“Mann In A Straw Hat”

Dick Mann wearing National Number “4” ready for a heat race on the Columbus Half-Mile oval, Columbus, Ohio. This dirt-tracker 650cc BSA twin and his 750cc BSA Triple for road races took Mann to his second national championship title in 1971, after winning his first AMA crown eight years earlier. Photo by William Edgar. June 27, 1971.

Dick “Bugs” Mann is one of the greats of motorcycle racing in the United States. Plain-spoken and bone honest, often wearing a straw hat in race paddocks and pits, he was a longtime familiar sight among the hard riders of the AMA Grand National Tour. My 5-page article on Mann will be published in the January/February 2015 issue of Vintage Motorsport magazine, in which we visit Mann and some of the other men and machines making American motorcycle racing history 43 years ago. Dick Mann, now 80 years old and living in Nevada with his wife Kay, continues to reign supreme in motorcycling by custom building vintage motocross and trials bikes for clients who demand only the best.