New Member who built 450 sidecars back in the day

SwampFox - 2/21/2013 8:40 AM

 Apparently now available at Twisted Metal Cycles in Downingtown PA:   Universal streamline side car 12 inch tire built in coil over shock can be fit on many bikes great for custom builds all fiberglass body.

  From:  http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/mcy/3593109457.html  

 

This Sweet SL-220 sidecar was built in 1977 and seems to be in great condition. The upholstery look original and in excellent condition. This sidecar must have been inside all these years. The reason I can identify the year is the small adjuster on the end of the front rod end. I fabricated those in 1977 out of 1" square stock. Before 77 they were different and after 77 I changed the design again. The amber light on the fender is not original.
I've read that no government regulations pertaining to sidecars excised but in the 1970's but they did. They required a front white running light on the sidecar along with a red brake light. The other regulation that no one followed was the requirement of an emergency brake on the motorcycle. We used a large elastic band and just wrapped it around the front brake actuating arm on the handle bars. Pull the arm in and lock up the brake then wrap the elastic band around it and the motorcycle will not roll. The only reason I mention the regulations is the amber light on this sidecar that would not have been on it in 1977 unless the white lens was switched with the amber one. The windshield is missing or could be inside the sidecar; although the snaps are missing but could also be inside the body.
"Can be fit on many bikes"; good luck with that. I custom mounted every sidecar to the customers specific bike. This sidecar looks to have been set up on Honda be it a 500 or 750. Each is different in a small way. The little tab on the front rod was for the installation of a VW shimmy damper and most of the 750 Honda's needed one.
Custom installing each sidecar was a double edge sword. The way I set them up has proven to be superior to universal mounts in that no adjustment is ever needed even decades later. The sidecar can be removed and reinstalled in minutes with no re adjustment. I've read stories of guys spending days getting bikes with universal mounts set up and if they remove the sidecar from the bike they will have to spend some time getting it all lines up again. What I'm saying is in five minutes my rig is back on the road with no adjustments needed. But the down side is every sidecar being specific for that specific motorcycle becomes a problem when wanting to install the sidecar on a different bike. The mounting process has to be done all over again. As long as I was producing sidecars it wasn't a problem but after I stopped the new owners of my used sidecar had a big problem. It takes fabrication and welding skills to be able to perform this task. It can be done look at the Roman story; he built his own frame from nothing more than pictures and some emails from me. In the real world very few even with the talent would take the time to mount one of my sidecars. So this is the problem with my old sidecars that are just sitting around not attached to a bike, and back to the statement "can be fit on many bikes". One more time; I would like to see that! It's looks to be in great condition and if someone could pick it up for short money they could deliver it to me and I could mount it in my shop in less than one working day. I'm not looking for buisness just saying that would be an option; otherwise unless the person that purchases it is like a Roman it will probably set for another decade.
The sidecar made it all the way to out side of Philly from southern New Hampshire in thirty plus years. The original customer may have been from the Philly area and had been working in or around the Boston area when he purchased the sidecar. When he made a job change or retired and moved back home he may have brought the sidecar with him; just saying.
Thanks for reading, Johnny Sweet

The insurance dilemma of 1977
It was 1977 and the years started out better than most with the exception of our new president doing what progressives do; screwing things up. The country was suffering but nothing like in today’s world. With all this going on my sidecar business was booming and I was having a hard time keeping up with the demand. I started advertising in March and the first sidecars started to be installed and delivered at the beginning of April. By June I was booked until late October and those that didn’t get to my shop in time to put in an order were out of luck. It was around the middle of June and a former customer came in and told me that his insurance company or broker wouldn’t insure his motorcycle with the sidecar. The broker claimed that when you install a sidecar they become too dangerous to drive and can’t be insured. This was the second time in two day that I had been told this. The customer lived in New Hampshire and at the time it seemed to be only New Hampshire that this insurance dilemma was taking place in. I told the customer that I would look into it and get back to him within the week. I couldn’t build sidecars for my customers only to find out later that they wouldn’t be able to get insurance on them. If this situation continued I would lose half my market in the state of New Hampshire alone. At this time in history I wasn’t making a living, anyone can do that, I was building my fortune. That night I took my list of former customers that lived in New Hampshire and gave each a call. I asking if their insurance broker had denied them insurance for their sidecar. Some had not because they didn’t have insurance; New Hampshire didn’t require it and a few others had been denied. I had all the different customers’ addresses in front me and could see that they were spread all over the state. I explained what was happening and told them that I would get back to them in a few days. The next morning I called the State of New Hampshire’s insurance commissioner at the state capital. I explained what was going on and when I mentioned that they were saying that installing a sidecar made it dangerous and to unsafe to insure. The commissioner named Mr. Rowbellard said “that preposterous”! He told me that he as a kid rode in his uncle’s sidecar that was on the side of his Harley and if anything they were safer. He then asked “did they say were they got their data for such an assumption”. I told him that they had not. I couldn’t believe that I had a bureaucrat that knew about sidecars and had firsthand experience riding in one. I was instructed to come in the next morning and he would go over just what was needed to get rid of this ridicules scam that the insurance brokers were perpetrating on the public.
The next morning I drove the thirty eight miles to Concord the state capital and met with Mr. Rowbellard. He told me that he could find no study that had been done on the safety of sidecars and if it had been done it had not been submitted to his office for final overview. I was then told that all we had to do was go into any insurance broker and ask for insurance on your motorcycle and sidecar. If they turn you down you then document it with the name of the agency along with the date and time. He then said bring along a second person so that it doesn’t become a he said she said situation. He told me to get my people to do this and in ten days everyone will meet in his office and my group can give depositions under oath about what had transpired. He then smiled and said that every time you go in and ask for insurance and you are turned down under these circumstances the agent or agency will be fined five hundred dollars per visit. I then asked what happens if I go in every day for a week and ask the same agent for insurance on my sidecar and I’m turned down? He smiled and informed me that every offence will be a five hundred dollar fine.
At the time I didn’t understand how it all worked but I spent that night with my different customers explaining what Mr. Rowbellard had told us to do. A plan of attack was set in place and we would all meet at the insurance commissioner’s office on the prescribed date and time.
I knew who I was going to set up. My home town of Salem at the time was like a boom town for some because of growing pains. Salem New Hampshire is on the border with Massachusetts and has no state sales tax. This caused hundreds of people to move to the southern New Hampshire area. I belonged to a few professional groups in town and a few that weren’t so professional. I had been big into Little League and every year sponsored a team along with being a member of the Lions Club and a few other organizations. At some of these different club events there are always the big blowhards that the majority of members don’t like but have to get along with because after all “we are professionals”. One of the biggest blowhards was one of the local insurance brokers who owned his agency. I had used him earlier with my business carrier and soon found out that he had fixed the rates on the policies so my premium rates were way out of line. I soon canceled everything with him and went with another group and had been well satisfied. I don’t have a problem with a guy making an honest living but when it comes to insurance agents they work off commissions and I appreciate that but the numbers have to add up. At the time Mr. Blowhard drove a Lincoln Mark something I didn’t have a problem with this because I’m a believer in having nice things provided you’re not steeling from the honest man to procure them. Mr Blowhard when out with other professionals at different functions had a habit of never leaving a tip or if he could get away with it never picked up his tab. So this was the guy that I was going to set up. We as a group never did find out if the different insurance brokers in the state got together and had a meeting to discuss insuring sidecars. You have to ask yourself how every insurance broker could come up with the same conclusion when it came to sidecars. A meeting or a letter from somewhere had to come from someplace but we or the insurance commissioner were never able to disclose it.
The next day I took my buddy Paul with me to visit Mr. Blowhard at his insurance agency. I took Paul because he was a former seasoned Navy Seal who left the service with distinction and his word would never be questioned in case we ended up going to court. Paul had a sidecar on his Yamaha and the plan was for us to double whammy on Mr. Blowhard. We both drove our sidecar rigs down to the agency and parked right out front. We went in and asked for insurance and sure enough it was a “BIG NO”. We left and the next day it was the same thing. On the third day Mr. Blowhard asked us to leave but before we left we got him to say the words “NO”.
When the time came the group of us less one former customer showed up at Mr. Rowbellard’s office to give our depositions. I can’t remember if it was the states attorney’s offices lawyer that asked the questions of not. They even had a stenographer to take down everything that we said as we one by one made our way into the inner office to tell our story. When we were finished Mr. Rowbellard came out into the waiting area where we were sitting and informed us that within five working days we will be able to go into any insurance agency in the state of New Hampshire and apply for insurance on our sidecars and not be turned down. As Paul and I were headed south back to the shop I couldn’t help hollering out proclaiming “one for the little guy”, as Paul just sat there smiling.
I went back to work and a few days later I receive a letter from the Insurance Commissioner’s Office stating that any insurance agency in the state of New Hampshire that turns down anyone in the state of New Hampshire for insurance on a motorcycle sidecar will be fines $500.00 (five hundred dollars). There was also some legal jargon thrown in, but in the end anyone that needed insurance for their sidecar could get it. I placed the letter in the front window in the shop for all to read.
As for Mr. Blowhard; I never said a thing about what happened but my buddy Paul couldn’t help himself. It was the talk of the town for a few weeks with Mr. Blowhard getting fined three thousand dollars, but let’s put it into prospective. Three thousand dollars back then would be around twenty five thousand today. About a month later the Linton Mark comes rolling into the yard and for a split second I thought that I might have to give Mr. Blowhard a beet down, but who was behind the wheel? My buddy Jack; he picked it up for short money because Mr. Blowhard had to come up with some money to pay a fine real quick. I just laughed as Jack told me “people are talking and they want you to run for one of the town selectman seats”; ya right, like that was ever going to happen. In the end we were successful this one time in winning against the insurance company’s; in the real world the little guy never has a chance. This story was written to enlighten the younger reader that wasn’t around back in the day to see what we were up against.
This insurance problem may never have come up in other parts of the country but for a short period in time New England was the place to be when it came to sidecars. With the influx of motorcycles and my company supplying sidecars for those that wanted them you couldn’t go out on any warm day without seeing one or many. They soon caught on and the insurance parasites did what they could to stay clear of them just in case. Well before we were finished we kicked the insurance agents right in the nuts, and it sure felt good.
Thanks for reading, Johnny Sweet

