Jerry Hatfield has written about American motorcycling history for nearly forty years. His first of several Cycle World articles appeared in 1969. Hatfield joined The Antique Motorcycle Club of America in 1972, and in 1975 he penned his first article for their national magazine The Antique Motorcycle. Since then, Hatfield has written another fifteen articles for The Antique Motorcycle. He has also been published in The Harley-Davidson Enthusiast, The Classic Motor Cycle, Classic Bike, American Rider, Vintage Motorcycles, and American Heritage, the journal of the Smithsonian Institution. From 1982 through the present, Hatfield has written fifeen books: seven about Indian motorcycles, four about Harley-Davidsons, three on American motorcycling in general, and one biography, Flat Out! The Rollie Free Story. Two of Hatfield’s books have been re-published in foreign language editions. Hatfield is also quoted, credited, or acknowledged in another thirteen books by other authors. He has appeared in two television documentaries about Indian motorcycles, and was principal narrator for one of these. Hatfield also assisted the ABC television network in a research project. He is a member of The Trailblazers Hall of Fame, The Indian Motorcycle Hall of Fame, and The Sturgis Motorcycle Hall of Fame. Hatfield is a Life Member of The American Motorcyclist Association and an honorary member of the Australian Indian Motorcycle Club. In the over 50 years of the Antique Motorcycle Club, the 10,000 member organization has awarded only 17 honorary memberships, and Hatfield is one of these honorees.

Hatfield is a retired air force colonel, and a retired engineer for Hughes Aircraft Company. He has been happily married since 1960 to his high school sweetheart. Hatfield has owned two Harley-Davidsons, four Indians, and many other makes. His present motorcycles are a 1953 Harley-Davidson Model 165 and a 1973 BMW R75/5. In the summer of 2007, Hatfield rode his BMW from Texas to California and back, logging many hours in temperatures of 106 to 110. In other words, Jerry Hatfield still loves to ride.

Publisher Herb Harris is a lifelong motorcyclist and a collector of motorcycles and motorcycle engines for many years. Motorcycle engines, you ask? Indeed. Harris has gathered a collection of British and European motorcycle cutaway engines that were on display at motorcycle shows in the nineteen-forties, -fifties, and -sixties. The set includes Ariel Square Four, BSA Gold Star, Matchless G50, Norton Manx, Triumph Tiger, Velocette 500, Vincent Black Shadow, and dozens of others!

Harris has built perhaps the most intensely historical motorcycle collection in the world. Most of his bikes made headlines decades ago, either as record setters or benchmark production prototypes. We’re not talking about important types but actual history-making motorcycles, by engine and frame numbers! The collection’s crown jewel is the legendary “Bathing Suit Bike,” the very motorcycle that Rollie Free rode at Bonneville in 1948, setting an American record of 150.313 mph. Vincent’s first postwar V-twin, was completed in 1946, and Harris has this historical prototype. Likewise, the collection includes the last prototype Vincent, the enclosed streamlined 1954-model Black Prince shown at the annual London show in late 1953. In between are the fabled “Blue Bike” and the Rex Dearden Special. The Blue Bike was campaigned at Bonneville for many years, by Rollie Free’s friend Marty Dickerson. Marty set several records for stock motorcycles running on ordinary pump gasoline. The Dearden bike, a supercharged Black Lightning was designed and built in England in the nineteen-fifties. Intended to capture the official world’s record at Bonneville, the dream was never realized due to financial problems. At the time of this writing, the collection is intact. However, as Harris approaches retirement from his successful Austin, Texas, legal firm, he will likely down-size the collection. Arguably, the world’s largest Vincent dealer, Harris probably has a larger collection of Vincent parts than any Vincent dealer maintained during the marque’s production history. Harris intends to continue in this role, so that he may put more Vincents on the roads and keep them on the roads.

Harris also collects Vincent related memorabilia. On the walls of the Harris Vincent Gallery are two stunning large color illustrations, penned by college student Philip Vincent. These depict young Phil’s dreams of a sporting 1000 cc V-twin and a utilitarian 250 cc single. Also wall-mounted, is the actual business agreement whereby Philip Vincent’s father purchased the rights and the tooling for H.R.D. motorcycles. The H.R.D. name was respected in the nineteen-twenties for frequent road racing victories, including the Isle of Man Senior TT. The H.R.D. logo was affixed to Vincent’s motorcycles until 1949.

What is a book publisher? A publisher provides the monetary muscle to produce a book and assumes the financial risk that comes with the territory. Beyond that, publishers do their thing with varying amounts of input. Typically, publishers either develop book outlines and hire authors to follow the outline, or at the other extreme publishers consider book ideas of aspiring authors. Herb Harris fitted neither pattern. Compelled by the mystique of the 1948 “Bathing Suit Bike,” more properly known as the John Edgar Lightning, Harris decided a full telling of the Rollie Free story was in order. As well as hiring the author, Harris provided important input in the form of writing sidebar passages, and in editing the content for accuracy. He spared no expense, funding in 2000 a first-time return of the 1948 record-setting bike to Bonneville, simply because it should’ve been done. To arm the author with a feel for Vincents, Herb Harris had writer Jerry Hatfield ride every street-legal type of Vincent twin. Harris also footed the bill for Hatfield’s research trips to California, Indiana, and Missouri, with the philosophy that no Rollie relevant information was to be overlooked. Simply put, there would’ve been no Rollie book at this time without Herb Harris. Moreover, even if years later some other publisher emerged, there would’ve been no comparable Rollie book, no damn-the-expense-full-speed-ahead approach, without the special input of super Rollie Free enthusiast Herb Harris.