Lawwill, Mert
Name/Title
Lawwill, MertTags
Dirt Track, Road RacingDescription
- 1969 AMA Grand National Champion (and Most Popular Rider of the Year) - 161 AMA Grand National finishes, and 15 AMA Grand National wins - Star of motorcycle movie classic On Any Sunday Mert Lawwill, the AMA Grand National Champion of 1969, was one of the top professionals on the AMA national circuit during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Lawwill was born in Boise, Idaho, on Sept. 25, 1940. His parents were not overly enthusiastic about motorcycling, but Mert’s older brother broke the ice and was the first in the family to ride. It didn’t take long for Mert to catch the motorcycling bug, and soon he too started riding — much to his parents’ dismay. “Eugene Theissen used to come to race in Boise once a year,” Lawwill recalled. “He was the big pro in the northwestern part of the country, and we worshipped the ground he walked on.” Spurred on by his admiration for Thiessen, and with help from Harlan Woods and his Boise BSA shop, Lawwill began his racing career on the local TT track in Boise and, later, in scrambles races across the Northwest. Lawwill soon moved to California to pursue his racing career and quickly picked up sponsorship from the legendary Harley-Davidson dealer, Dudley Perkins. After a successful tenure in the amateur ranks, Lawwill turned pro in 1963. In 1964, Harley-Davidson recognized Lawwill’s emerging talent and quickly signed him to a factory contract. Lawwill would stay with Harley-Davidson for the rest of his professional racing career. After finishing on the podium numerous times in 1964 and 1965, Lawwill finally won his first AMA national at the famous Sacramento Mile on Sept. 19, 1965. It was a special moment for Lawwill. Sitting in the stands that day, watching him race a big national for the first time, were Lawwill’s parents. That Sacramento victory was the first of 15 career wins for Lawwill, which placed him 15th on the all-time AMA Grand National winners list at the time of his Hall of Fame induction in 1998. In 1969, Lawwill was voted the AMA’s “Most Popular Rider of the Year.” As impressive as his on-track performances were, Lawwill is perhaps best known for being one of the featured riders of the 1971 motorcycle movie classic, On Any Sunday. Among other storylines, the movie chronicled Lawwill’s bid to defend his AMA Grand National title during the 1970 racing season. By the time Lawwill hung up his racing leathers in 1977, due to an inner-ear disorder that affected his balance, he had amassed an incredible 161 AMA Grand National finishes during his 15-year-long professional racing career. Following his retirement from racing, Lawwill went on to become a respected motorcycle racing frame designer and builder, and then used his years of framebuilding knowledge and experience to enter the fast-growing sport of mountain biking. Lawwill’s custom racing bicycles became highly prized by top racers around the world, and his full-suspension designs won numerous national and world titles. Lawwill was inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in 1997, largely based on his work with Yeti Cycles, where he leveraged his knowledge of both motorcycle suspension physics and bicycle handling dynamics to develop the “Lawwill Quadrilateral” suspension design that was proven on the Yeti DH-8, one of the most influential downhill racing mountain bikes of that era. During this same period, Lawwill also began producing a limited run of Mert Lawwill Street Tracker motorcycles — essentially street-legal versions of the factory Harley-Davidson XR-750 flat track racers he made famous 25 years earlier — featuring hand-built frames, custom suspension and racing-spec engines. In the late 1990s, Lawwill extended his talent for innovative engineering into a new and entirely unexpected sphere — human prosthetics. Spurred on by his former Harley-Davidson Factory Racing teammate Chris Draayer, who lost his arm in a racing accident, Lawwill developed a prosthetic system that helps amputees ride motorcycles and bicycles again. Built around a highly sophisticated ball-and-socket attachment that snaps onto the handlebar so the rider can steer but also features a quick-release mechanism that prevents the rider from being trapped on the bike in the event of a fall, the so-called “Mert’s Hands” device has helped well over 300 enthusiasts continue to enjoy two-wheeled activity post-amputation. In 2012, Lawwill was elevated to “AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame Legend” status, a distinction reserved for those whose contributions to the sport continue long after their competitive years. In 2021, Lawwill served as AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days’ Grand Marshal during a year that centered the 50th anniversary of On Any Sunday, highlighting Lawwill’s enduring role as the face of the AMA’s Grand National glory days.Category
Class of 1998