade, filling many spots on our Top 100 Most Expensive Motorcycles list. Wading through the murk around this famous American name, one bumps against vested interests and fast-held opinions, but enough facts emerge to which we can anchor our tale. The story of Crocker motorcycles has been obscured by tall tales and myths since the very day they were introduced, first as Speedway racers, then big V-twins, and finally a scooter, all built before official US involvement in WW2 put a halt to civilian motorcycle production.