Now that is one for the book, Mr. Sweet. Good on you!!!!

Johnny Sweet, I'd like to shake your hand. Thank you for sharing all the stories from your past here on the forum.

Kind Words

I would like to thank everyone for their kind words. Is there a book in the making; only time will tell?

I would like to announce that a most amazing story is in the makings as I write this. I receive many personal emails every week sometimes as many as forty, and I thank all of you for your fine personal stories .Last week I received an email from a gentleman that’s thirty five years old who for the time being will remain nameless. He grew up riding in his Dads sidecar that just happened to be one of mine. His Dad had me custom build it and mount it on his Harley. The young man rode in the sidecar from his earliest memory until he was in his teen years when the sidecar rig was stolen. With no insurance their sidecar days were over and life went on. The young man lost his Mom when she was fifty five and today his Dad is alone and sixty six years old. Recently the young man purchased a Harley in Florida on his way back to New Hampshire. He found me on the internet through writings on this web site and that’s when he emailed me. The two of us have put a deal together and the plan is for the young man and his Dad to come by and drop off the Harley in the next few weeks on their way to Florida. Sometime in May or June they will make the trip back to my shop to pick up a brand new Sweet SL-440 motorcycle sidecar just like the one he grew up riding in thirty five years ago. In the end he’s going to present the motorcycle and sidecar rig to his Dad as a present for a job well done as being the world’s greatest Dad. To me it’s an honor that someone would think so much of one of my products that they would want me to build a second unit so that they could relive the past and make new adventures. Plus the young man has a son of his own and just to think that three generations would be riding in one of my sidecars at different times sounds exciting if not almost unprecedented. I’ve never known of a family that purchased two sidecars from the same builder thirty five years apart with three generations being involved.

Well thanks again for all the kind words and to those that write me emails. As I noted before your stories are interesting and you too should post them.
Johnny Sweet

You are a man of integrity and of honor. Not many like you left, Mr. Sweet.

The two brothers and their sidecars

I first met Ralph back in the Spring of 1977 as he was headed home from work. At the time Ralph was running a company just up the street from my shop that sold after market motorcycle parts. They had just moved the company into southern New Hampshire for tax purposes with New Hampshire's no state tax. He had been driving by the shop every day for about two weeks and as he told me later he noticed the sidecars and started thinking to himself how a sidecar would be cool for his dog Cubby to ride in. So he finally decided to stop in and see what those sidecars up at the corner were all about. When he pulled in the yard at first he thought that there was no way that we built them in that old building. I later told him that the only reason I was in the old building was because of the location and that I couldn't make any improvements to the place because of some kind of zoning thing. The property line went threw the corner of the building or something and they wouldn't even issue a permit so I could paint the place. I gave Ralph the five dollar tour and he said that his brother may be interested in purchasing one because he had been talking about it. So what kind of deal could I do for two sidecars? We talked price and I considered a discount and it was then left up to his brother. At the time I wondered if he even would want one. Ralph left and a few days later both he and his brother show with his brother wanting the full five dollar tour. Before they left a deal was made and a time set for me to build two sidecars. They got put up on the big board and all they had to do was wait for the day to deliver their bikes. Ralph would stop in every other day to just hang out with the gang and over time became one of the regulars. One day as he was watching one of the young kids laminating a fiberglass SL-110 body he made the statement " that doesn't look to difficult" and he was told that it wasn't. He knew that his body was going to be the SL-220 and that the body that was being built in the mold was a custom order for someone that wanted the older model. As he observed the work he asked if "I had ever considered building fairings for the front of the bikes". I explained that I had not but that we had more than what we could do and didn't have the time to take on another project. It's funny because a few years later I had projects coming out of everywhere. Ralph mentioned that at the time he was getting calls every day asking for a small fairing that would fit bikes from 350cc to 500cc. He told me that he had over four hundred motorcycle dealers big and small that he sold to and with his monthly specials he would give me an initial order of four hundred units if I cared to look into it. This is the first time that I had possibly a hundred thousand dollar buisness dropped into my hands and didn't run with it. A few days later as I'm working in the shop a gentleman impeccable dressed walks in and asks for me. We introduce our self's to each other and he mentions that he's Ralph's boss and owns the company that Ralph works at. He also mentioned that Ralph had mentioned that I was capable of designing molds for a small fairing for the smaller motorcycles. I told him that I could do that if I chose to and I "Did Not". We starts in giving me a line of Barbra Streisand and I have to interrupt him to ecplaine that I wasn't going to take on any new projects with all that we were involved with. He starts grilling me about my racing and hydroplanes and "why would I want to do that". So before I threw him out on his behind I asked what he did for a hobby. He replied that "He grew tomato's". At his point I laugh in his face and ask him to leave before I threw him out. As he's leaving I was thinking, "grows tomato's, give me a break". Those of you that do grow tomatoes I don't have a problem with that but what was a guy thinking that would come into my shop asking me what I was doing racing while all the time the only thing that he ever did that was exciting was growing tomatoes. In the end I never built small fairings and was probably lucky that I didn't enter into buisness with that guy.

When the two brothers brought in their bikes I had a pleasant surprise. The second bike was a Suzuki with a rotary engine. I didn't even know that anyone built a bike with a rotary engine and was intrigued to say the least. It did present a problem with the top mount and to this day I can't remember what I came up with for a solution, but I did. Ralph's bike was an earlier BMW that was as easy to mount. In the end it was interesting building two sidecars for two brothers. Probably not a first but different.

Ralph gave me this newspaper clipping a few weeks after it came out. I had it in my files all these years and the funniest thing happened a few years back.

Back in the late 70's before we lost my Dad he and Ralph became good friends. When my Dad would spend his three month vacation at home he would go around for Ralph and set up new small dealers in the area. My Dad had this love affair with motorcycles and he just enjoyed talking about bikes. He always had a pile of Ralph's buisness cards in his truck or in the pocket of his sidecar. Years later after he was gone my Mom gave me his old truck and over the next many years I put on about two hundred thousand miles on it. A few years ago I scrapped the old truck and somehow one of Ralph's buisness cards fell out into the driveway. I picked it up and couldn't beleave it; after all these years and a thousand miles from Windham New Hampshire this card shows up. I did a internet search and found Ralph after all these years and I sent him the newspaper clipping of he as a young man and his dog Cubby. He sent me back a picture of his brothers bike that he still owns to this day with the sidecar.Ralph worked the same job until the early 80's and got into computers writing software and later when the internet took off followed it into the new millennium.

I just thought that you would enjoy reading about Cubby and his master from so many years ago.

The rotary bike as it looks today.

The rig on the left is the rotary and the one in the center is Ralph's BMW. The rig on the right would have been a customers and all three were waiting to

be delivered.

That blue thing with yellow stacks was the engine out of my Miss Bardahl racing hydroplane. It came out of a P-51 Mustang fighter plane from WWII.

I would later donate the boat and engine to the Unlimited Gold Cup Hall of Fame and Museum in 1983.

Mr. Sweet, the stories just keep getting better and better. These are excellent human interest stories. Thank you.

