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5 | Odd Man Out I n May 1950, big, gregarious DeWayne Lund lumbered into Dale Swanson ’s brake shop, a small building reached by entering an alley south of the town square. Lund was itching to compete again, and he had an idea. He wanted a partnership with Swanson to race a stock car. His name was DeWayne, but everyone called him “Tiny.” At 6 foot five and 250 pounds, Tiny radiated a boisterous, fun loving, and wild presence. Mass alone was not what attracted people to him. His magnetism demanded attention. Constantly on the move, playing pranks, and showing off—no one ever said Tiny was quiet. His energy thrust him center stage. Born November 14, 1929, he was six years younger than Johnny Beauchamp . A daredevil ready to attempt any type of motorized competition or stunt, he began racing while still in school. His first contest was competing on a motorcycle at the small hamlet of Yetter, Iowa, in 1946.1 Swanson and Lund knew each other; most everyone knew each other in Harlan, or at least knew about each other. But the two men were well acquainted because they had raced against each other at the fairground tracks and had caravaned to more distant hot rod races. Swanson had also helped Lund with his race car engine. The mechanic was aware that Lund had a passion for motorcycles. He and other Harlan boys, including Ron Jensen, Ollie Pash, Bobby Parker, Vernon “Hooky” Christensen, John Kamp, and Lowell Jensen, found excitement in hill climbing—an event in which the motorcyclists competed to see who could go the farthest up a steep hill. Ollie Pash by all accounts was the best of the motorcycle competitors, but Tiny Lund was good. One might imagine that a huge man’s weight would slow a motorcycle, making it unable to scale a hill; however, Lund’s weight kept the front wheel of the cycle on the ground, preventing it from literally doing a cartwheel on the slope and falling on the rider. As this risk suggests, hill climbing was a wild affair. The boys would talk a farmer into letting them use a field. Then they would mark off several Odd Man Out | 17 different distances away from the base of a hill, and from these markers riders would get a running start. The farther back from the incline, the faster the cycle could speed ahead and up the hill. Cyclists would attack the hill one at a time. In one climbing event, Bobby Parker, a beer in one hand and his cycle handle in the other, was certain he could get to the top. He managed not only to reach the top, but to fly right over it, narrowly escaping serious injury.2 For a time, the Harlan riders joined up with riders from nearby Denison , home of actress Donna Reed, and they formed the “Handlebar Jockeys .” Ollie Pash recalls a Denison member of the Jockeys club saying, “Some of you Harlan guys would run through a brick wall if you had a crowd to watch you.”3 Eventually, a promoter came along and offered each motorcyclist $50 each time he performed tricks and races.4 The boys would go on ramps and fly over obstacles, they would go through flames, and they would perform about any stunt that would thrill the crowd. One time, the promoter had the boys go through flaming wood frames two at a time, side-­ by-­ side. The frames shattered, the one rider’s frame striking the other rider. Ron Jensen incurred injuries that needed medical attention. The “show” traveled to Nebraska, South Dakota, Missouri, and Kansas. Tiny and his teammates also entered numerous county fair motorcycle races. Several of the cyclists, such as Bud Burdick, Bobby Parker, and Hooky Christensen, later became winning race drivers. Lund raced motorcycles on most Sundays from 1947 to 1949, breaking his leg once and his arm three times.5 One of those breaks came when he fell off his motorcycle while showing off for neighborhood grade school girls. As his high school friend and fellow Handlebar Jockey Ron Jensen observed, “Tiny was not afraid of the devil himself.”6 There was a downside to Tiny’s devil-­ may-­ care attitude, though, and it appeared early in his life. Opal Bertsch, a close family friend who babysat Tiny, recalled that when he was nine years old, he led her out of the house and asked her to get into the...

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