The Legend of Fireball Fleming

[Pete Gagan]

Hello Friends:
The book I wrote a few years back, "The Legend of Fireball Fleming", is now available on Amazon, not just as a hard copy, but a Kindle Edition. The electronic version is complete with all the period photos, etc. It is primarily a history of motorcycling in America from 1896 to 1923, including the board track era, and also covers Indian's 1911 success on the Isle of Man. "Fireball" is a fictional character, but all the other characters and events are historical. I did a lot of research to do this one.
Good reviews on Amazon would be appreciated. If you think it's really lousy, you can tell me.
Pete Gagan, past prez, AMCA

[Pete Gagan]

Ed Youngblood wrote the following review, which describes the book.

Ed Youngblood’s review- Motohistory

“The Legend of Fireball Fleming”
The historical novel, which follows the exploits of a wholly fictitious character through a real and accurate historical context, has become a very popular literary genra. Now, Peter Gagan, motorcycle historian, collector, and past president of the Antique Motorcycle Club of America, has written what is – to the best of my knowledge – motorcycling’s first historical novel. Jedidiah Fleming, born on February 29, 1884, near Racine, Wisconsin, becomes a member of America’s first generation to be bitten by the motorcycle bug when he reads about Lucius Copeland’s steam motorcycle in an issue of Scientific American, then one day in July, 1895, witnesses E.J. Pennington demonstrate his “Motor Cycle” on the streets of Milwaukee. That day in Milwaukee, Fleming also meets two other young would-be motorcyclists, Bill Harley and Arthur Davidson. Then Fleming’s enthusiasm for motorcycles is further kindled when, during a trip to visit relatives in Boston, he sees Sylvester Roper ride his steam motorcycle. In fact, he witnesses the fateful day when Roper died while at the controls of his revolutionary conveyance at the Charles River race track. Later, on a trip with his wealthy uncle George to Florida in 1907, Fleming meets Glenn Curtiss and witnesses his record run aboard his V-8 motorcycle at Ormond Beach, as well as Fred Marriott crashing his Stanley Rocket into the surf.

Eventually, Fleming acquires a motorcycle – first an Orient, then a Harley-Davidson - and after shaming his conservative family by getting a local girl pregnant, he sets out to ride to California, inspired by a story he has read about George Wyman, who in 1903 became first person to ride a motorcycle from coast to coast. Arriving in Los Angeles, Fleming falls in with the racing crowd headed by Paul “Dare Devil” Derkum at Agricultural Park, and soon meets Jack Prince, who has come to town to build a new board track. All of the riders in Los Angeles have nicknames, and this is where Jed becomes “Fireball Fleming.” As the story unfolds, Fireball Fleming meets and interacts with practically everyone of note in motorcycle history from Shrimp Burns to Red Wolverton. In fact, he even goes to England in 1911 where he meets Billy Wells, Charlie Collier, Charles Franklin, George Brough, and Oliver Godfrey, and becomes a member of the support team for Jake DeRosier at the Isle of Man TT.

Author Gagan’s ability to weave a plot that takes Fleming into almost every important event in early American motorcycle history is incredible, but at the same time delightful and almost believable. Fleming was there when Eddie Hasha crashed and eight people died in New Jersey, giving motorcycle racing its darkest day. He saw the horrendous collision between Jake DeRosier and Charles Balke in Los Angeles that ended DeRosier’s career and ultimately took his life. He was part of the Excelsior crew that saw Bob Perry kill himself aboard the spectacular Excelsior overhead-cam motorcycle on its first outing, then later he confiscated the engine from Perry’s machine when Ignaz Schwinn ordered all of the cammers destroyed. Leaving the Excelsior firm with William Henderson, he helped build and tune Red Wolverton’s record-setting Ace, then later stole one of the speedsters when the company went into receivership. Gagan has made Fleming an excellent mechanic, which empowers him to brush shoulders with all of the great names in early motorcycling and earn employment with most of the industry leading firms, including Indian, Excelsior, and Ace.

Fleming’s mechanical skills, however, are about his only positive quality. He is endearing and amusing, but otherwise Gagan has made him a totally unsympathetic character: a womanizer, a drunk, a gambler, a cheat at cards, a thief, and a dedicated slacker. As he floats through life and slowly squanders his resources and his reputation, at one point he even considers seeking a job at Harley-Davidson, but having met Bill Harley and Arthur Davidson, decides that at this company he would probably have to work too hard. Fleming’s one genuine contribution is that he invents the wall of death, which is a suitable symbol of his and motorcycling’s downward progress as the great age of board track racing declines and comes to an end. The great wooden structures like Playa del Rey have fallen into disrepair, and racing “on the boards” has shrunk to a carny sideshow playing to the hick towns of America (Fleming even tries to incorporate a monkey and a toothless lion into his act to better appeal to the rubes). At last, Fleming gets thrown out the back door of a brothel by a prostitute who was once his best friend. The story ends with an aging and arthritic Jed Fleming living in a shack in Tacoma, trying to keep warm by burning wood scavenged from the once great, but now derelict Tacoma board track.

Gagan has created an altogether entertaining story that is ingenious in how it winds a plot through the real events of the glory days of early motorcycling. His making Fleming such a bum is a clever literary device, because it explains why today we don’t remember him as we look back on our “real history.” Fireball Fleming does not go out in a blaze of glory like Eddie Hasha, Charles Balke, or Bob Perry. Rather, he dies alone and in total obscurity as just reward for his wasted life. But what about that name “Fireball?” Isn’t there a certain amount of glamour there? All I will tell you is that Jed Fleming did not earn that name for his ability to burn up the boards. How he got it I will not reveal. For that you must read the book, but I will tell you that it arose from an event entirely suitable to Fleming’s dignity, or lack thereof.

I recommend “The Legend of Fireball Fleming” as a fun read.