Thanks again for the kind words and to all that have emailed me. I’ve made so many new email friends and I appreciate the stories. Speaking of stories, I edited the story on page 2 just above the picture of my Dad and I’s friend Frank sitting on his sidecar. There are a few paragraphs about my Dad and uncles along with Frank when they were in WW II and some of the hardships that they suffered. Just recently one of the guys from the 1980’s that was a member of the Parachute school that my uncles Willy and Sandy ran posted videos from the 1980’s. I linked one that tells the twins story with Willy and Sandy just talking to some of the guys as they videotaped the conversation. There in one of the hangers next to the parachute packing tables just having a conversation. It’s short but about spending eleven days on a life raft in the North Atlantic and how when they got to England they had no ration card and couldn’t get any food except for the chips in fish and chips. For those of you that are interested it puts a face on the men that raised my cousins and myself and the videos catch them just being themselves the way us kids knew them even in the 1950’s. There are ten or more videos all at the parachute school; just a warning, skydivers are a wild bunch. At this point the jump school had been around for twenty or twenty five years and Willy and Sandy had taught thousands of students how to parachute jump. The videos show mostly Willy and some of Sandy just being themselves. As I viewed a few of the videos I thought to myself that when they were sixteen and started venturing out away from the family homestead they drove two different Henderson bikes with sidecars. My Dad was only eleven and rode everywhere with whomever was headed out of the yard and out onto the road. When my Dad turned sixteen he also purchased a Henderson with a sidecar for the sum of seventeen dollars. When I think about it all the brothers started out driving sidecars and when I had my small shop and was manufacturing my Sweet sidecar Willy would come up from New York for a visit and he Sandy, and my Dad along with Frank would come by the shop. I would let Willy use my sidecar rig and my buddy Paul would lend his to Sandy. My Dad and Frank had theirs and the four of them would go off for the day in a caravan of sidecars visiting some of the places that they had once raced at years earlier. The only track that was still in existence was at Topsfield Massachusetts at the fairgrounds. The Other track were long gone and they had fun identifying things like a wooded area or a stone wall that one rider had broken threw the fence and ended up on the wall. They were enjoying themselves and it was something to see four SL-220 Sweet sidecars being driven by the brothers and their best friend. The sad thing is as they were living the adventure I never thought to take a picture of it. My buddy Paul really enjoyed all of them. Frank and my Dad were around a lot and Paul got very attached to them both and when Willy and Sandy invited Paul to the parachute center he was all in; that story in a later installment.

During their entire life they always seemed to be involved in one adventure or another from racing motorcycles, flying airplanes, skydiving and also sailing around the world. I remember the time when one of Willy’s skydiving students that later became a jump master was the first one to BASE jump off one of the twin towers building in New York City. At the time it was a big nationwide story and the news crew beat a path to Willy’s jump school wanting to know who taught the jumper how to skydive; like it was some kind of crime or something.

This is a picture of Owen jumping off one of the twin trade buildings. Owen had one of his friends take the picture. Marty Tommer sent me the picture. Marty was one of Willy's student that became a jump master back in the day.

Over the years the Stormville Parachute center where the first in a lot of things. The first sixteen man star then thirty two along with many other such maneuvers. It’s a wild sport and not for everyone, but for those that wanted to jump just one time Willy had what he called “his Bar room jump”. It was for the guy that would come up from the greater New York City area and wanted to jump just one time and get a certificate showing that they did so. Willy had wallet sized certificates printed to give to the students. He placed the students name and the date of the jump on it and the student could then show it around the bar bragging that he had in fact jumped out of an airplane at the Stormville Parachute Center and Willy Sweet was his instructor. The certificate even had the parachute jump wings on it. It was always funny on a Saturday morning when Willy was going over the day’s schedule and he would be giving Sandy the daily roster count. It would go something like this. “We have seven new students and three bar room jumps”. Parachute jumping wasn’t like it is today with the buddy system. Back in the day the student jumped out himself with the instructor holding the rip cord. The first jumps were called static line jumps and after a number of jumps the student went for his first free fall jump. Jumping isn’t without its danger or broken bones; Willy broke his arms and legs many times each over the years with having more than ten thousand jumps. When he broke a leg he still put on roofs or framed new houses and strapped a board onto his leg and dragged it around the job. To get up on the roof he pulled himself up the ladder with one leg and his arms. His helper would hand him the shingles as he put them in place. One time I was with him when he had just arrived back from the hospital. They had set his broken arm and when he got home he said “this doesn’t feel right” he then proceeded to cut off the cast and reset his arm stating “that’s better”. He then plastered up a new cast better than the doctor had done. It was funny with aunt Alga standing there telling Willy he couldn’t do that, as he just kept cutting away at the cast. Another funny story; when I was around nineteen and home from school for the summer I worked with
Willy framing houses. He lived at the airport apartments that were at one time officers’ quarters during WW I. Stormville airport in 1917 was a flight school set up to instruct new prospective pilots how to fly. One of the former WW II pilot instructors Mack Mc conney lived below Willy. So every day when I went up the stairs going to Willy’s and aunt Alga’s apartment I noticed the sledge hammer sitting at the bottom of the steps. One morning as we were leaving for work I asked “what’s with the sledge hammer”. Willy told me “It’s the key to Mack’s door”. Evidently Mack had a drinking problem and at times would fall asleep drunk with a cigarette in his mouth. So if Willy had to get into Mack’s apartment the eases way in was with the sledge hammer. It made perfect sense to me at the time and even today still makes sense. So I ask you the reader in today’s world would you wait for the fire trucks to arrive or use the sledge hammer. Interesting isn’t it on how politically correct the world is today or people more concerned about liability.

No good story would be complete without telling a little about Sandy and his exploits. Sandy and Willy were inseparable unless they were separated because of a trip to some other place around the world and it drove the wives nuts. Sandy was the last in his family to get married and when he did he married my Mom’s sister. So we had two brothers and two sisters married in the same family. My grandfather got polio as did President Roosevelt so Sandy took care of his Dad until his death. My granddad would ride in the boy’s sidecars as they would lift him in and out covering him with a wool blanket. It must have been quite a thing back in the 1930’s when the boys started racing motorcycles on the half mile flat tracks. The entire family would load up into the 1923 Buick touring car with three racing motorcycles on a homemade trailer in tow with my grandfather’s wheelchair loaded on the storage box in the back of the car headed to the races. (That story at a later date.)

After WW II Sandy like my Dad kept his Merchant seaman’s papers with my Dad years later becoming a ship’s Captain. Sandy never made it beyond AB, or abled body seaman. He only sailed in the winter so that he could be in a warmer climate. He would work two shifts many times steering the ship on the second of third shift for the extra money. When the Korean War broke out they were back at it and in harm’s way more than once with the North Koreans mining the waterways. Later during the Vietnam War they were both in the water and when the US left Vietnam and the Army was gone Sandy and his ship happen to be sitting in Da Nang harbor with ten thousand refugees scurrying to get on the board before the NVA turned the tanks on the ship. The Merchant Marine crew locked themselves inside the ship and pulled out of the harbor and sailed to the Philippines leaving off the Vietnamese refugees. Later Sandy told me about the trip and the thousands of refugees. Years later I saw a Life or Look magazine, the one “A century in review” and sure enough one of the sailors had taken a picture. There was an estimated ten thousand people on the deck. I don’t know how many days it was from Vietnam to the Philippines but I remember Sandy saying that there was no way that the crew was ever going to open up the hatches with the violence that went on. There was a lot more to the story but not for print in mixed company.

But Sandy’s story doesn’t end there. Years later in the late 1980’s Sandy retired from sailing and a few years later he received a letter from the Merchant Marine union stating that there are no new young sailors coming along and if he could pass the physical they would like to have him back. At the time Sandy had just lost his only son Bobby skydiving and he was hart broken. Bobby was an accomplished skydiver having broken many records with the thousands of jumps under his belt. The FFA findings were that Bobby took his own life and to the day Sandy died he never believed it. At Bobby’s funeral Willy said that “he knew when they bought the school that someday someone in the family would pay the ultimate price”. Bobby was the first one lost in generations from our family taking a calculated risk. A “chance” was never considered expectable or a lifestyle to follow, but a calculated risk was a different thing. If you have to ask” what’s the difference” no words written will ever suffice. It’s the way most of named Sweet have lived our lives and for us it’s just a lifestyle. For those that have never ventured out into that world it would be hard for you to ever understand it. During the winter of 1989 and 1990 Sandy went back out to sea and spent the next six months in the warm waters of the world. He then decided to stay a little longer and make one last trip. When the first Gulf War started where was Sandy? On an Oil Tanker in the Strait of Hormuz that had just been mined. In the end he made it home safely and retired for good. One day while having breakfast at a local restaurant he got into a conversation with some other gentleman and when asked he talked about the different places he had been too and before it was over one of the men mentioned that he had been in four wars in harm’s way. Sandy being who he was just answered with something like, “it sure was an exciting ride”. As Sandy was leaving the restaurant a reporter who just happened to be in the restaurant at the time and over herd the conversation asked if he could do a story about Sandy. Sandy agreed and asked if the reporter would like to do the interview at his home. A time was agreed upon and the reporter spent half a day listening and asking questions about some amazing stories. One thing about Sandy he never needed to embellish, if anything he would soften a story because most were so extraordinary that to an average person that had never lived an adventure they were almost non believable. The story came out in the State newspaper that just by chance everyday sits on the President’s desk. New Hampshire at that time was the first state with a primary and the Manchester Union Leader could make or break a candidate. William Loeb was the editor and his editorials over the years had made or broke a few politicians. Remember Ed Muskie? When the story came out inside and below the fold president Bush 41 read the story and them called the New Hampshire state representative so that he could present Sandy with a Certificate that stated that he was one of the only Americans that had been in harm’s way in four wars. The big news channels at the time tried to jump on the story but Sandy squashed that real quickly. He disliked the news and when they came a calling he wouldn’t even answer the door. At the time my Mom called me in South Carolina and told me that they had news truck up and down the street; she lived across the street from Sandy and her sister Evelyn. It was only a few days and another story came along and they were gone. Sandy had one last thing to do; he had eleven siblings and he was the last one of his generation. He went around and made sure that every one of his brothers and sisters had a headstone on their grave. The sad thing was Willy, his twin brother was cremated and he had no place to go to find closure when it came to Willy. Sandy always talked about going out like a light bulb and in the end he did just that. He died on his eighty fourth birthday; how many of us can move on to the next dimension on our birthday. Sandy’s funeral was a celebration of life just like he lived it; yes we were sad but at the same time we couldn’t help but smile because of the way he lived his life. He never drank or smoked or even took any kind of medication. I never remember him drinking a coke or any kind of soda pop;
it was always coffee or water. But if you think he was soft because he didn’t have any bad habits you wouldn’t want to be a guy that used bad language around woman or children or get caught abusing a child because he would kick a guy like that around and make an example out of him. That day when we were celebrating his life we talked about how on the motorcycle flat tracks he raced against the best there ever was and many times would win. With racing equipment furnished from the Indian Motorcycle factory and he being a wild man I remember as a kid Sandy racing. Motorcycle flat track racing is on dirt and is fast and dangerous and the guys that raced were as wild as they came. Many times the sports reporters would come up with a nick name for a racer and it would stick, Names like “Wild Kid Cerone”. One time a writer came up with a name for sandy and Sandy told the reporter to stop calling him that name; whatever it was in print of otherwise. The reporter told him there wasn’t anything he could do about it if he wrote it. Sandy clobbered the poor guy and he walked around for a few weeks looking pretty beat up. Everyone in the racing fraternity new how and why the reporter got the business as they called it and from who. All the years that Sandy raced he never had a nick name; I’m guessing the reporters knew better.

They start a motorcycle flat track race with all the competitors lined up across the track at the start finish line. The riders are sitting on the racing bikes and the engines are running. When the flag man drops the green flag it’s off with the dirt flying off the back wheels looking like a hydroplanes water rooster tail. The pack races into the first turn wide open with no one turning back the throttle and with no brakes allowed. If the starter was a friend of one of the drivers he sometimes tried to fix the start of the race by making the other riders move back or by closing up the bikes having the handle bar ends overlapping one another. The rider with his bars behind the others had to wait for the others when starting out under full throttle. They pulled this on Sandy more than once. Just before the start he would twist the throttle wide open and take his hands of the bars as he dropped the foot clutch and his bikes front wheel would jump into the air and the handle bars would leap over the bars in front of him. He then a second later would grab the bars and run into the first turn wide open and sideways. If they made him “get back” as they would yell he didn’t care because he would go into the first turn wide open and to the outside with the bike sideways “never lifting” as they say”. More than once I saw Sandy pass half the field on the first turn on the outside and clean house by the first lap. It was really something to see as he went lap after lap wide open turning the throttle back just a little on the straightaways to keep it in the vibration range.

One time when Sandy was running what’s called “Hot Laps” that’s a test session before the races that they use it to tune up the bike. As he was flying into the pits sliding the bike sideways to a stop; they didn’t have brakes. He yells out to his brothers “give me another sweater I think I’m going down in the next heat”. The driver from the race team next to them starts in yelling “expletive, expletive, if I thought I was going to fall of the expletive thing I would never get on it, and he knows he’s going down in the next heat. Expletive I quite” and he loaded up his equipment and they never saw him again.

Another time at the start the flagman had a friend that he wanted to win. Some guy from another team came over to Sandy’s bike as he was lined up and reached down and turned the needle jet on the carburetor. Sandy slapped at his hand and reached down to richen it back up. This went on a few times and Sandy yells out “Willy, get em off me”. Willy comes running from the sideline and hits the guy right in the head with all he’s got as the flag drops and the bike take off wide open racing into the first turn. The guy attempts to get up and Willy won’t let him and told him to roll of the track. The guy was rolling pretty fast trying to get off the track before the bikes came flying around for the first lap at over a hundred mile per hour. If you screwed with these guys they would make mints meat out of you, plus there were two or more of them plus all their friends. For a kid like me it was fun watching these guys in action and the racing was unbelievable. If I learned anything in my childhood observing for years how my Dad and uncles always treated people with respect and expected to be treated the same way. But boy o boy when some SOB stepped out of line he sure” got used up” as they would say.

Sandy never won a national championship in all his years of racing but raced against the best and gave his best. He had a family to take care of and at the time he had to work. A trip to the nationals in places like Kansas City or to the west coast was out of the question. He did run Langhorne Pennsylvania against the likes of Joe Leonard and Paul Goldsmith and it was something to see with him running between the two of them never giving an inch. Goldsmith would win and Leonard the next year would win the AMA Grand National Championship. He raced against the best in the world and sometimes would win. During the 1930’s depression years he also raced early great champions like “Ed Iron Man Krets” and I was told he never gave an inch. It was before my time and all I can go by was the stories my Dad told me. Each one in the family was better at some things than the others but each brother would do whatever it took to help the other to be accomplished at whatever they were doing. Willy saw just an OK motorcycle racer and Sandy one of the best. My Dad for instance racing motorcycles would go out and break the track record in a qualifying heat and then blow up the engine in the main. Quite a few of the New England tracks when they were finally closed down had my Dad Charlie holding the track record. Years later Willy became the sky diving instructor with Sandy always being the ground person keeping the school running and guiding in the students as they were headed towards the target on the drop zone. All of us flew and skydived but Bobby; Sandy’s son was the best pilot of the group and a very accomplished skydiver having competed with some of the best nationally known jumpers at the time. For me I’ve always felt privileged that I had such people to be guided by from the time I was a little kid.

I hope you enjoyed getting to know some in my family while always remembering that they started out driving sidecar over eighty years ago. Very soon our family will have the fifth generation riding in a sidecar. My son Eric is in the process of building himself one of our Sweet SL-220 sidecars with the whale tail like he did when he was in High School. His two sons’ like him and I will be able to ride with their Dad. From my grandfather to my grandchildren five generations with the wind in their face; I can’t think of a better way of life. For those of us that drive and love these contraptions called sidecar it’s an addictive love affair that I intend to always be part of. It sure is fun being a one per center even if it is sidecars.

Sandy in 1929 on his Super X motorcycle that he stripped down and made into a racer. He would pick up the old bikes for as little as $15.00 and race against the best that Indian and Harley Davidson had on the old New England flat tracks.

Sandy around 1938 or 39 just before WWII on a factory Indian. He and his brothers had distinguished themselves to the point that Indian gave them new bikes to race every year all the way up to the time that they closed the doors in 1953.

And a heat later when he tore the front end off it

Just after WWII and look who's on the outside going into the first turn.

My Dad Charlie at 19 years old with his Indian. I hope to write the story of his time at the Indian factory working in the R&D department soon.

Little Johnny and his white suite in 1947 or 48 in the arms of his Dad Charlie. Charlie had just came in from a heat race. In the picture you can see the dirt on his face from the dirt flying. My Mom had a fit because I was all in white and when my Dad put me down I had dirt marks all over my cloths. Back at that time in history going to the motorcycle races was an outing and people dressed for the occasion. Charlie lost his teeth when he was fifteen crashing his Super X in the back yard after the older brothers told him not to go back out. The dew had fallen and the grass was wet just as the sun was going down. He went out and a few minutes later came back holding his mouth with his teeth in his hands. So when he raced he never wore his dentures.

An early line up with Charlie and Sandy on the right of the picture.

Willy and Sandy in the 1980's when they were in their seventy's; note the shape they were in. Willy was still jumping and had over ten thousand jumps and without saying was the oldest person in the world with the most parachute jumps; a record that I would think to this day still holds.

Charlie in the middle with two other jumpers in the early 1960's when he was the pilot for the jump plane. Years later Bobby flew a Loadstar and took over Charlies job.

Sandy and my aunt Evelin when he was in his early eighty's.

Thanks for reading,

Johnny Sweet

Another great chapter for the book and we now know that you can provide the illustrations too. Mr. Sweet, keep on writing and be sure to keep on file what you
have written along with your new posts. Families like yours are rarely seen now days. You have a heritage to be proud of. Thank you so much for sharing it
with us.

Hi Johnny,

Love the history you are documenting with your posts! Please know that you are honoring your family by sharing these times with us!
Please, please don't stop until all is told.....

Respectfully,

Mike Poirier

Looks what is for sale down in Richland Hills, Texas:

1978 BMW R100S with Sidecar - $8500

Posted 3/7/2013 at: http://dallas.craigslist.org/mdf/mcy/3666142183.html

... Classic BMW available for your fun and pleasure. 32,134 original miles.!!You won't find another like it or put together for this price. Set up for strictly sidecar operation. The triple trees have been replaced with custom units and anti shake shock absorber installed. All of this makes for effortless power steering. I had the sidecar re-clear coated to protect the character painting. This unit comes with and additional full faring with lowers and a windshield. This has never been installed since being painted. The paint on the bike and sidecar are completely custom. The electronics have been upgraded to include electronic ignition. The sidecar has new custom upholstery to match the motorcycle seat. I had them include additional pockets for storage. It also has new carpet even in the hidden storage behind the passenger seat. The driving lights were added to the sidecar to increase night time visibility. There are imitation sheepskin covers for the sidecar and the motorcycle seat. Helps during the hot summers to minimize the sweat. The tires are all high tread and the battery is recent. I keep my bikes on battery docs so the batteries are always hot and it makes them last longer. The bike has no issues and needs nothing except a new rider.. The current sport fairing has a new windshield installed. The Sidecar was setup professionally by Parry's Sidecar shop on Sylvania ave. It has new progressive shocks which will accommodate the heartiest of riders. These are not cheap to build but once done they require only normal maintenance and care. Thanks for looking. I am open to reasonable offers so don't be bashful.

I have no affiliation with the bike/ad, but here are three of the photos:

Lee, Thank you for posting the pictures of one of my SL-220 Sweet sidecar. I would have manufactured this on in 1975 or 76. The large aluminum 3/4" bolts that I used for the mounts gives it away. As I wrote earlier at that time in history every cartoon or movie would always have the sidecar coming off the motorcycle and it created some what of a problem. The problem being women over forty; for some reason they would question the sidecar falling off. The answer was to install a nut and bolt so large that it set in their mind the thought of something safe. That's if bigger is safer; go figure but that's what I did. To me none of it made any sense but it worked and once I had hundreds of units running around I went with a smaller bolt and the five gallon bucket of bolts were put away. Well in 2013 I still have the bucket and it sets next to one of my work benches and a drill press. As I'm working in the shop I take a look at it every so often and it brings back memories; not that I need them. The bolt box is out in the way because I'm witting a story about how I mounted my sidecars and I have a collection of the different bolts and end fittings that I used over the years. I've intended on taking pictures of them but haven't as of yet. The windshield looks to be original and would have been the optional one that I offered at thirty five dollars. In some of the pictures in other posts the short windshield was standard. I purchased I think one hundred for a dollar a piece on a close out. The bike I installed the sidecar on most likely was a 1975 and may have been a bolt on when it was mounted on the 1978 but who knows it could have been a remount. I did one a week once I had hundreds of units out on the road. Customers would purchase new bikes and bring the sidecar back and have me remount it, or they sold the bike and someone picked up the sidecar and had me mount it on a different bike. I did have a situation one time that the sidecar was off the same kind of bike but the customer didn't know that. They left it off and we figured it out in a minute that it was off a Honda 750 the bike that I mounted the most sidecar on; and the customers bike was the same. When the customer came back a few days later I couldn't charge him and he got mad at me. I tried to explain it to him and it was like puling teeth. It was funny as heck because we could install one of my sidecars back on the bike in five to ten minutes so tops it took twenty minutes because we had to install the brackets to the bike. In the end so that everyone felt good about the deal I had the guy take my guy's to lunch and we threw in a driving lesson and that seemed to satisfy everyone. I learned something early on in buisness that not everyone will agree with. That is when you're doing a deal with someone in your mind swap places with the other person and if you feel good about it most likely it will be a good deal. On the other hand if it doesn't feel good in most cases the deal will be sower and in the end could come back on you. Well thanks for posting the information about one of my old sidecars; it's a long way from home being manufactured in New Hampshire such a long time ago. Johnny Sweet PE.

And the saga, and the pix go on. Whether you know it or not, Mr. Sweet, your book is being written as you take us on your trip back in time.
Dont stop now!!!!

Lunch on Wednesday’s

By the end of the 1970’s with the decade running out everything was changing. We had way too many progressives making policies and the country was struggling. Interests rates were at an all-time high at twenty or more percent and a guy in business couldn’t buy money if he wanted to. The young kids that started out working in the shop years earlier had learned a lot and were ready to move on to make their own way in the world. Even the girlfriends that sure were lookers and had those beautiful long slim legs that went all the way to the top had to be cut them from the team; with all the crap they gave us it was bound to happen and even their time had run out. We had been racing hydroplanes for quite a few years and had accomplished about everything that we could. Like everything in life it had a price and the sad thing is in a five year period we lost twelve drivers with one being my best friends “Gentleman Joe Gimbrone”. Something unthinkable also happened reaching our family with my uncle Ollie Silva New England’s greatest short track race car driver. Ollie was seriously injured in a crash while testing his Modified race car. He was in a coma for forty three days and after coming out of it spent many months recovering. Ollie attempted a racing comeback after he and I rebuilt his famed four time Canadian American Classic Championship race car called “Ben-Hur”. But the damage from the injuries to his head and equilibrium were too severe and after a few races it was clear that the reflexes and sharpness that made him the greatest of all time was gone. Years later in 1998 when New England’s racing fraternity established the New England Auto Racers Hall of Fame. Ollie was the first one inducted. Over the years New England has produced many great race car drivers with wins at NASCAR tracks like the Daytona 500 and the Talladega 500 and other great drivers that have raced the famed brick yard of the Indianapolis 500. In the end New England’s greatest all time race car driver was still Ollie Silva. The Hall of Fame saved that spot for Ollie inducting him first so that those that would come behind him could fall in line just like they had to out on the track. Today in Ollie’s memory they hold an annual race called the Ollie Silva Classic. So with the winds of change our world was also changing and in time we would stop building sidecars and move on the other things but in the mean time we were still living what was still left of the “American Dream”.

Ollie Silva sitting in his office buckling up to go to work with Ben Hur.

It was mid-summer and my buddy Dean Webster noticed that Ollie and I would go to lunch on every other Wednesday. Ollie was famous and people are funny in that they want to be around someone that’s important but for a few hours on Wednesdays it was Ollie’s and my time. Some Wednesday’s we would drive miles from home just to do lunch hoping that no one knew Ollie. I had been around Ollie from my earliest memories and when I was a kid he was just “Uncle Ollie” my Mom’s younger brother and when I grew up it was Ollie and over time he become one of my best friends. One morning as Dean and I were working in the shop he asked if I had ever thought about having a lunch for all the guy’s that hang around the shop that were handicapped. I had never thought about it but it made good sense. Dean had a way of reading people; like I’ve written before, he’s the smartest person I’ve ever known. He was right we did have a following and had some that were handicapped or had a disability; at least it was something to think about. It was almost lunch time and Dean had planted this idea in my head so I gathered the gang together and decided on this day to have lunch with Ollie. Ollie had lunch every day unless it was our private time at a bowling alley called “Sandy’s” that was located about half way between his house and my shop. Every day he sat at the same table and the surrounding tables were full of Ollie Silva fans. A few would say hi but most knew that he was a private man and they just wanted to be near him and he was always at Sandy’s Bowling Alley having his lunch. I’ve seen the restaurant that would seat seventy five patrons full on many days as the girls franticly ran around taking orders. Ollie’s table always had an empty seat for a family member; it was kind of an unwritten rule and everyone knew about it. If more than one family member showed up an additional
chair would be slid over and room would be made. Ollie would eat his lunch without ever saying a word with everyone around him and at the other tables having plenty to talk about. The room was always full of chatter with Ollie hearing most things going on around him. Every so often he would nod his head up and down and that big smile would come out as something was said or an old racing story was told. On this day as I walked into the restaurant my gang found a table as I went over to Ollie’s table and sat down in the empty seat. As I was taking my seat others, some friends sitting at other tables said hello. When Ollie saw me he light up with that smile and nodded his head. We ordered and as we sat with the others all abuzz and telling stories I slid over close to Ollie and asked him about what Dean and I had talked about earlier. Ollie had his head down and I had my hand over my mouth up next to his ear so that no one could hear what we were talking about. The conversation went back and forth with Ollie putting his hand up covering his mouth when he answered me back. This was something we did even when he was racing and I would be helping him out. As we talked some of the other tables were abuzz and I could hear someone saying “what are they talking about, what, what”. This kind of thing happened all the time and as I write this looking back it must have started back in the mid 1950’s when Ollie started to become famous winning races, and I was just a kid. Back then he was just Uncle Ollie and being young I wouldn’t have noticed or would have been oblivious to it. Let’s face it, when you’re young your world is six feet around you and the rest of the world doesn’t matter. Ollie and my relationship didn’t happen overnight, it took years and over time it became a natural thing. We were family and my Mom raised Ollie like me from the time he was an infant. My Mom had fifteen siblings and the girls that came first were responsible for a younger brother that came later. From the time the younger brothers could hold their heads up the girls took over the job of motherhood from my grandmother. My Mom got Ollie and she raised him like he was her own. Later when she had her own family motherhood came easy having raised her younger brother. When my Mom would have Ollie and me over for dinner it was like her two sons were home for a meal. So when we were out in public and the fans were all around; Ollie sometimes needed a buffer between he and them and at times that was me. We could work together in a crowd without even noticing the mob as they just looked on when we were setting up the race car. Or like in the restaurant with everyone a buzz we just did what we did and talked between us while everyone wondered what we were talking about.

A good example of this was when Ollie was trying to make a racing comeback and the crowd would be ten deep in the pits around his race car Ben-Hur. When you’re in the lime light and you’re an Ollie Silva hundreds of people live vicariously through you. Back in the day when Ollie was at his best he would start every race at the back of the field and race his way to the front. As he would be driving Ben-Hur the crowd of spectators would be cheering for him; sometimes hundreds on one end of the grandstands on their feet yelling and hollering. Every once in a while a fist fights would break out when he passed another popular drive who had been leading up to the last lap on the last turn. Ollie would take the victory by inches at just the last moment as they crossed the finish line; it was crazy. They even had an Ollie Silva fan club and all the club members wore black jackets with Ollie’s racing number “The Big O on the back, and if they were lucky enough Ollie would autograph the jacket for them; something he rarely did. Ollie never took home the trophies he won but instead gave them away. Some nights he would win three different races in three different cars and many times at the finish line they would usher down a young person who would present the trophy to Ollie along with the checkered flag. Pictures would be taken and the young person got to keep the trophy. Their parents a week later could get a copy of the picture at the souvenir booth to go with the trophy for the child’s room. This was something that he did hundreds of times over the years. Ollie had a good friend Billy that’s job was to walk through the grandstand looking for kids that were in a cast like a broken arm or leg. He would go over and ask “If Ollie wins a race tonight would you like to present the trophy to him”? They were never told that the trophy would be given to them; that was always the surprise. As for the big races or Championships that trophy would be presented by the trophy girl or some dignitary later the trophy was given to one of his sisters. When he was inducted into the Hall of Fame they had a hard time finding trophy’s to display because he had given hundreds of them away.

Ollie in The Big O; he was the first one to run fuel injection in 1957 on his Corvette engine. The flag girl doesn't look very happy.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-paren
t:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Ollie’s brothers would also be in the pits standing next to his racer just looking and sometimes helping when it came time to push the car out or to hold Ollie’s helmet. I think quite often about Uncle “Binks” Ollie’s younger brother by a few years. With a new brother or sister every year for sixteen years sometimes it’s hard to remember who was older or younger than whom. Bink’s was a truck driver by trade and worked long hours but on Saturday night he was always standing next to Ollie’s car. Many nights Ollie never spoke a word to Bink’s but don’t think that it was because he didn’t like his brother or that he was mad at him. No it was just business and Ollie was there to race and nothing more. While I’m mentioning uncles I can’t forget Uncle Lionel who married one of Ollie’s sisters’. Lionel and Bink’s sometimes would be at the track together along with Ollie’s youngest brother Big Jim Silva and at times other brothers would show up, but Bink’s was always at the track every week standing next to Ben Hur. I mentioned about people living vicariously through Ollie but Bink’s would have to be the biggest fan and loyal brother and did he ever live through Ollie. I don’t believe there was ever a brother that loved, respected and was such a big fan. When Ollie and I worked together uncle Bink’s had a smile on his face and a gleam in his eye. I could see it and I knew he liked watching us work together. As I would be walking up to the car I would look for Bink’s in the crowd and always go over and shake his hand and give him a pat on the shoulder as I was walking by saying a few words. Then when Ollie was going out to warm up Ben Hur I would walk over to Bink’s and talk for a few minutes sometimes telling him what changes we made to the car. I always knew that he would never give up what we did to anyone. Bink’s felt part of it all and at the same time fifty or a hundred on lookers would be wondering what we were talking about and for a few minutes Binks felt special. Even when Ollie retired and I took over the wheel of the new Big O that we built in the early 1980’s Binks was there every Saturday night. When we traveled to New York for the Classic we would invite Binks and Uncle Lionel along and I think it was some of the best times they ever had. Ollie was always the same saying three words if he was luck to the two of them the entire weekend. I remember Lionel mentioning that Ollie lived with him for six months after he left the farm when he was seventeen and he never said two words. One time Lionel asked him if he was OK and was told Ya. Ollie was sure a man of few words. Like what was written many times. “A man of few words but loud as Dynamite on the race track”

Some years later before I moved south Bink’s was ill and his time was running out. My Mom kept Ollie and I updated on his condition and very close to the end I got the call from my Mom and called Ollie and all I said was “It’s time”. I went over and picked Ollie up and we went down to visit Bink’s at the hospital for the last time. Even though it was near the end he did perk up for around fifteen minutes and you could see it with the look in his eyes when Ollie walked in. He was content at the end because his Super Hero had come to visit one last time. Ollie never said much to Bink’s over all those years at the races but this day he told his beloved brother how much he meant to him; believe me it was a touching moment. Bink’s went peacefully with his wife and son at his side. At times when Ollie and I were having lunch when I would make my way back North we would toast whatever we were drinking to Bink’s.

That's young Johnny outside of Ollie's Big O just after he won the race. I was mad as hell because my cousin Danny was in the drivers seat and I wanted my turn.

Another good example of the crowd going crazy was back in the early 1970’s at Star Speedway Ollie’s home track. The grandstands would be full with over six thousand spectators as they would hold what was called “Boston Bruins Night”. Russ Conway who was Ollie’s, Bobby Orr’s, and Gerry Cheever’s personal managers would promote the event and get from six to nine Bruins players to come up in the early summer and put on a show for charity. Each Bruins Stanley Cup player would be scheduled to drive a race car and they would hype Ollie and some of the other drivers along with the Stanley Cup players. Conway was syndicated with most of the newspapers in the greater Boston area and the Bruins Night was always a sellout standing room only crowd. The Bruins interim drivers would receive instructions on driving the fast Super Modified racing cars. A few times Bobby Orr and Ollie were teamed up and in later years he, Orr said that driving Ollie Silva’s car was one of the most exciting things that he had ever done. Speaking of Bobby Orr; when Ollie was recovering from his horrific crash Russ put on a testimonial dinner in Ollie’s honor to raise money for the mounting hospital bills. The $100 a plate event was called “The Ollie Silva Night”. As a favor to Russ, Bobby Orr and six other Bruins players attended and was part of the night’s event. It was at a local restaurant that the NESMRA Championship banquet was always held at. It was a heck of a night with the dinner raising over forty thousand dollars for Ollie’s hospital bills. It was a night that those in the local racing fraternity still haven’t forgotten.

Back to the Bruins Nights; in the end wild man Don “Elbows” Awrey who later would leave the Bruins would win the ten lap event. It was something being in the middle of that mess with thousands of fans wanting to get at the stars at “Star Speedway”. These are just a few of the experiences that would happen every weekend at three different tracks or at Sandy’s Bowling Alley where Ollie would be having lunch. It was always the same and it was funny when I would hear someone say “I had lunch with Ollie Silva”. Yes they were in the same restaurant and to them they had lunch with Ollie. In the end it was OK because Ollie being the man that he was would never allow someone to feel uncomfortable when they were around him. Many times as he would be leaving and struggling to just walk to his car different ones would say “good bye” to Ollie or “it was a good lunch, have a nice afternoon Ollie” He would just smile and if he said anything it would have been “yes we did have a good lunch and thanks for sharing the time with me” and the individual would go away feeling good.

Ollie getting ready to pass on the inside.

Ollie passing on the outside.

Ben Hur may not have looked like much but it sure was fast with Ollie behind the wheel.

As I was leaving Sandy’s Bowling Alley I got all my guys together and picked up the tab; lunch was always on me for my bunch; it came with working in the shop on sidecars. As for Ollie he never paid for a lunch; the owner of the restaurant knew who brought in the crowds and he was always appreciative of it and thanked Ollie all the time. I told Ollie that I would see him in a few days to go over the Wednesday lunch thing. On the way out of the restaurant a few guys had assembled in the parking lot around our sidecars and some knuckle head asks if they are safe to ride in and follows it up with an off color comment. He being what we would call in today’s world a “Beavis” had his “Butt Head” following up with something just as stupid. I looked over at Paul and said “Do you want to handle this” he looks at me and said “this is going to be a pleasure “as I pulled out and headed back to the shop. As I turn my head looking back all I could see is Paul giving the guy’s hell for being morons. Paul had a way with people and sometime guys were better off not showing how ignorant they were; at least for their own good. If they were getting “the talk” they were in for it. Some of you reading this may be able to identify with the one in a hundred “know it all clown”. They always seem to come out with a comment like “you ruined that bike when you put a sidecar on it”, or “I wouldn’t let my husband ride one of those”. It’s just the way of the world, but think of this; the rest of the world will almost always smile when they see you ridding down the street and like the look of your sidecar. How often when you’re filling your bike up with gas does it turn into a thirty minute stop explaining all about the sidecar with many times becoming a picture taking event?

I started planning for the Wednesday lunch a few days later and as the different guys came in I asked each in a personal way if they would please come by for lunch the next Wednesday. The next Wednesday morning I sent Paul out with a list of supplies that I would need as I cleaned up our handmade grill. The charcoal grill was built out of a fifty five gallon steel drum. It was crude looking but did the job. We cut the center out of it and as it was being fabricated one of my buddies’ that we called “Beak” came up with what would be known as the “Mose –em-beak accessory tray”. We turned the drum on its side and cut the top half out of it and left the two sides so that they could be bent and ended up with two trays one on each end. Danny and the kids set up tables inside the door of the shop and we got ready for the guys to show up. The tables were covered with paper that came in rolls two feet wide with hundreds of feet to a roll. We made a stand for a roll of paper to sit on with hacksaw blades welded in place so that it would cut the paper when you pulled it out to the desired length and pulled up on it. Almost like a giant size roll of wax paper in a box like we have all used at one time or another. The rolls of paper came to us by way of another friend that worked with a guy that had Greyhound
racing dogs. He somehow had an endless supply of as many of the rolls as he needed. He shredded the paper up as it came off the rolls and used it on the bottoms of the dog cages for bedding. One day the greyhound guy saw my friends T shirt that had “Johnny Sweet’s American Hydroplane Co” on it. He liked the name and asked my friend to ask me if he could use the name for one of his racing dogs. At the time I didn’t realize that most names had been taken up in the Greyhound dog racing game and guys were always looking for new names. For us letting him use my name he gave us three or four of the rolls of paper; enough to last for years. We used the paper on about everything. When we would be doing a supper or a cook out the paper worked great for table coverings like a table cloth and when we were done we just rolled everything up and it just went in the trash. How many times would we be discussing a new idea and peel off a piece of paper from the roll to do our drawing on. I was out one night dining in a high class restaurant with a group and saw some old friends and was asked did you know that they have a greyhound dog racing at the Seabrook dog track named after you called “Johnny Sweet’s”? This was the first that I had heard of it but knew right away that it was a dog that the Greyhound guy must have owned. At the time; a year or so earlier I thought that he wanted to use “American Hydroplane” for the name. It just goes to show you how sometimes I was way out of touch; good thing I had great friends to keep me out of trouble. I would get reports from people many that I didn’t even know but knew me because of my racing and they would tell me about them winning money while betting on a dog named Johnny Sweet’s. The stories about the dog went on for around a year and then stopped. Our gang even made a trip up to dog track in Seabrook to bet on Johnny Sweet’s but the night we went up he wasn’t running. So much for dog racing and the dog named Johnny sweet’s; in the end I was told threw my friend from the Greyhound guy that he made a good pet for a family somewhere in Maine. Years later I saw an exposé about Greyhound dogs and how badly some were treated. I’m glad that the dog Johnny Sweet’s lived a good life and was treated kindly.

Paul came back with the supplies and had everything on the list. That was always the good part about sending a former Navy Seal on a mission regardless of how small. He would come back with everything on the list and if they didn’t have an item because of his training would improvise one way or another; always a take charge guy. I got the charcoals heated up and got everything set for the luncheon. Between a quarter to twelve and twelve o’clock the guys started pulling in. First Dick arrived with his dog Benson in the sidecar. Dickey was forced to use Canadian walking canes and once in the shop had his own wheelchair to sit in. He kept the extra wheelchair in the shop full time so that when he came down he had a comfortable place to sit. The next to arrive was Cid’o who lost his arms saving a lady who had crashed her car. Cid didn’t drive a sidecar, how could he but I wouldn’t leaving Cid out after all he was a good friend. The lady that Cid saved hit a telephone pole, the electric power line that came off the pole was resting on top of the roof of her car and the cops and rescue people were just standing there watching, waiting for her to get electrocuted. The cops told Cid not to touch it because it was hot. In an instant Cid was at the car telling the woman not to move and when he grabbed the hot line he got it off the car and as he was placing it on the ground it got him and burned his arms off; why he wasn’t electrocuted no one knows. In a quiet moment one time Cid told me that if he had to do it over again he still would have lifted that damn wire off the roof of that woman’s car, she was going to be electrocuted inside that thing if someone didn’t help, but why did it have to be him. That’s the thing about altruistic people they don’t think about themselves. Cid had those old style artificial arms that looked like claws. He always wore a long sleeve shirt and if young kids were around he placed the ends, or claws of the arms in his pockets so as not to scare the kids. As he came in he whispered in my ear and asked if I could adjust his arms. It was always a private thing and I believe other than his Mom I was the only one he would ever ask to help him out. We went into the shop rest room and I helped him take off his shirt. He couldn’t work buttons so all his cloths had Velcro instead of buttons of zippers. I made the necessary adjustments and Cid was ready to eat. Next Dom and Frankie pulled in with their sidecars around the same time. Dom pulled his wheelchair off and came in yelling “where’s the food”. Frank walked in using his cane one step at a time and said his hello to all the guys. Ollie was the last to show up and when he came in he was first introduced to Dom with Ollie knowing everyone else seeing them at one time or another. The great part was Ollie and Frank had known each other from the time Ollie was around eight or ten years old. Frank was my Dad’s best friend and Ollie would be riding at times in my Dad’s sidecar with my Mom when they all went out.

The menu was simple with hot dogs, hamburgers and steak for those that wanted it cooking on the grill. Danny and Paul were posted in the front yard and the order was no one beyond Paul’s chain that he put up across the driveway. We had a few of the hang a round’s in the front yard and Paul told them that it was a private luncheon and would be over in an hour. I was the order taker, cook and server and it was great seeing all the guys together for a sit down meal. It was something with each one having a different handicap helping one another with this or that. Frank told a story about how when Ollie was a kid and he would ride in my Dad’s sidecar and Ollie just laughed and smiled. Sid was excited because ten of fifteen years earlier he drove race cars at the same tracks as Ollie and raced against him. Cid told one story about how he was racing around Hudson Speedway, a local track and he thought he was doing real well driving As hard as he could and then Ollie flew by him so fast he thought he was going backwards. Ollie just laughed and nodded his head and told Cid “You were doing OK and looked good out there”. It was just Ollie’s way of being polite after all with all the hundreds races and all the different drivers he couldn’t possibly remember Cid. To Sid this was great having lunch with Ollie Silva and Ollie complementing him because before this the closest he ever got to Ollie was in the nose bleed section at Sandy’s Bowling Alley before he lost his arms. Sid could use those arms like a pro and he could down a hot dog in just a few bites. About the “Hot Dogs”; they were called Essem.

Yes-em its Essem the best hot dogs in the land. Essem Hot Dogs were invented by a Polish gentleman in the 1930’s and were only produced in one place in the world; Lawrence Massachusetts. They had a hard casing around them and all of us from the area grew up on Essem hot dogs. No other hot dog anywhere has ever tasted as good. So with hamburgers and steak the favorite at our luncheon was the Essem hot dog. The lunch went great and for an hour the guys talked and laughed and for a short time they got to see others like themselves with a handicap but refused to let life get them down. I was the waiter, cook and whatever else they needed be it pouring soda pop or as what we call it “tonic”. Ya, tonic, we call it tonic around the local area and as soon as you travel less than thirty miles it’s soda of soda pop. So the call would go out; “Johnny fill er up with more tonic”, or &ld
quo;more tonic waiter” and everyone would laugh, because Johnny was the waiter. When everyone was full and talked out it was time to go but before they left they all thanked me and I asked if they would like to do it again in two weeks. Everyone was nodding their heads and smiling; it was a big “Yes”. I escorted everyone out to the front of the shop as they were saying their good buys to each other. Dom, Frank and Dick along with Benson made their way to their sidecar rigs and Ollie to his Corvette. Cid stayed behind to hang out for a while. When everyone left Paul and Danny removed the chain and opened up the shop, and I invited anyone that wanted lunch to whatever was left over or we could bring out more food if needed. Paul walked in smiling knowing that the guys really enjoyed the lunch and said “you should do that again”. The only one missing was Dean the one that came up with the idea. Later as we had more luncheons Dean was always a big help and over time the luncheons became a part of our lives during the hot summer.

We did have what I would call one grand luncheon. We had our regular group and my Dad and uncles Willy and Sandy showed up. It was quite a time because Ollie and Frank hadn’t seen Willy since 1953. Willy took to Dom, Cid, and Dick right away even talking to Dom about taking a trip to the jump school with Paul to jump. Cid and Dick were in awe as the stories flowed. Willy spent time with Cid asking questions about his arms telling a few stories about guys during the war that had similar circumstances. Cid mentioned that he worked two days a week for the state helping to teach new people that had similar situations how to use their arms. Something about Willy, Sandy and my Dad was that they could talk to anyone and whomever they were talking too seemed to feel comfortable around them. The brothers had a way about them or possibly it was the way they carried themselves but Cid, Dom and Dick were having a good time. Sandy took over my job as cook and I just became the waiter. As I mentioned before Hot Dogs were the favorites until Sandy started cooking up some steaks and a few decided “Steak was for them”. Some in the group had been sailors in the past and the question of who was a “Pollywog “and who was a “Shell back” came up. I went over and stood by Ollie and Cid because we were former Army guys and didn’t even know what a “Shell Back” was never mine a “Pollywog”. Paul pulled out his pocket size Shell Back certificate and everyone laughed and told stories about when they went across the equator. Willy and Frank spent time talking about the past twenty five plus years and how Frank had come a long way. They went on about before the war and how Ollie would go to the motorcycle races with them when he couldn’t have been more than ten or twelve years old. Then there was the story’s about how they went up to Limestone Maine and built the air base and Ollie was just a kid just out of the Army and had started racing and how he learned how to frame and do carpenter work. After Limestone the group went up to Thule Greenland to build the airbase and lived on ships in the harbor until they built the barracks. Then the story about when the sun went down for the winter never appeared for months. Ollie swore he would never spend another winter in the cold and never did. The lunch went great and the laughter and smiles were intoxicating and then it was to get even better.

The nails in Worcester

Willy started telling the story about the nails in Worcester Massachusetts that took place around 1948. At the time Willy, Sandy, my Dad Charlie, Frank, and Ollie who was only around seventeen years old had been doing roofing work. At the time the roofers supplied the nails and the roofing company the shingles. The roofers got paid for the labor for putting on the shingles. Back then roofing nails came in a round wooden keg weighing around one hundred pounds. It wasn’t uncommon for roofers to have a keg with forty or fifty pounds of nails left in the keg after finishing a roof job. As the story goes they had finished up a roof that they had been working on for a few days. It was late morning and they were headed home. As they were traveling through Worcester around sixty five mile per hour they went over a and the trunk lid flew up because it wasn’t locked. Out comes the keg spewing nails first across the road in one direction and then after hitting something the keg heads back across the road in the other direction. By the time the keg had stopped rolling the entire road was full or these small roofing nails. By the time they slowed down the nails were all over the place. At this point in the story someone asked; “so what did you do”. My Dad, Willy, Sandy, Frank, and Ollie at the same time yell out “we went to lunch”. At this point everyone in the shop is laughing really loudly as Willy explains that at the next road to the right they pulled off and headed up the hill to a park that overlooked the main road. Then the questions came out; “why stop in the park”. “So that we could eat lunch and watch all the people running over the nails in the road” was the answer. At this point everyone was laughing to the point that it was side splitting. They spent the next half hour eating their brown bag lunch and drinking coffee from their thermoses jugs while viewing all the cars running over the nails in the road. I would submit that you the reader not judge this escapade too harshly. The reason I say this is it was 1949 and the older guys a few years earlier had been in a war that most in this time in history can’t even imagine. Their lives had been in harm’s way for years and danger became a way of life so nails’ spilling out into the roadway was no big deal and in the end they made a joke out of it that they could only laugh about.

When the lunch was over Willy, and Sandy borrowed Paul and my sidecar rigs and Frank, and my Dad driving theirs headed out for the afternoon. As they were leaving they asked Dom and Dick if they would like to come along. It didn’t take much coaxing and they had two more for the ride. It was a great site seeing the gaggle of sidecars headed up the road. One more time I wished someone had taken a picture that day but everyone was living the dream and you know how that goes.

The luncheons stopped once I started building 55 T Birds and move the shop into the manufacturing facility. Years later when I would make my way back North to visit I would always stop in at the restaurant at Sandy’s Bowling Alley and have lunch with Ollie. The last time was in the spring of 2004 and I got to the restaurant early and as Ollie walked in barely being able to walk he noticed someone sitting at his table. As he walked up you could see that he was upset with the look on his face; because after all that was his table for friends and family and who was this stranger sitting where he had no business sitting. As he got closer a good friend of mine that came down special just for lunch said to Ollie “do you know who that is”? As Ollie looked and recognized me that big smile came back. As we sat and ate I could see that the fire was gone and he was just going through the motions of living from day to day. It was the last time that my Mom and I along with Ollie had lunch together. He died three months later and I lost my dear friend, mentor, and uncle. Ollie made arrangements ahead of time knowing that his funeral could turn into a three ring circus with all those that would want to attend. It was a private affair just like he lived his life with family and only the closest of his friends attending. One of my good friends and Ollie’s who’s name wasn’t on the list was hart broken not
only because we had all lost Ollie but because he had gotten close to Ollie and even put together a meeting between Ollie and Big Daddy Don McLaren one of Ollie’s fiercest competitors over the years. At the time of the meeting Ollie could hardly stand and with the equilibrium disorder his balance was off and looked like a person that was drunk when he walked. Don at the time had lost one leg because of diabetes and barley walked with crutches. Al put together a private meeting at a small local airport figuring that no one would be around a grass airstrip at an airfield. As it was told to me it was something to see those old competitors who for over two decades would change leads hundreds of times and also had a fist fight or two hardly holding themselves up hugging each other and at the same time trying to stay standing. Al made it a private affair and got chairs for the two of them to sit in and then he walked on out of site standing around the corner of one of the hangers. When they were finished talking, he then walked back and helped the two of them back to their cars and their waiting rides back home. When Al called me and mentioned that he wasn’t on the list I called my Mom and she went up the chain of command and talked to Big Jim Silva and Al was allowed to attend.

A headstone that depicts the kind of man that he was; quite an unassuming until he got into his race car and then look out.

Ollie and Big Daddy back in the day each winning year after year.

After Ollie left us many still had lunch at Sandy’s bowling alley just to remember and as the years went by the entire building and business was sold and new people took over, it still has the same name but the patrons are different. I’ve been told that every so often people from the old day’s stop in for lunch just to remember how it once was.

Every time I would pull up with whatever sidecar I was driving Ollie would light up with that smile of his. More than once when he and I were driving along be it in his Corvette or one of my Custom cars headed somewhere he would mention about when he was a kid riding with Charlie and my Mom Bea in the sidecar and how it was the best time in his life. One time he told me that people think because he wins races that he’s happy, not that he wasn’t but the best time in his life was when he was a kid riding in that sidecar away from the farm because with Charlie he felt safe because when he got back home all hell could break loose. It took me the longest time to figure it out why he always would have such a big smile on his face whenever I pulled up, but in the end I “got it”. In my lifetime I’ve observed family’s acting poorly or down right cruel to each other. With two brothers from a family of eleven being married to two sisters of a family of sixteen our family was defiantly different than most. In my entire life I never saw anyone in our family disrespectful towards another family member. If anything they stuck together and helped whenever they could. My grandfarther Silva was a brutal man and treated his sixteen children like slaves and told them that they would die on the farm and there was no way off it. So one by one they ran off my Mom being the first with my Dad. The Sweet family was always there when it was time for the next one to leave. This all took place in the 1930’s threw the early 50’s. If anything they all loved to work because that’s all they ever knew from the time they could remember. Every one of them was bound and determined to be successful and there was’ not a bum in the crowd. It was funny when I was a kid and would spend time at the farm. All my uncles liked it when we kids came to visit because my grandfather was on his best behavior. By the late 1940’s and early 50’s he knew that he could be reported to the state and his world would come crumbling down upon him so he mellowed a bit. My uncles all looked like Mr. America body builders but their muscles didn’t come from working out with weights. No they came from hard work from the time they were kids doing men’s work. They were something to look at and were good to us kids. I always had a big smile on my face because I knew when I grew up I would be just like them with big muscles. When I was seven or eight years old I didn’t know that muscles came from hard work but thought they came naturally and I would be like my uncles.

So I have to say that us kids coming up in the next generation had some of the greatest role models to look up to. The things we learned we passed on to our children and so far we are more than satisfied how everyone has turned out.

Ben Hur before the wing on the top.

Ollie would race all winter in Florida and many times won the winter Championship.

Ollie won so many championships that they made a special ring for him and presented it to the champions that came
after him.

The last Big O that Ollie and I built and I raced in the early 1980's.

Ollie and his sister Bea, my Mom in 1994 when Ollie lived with her for a few months so she could take care of him when he had surgery done to his eyes.

In the picture above it's hard to imagine my Mom at seventeen and Ollie at seven starting out riding in a sidecar with my Dad. They would have that same smile on their faces when they talked about riding in the sidecar with the wind blowing and how cold it sometime got.

Thanks for reading and viewing just a little of our family's past history with it all starting by riding in a sidecar attached to a motorcycle. I don't think my Dad Charlie had any idea what he started when he took my Mom for that first ride so many years ago.

Johnny Sweet PE.