Larry Lawrence | June 13, 2021
Cycle News Archives
COLUMN
This Cycle News Archives Column is reprinted from the January 9, 2008 issue. CN has hundreds of past Archives columns in our files, too many destined to be archives themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, in the future, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones coming down the road -Editor.
The Checkered Flag For Duke
Early in his career as an AMA starter, Duke Pennell once threw the green flag to start a race and the flag flew off the pole and blew right into the path of the riders blasting off the line. Lesson learned. After that, Duke always kept his thumb on the flag, no matter how securely it was stapled to the pole.
Duke flagged nearly every major AMA National from the late 1940s to the late 1990s. He drove his own vehicles to the races and carried supplies for the AMA. In his later years, he even bought his own tractor-trailer rig to carry the ever-increasing gadgetry it took to put on a National.
Pennell was a motorcycle enthusiast and a professional through and through. He was almost always the first to arrive at the track and the last to leave. Mentored by the late, great Jim Davis, the famous Class A racer who served as the AMA starter in the 1930s and 40s, Duke passed down the knowledge he gained to current AMA road-racing starter Bobby Lemming, who first apprenticed under Duke’s tutelage when Bobby was still a teenager.
Pennell brought a unique flair to his position. Instead of wearing the traditional white starter clothes, Pennell was the first to wear colorful, tailor-made outfits that added a splash of color to the race meets. His wife, Bee Gee, made most of the flags Pennell used during his career, and she was also an AMA employee for more than 30 years. In 1987, the Pennell’s were presented the prestigious Dud Perkins Award for their dedication to motorcycling.
George Pennell was born in Athens, Ohio, on February 10, 1921, and that was the beginning of a tough childhood. His mother abandoned the family when he was a young boy, and his father, unable to deal with raising the children alone, turned Duke and his two sisters over to an orphanage. The siblings were raised separately, although they reconnected later in life.
When he was 17, a friend offered to sell Pennell his Harley-Davidson for five dollars. Pennell didn’t have the money, so his buddy gave him the bike anyway and let him pay it off over time.
“I paid a quarter here and nickel there,” Pennell remembered with a smile.
Pennell joined the local motorcycle club in Athens and began working as an assistant at the club-sponsored local AMA races. His first job was working as pit steward for local half mile races in Athens in 1939.
During World War II, Pennell served in the Army Air Corps in the South Pacific. When the war was over, he and Bee Gee settled in Columbus, Ohio, and that’s where Pennell started taking to the tracks as a racer. In fact, he recalled spending his honeymoon at a race meet in Lancaster, Ohio.
Pennell suffered a crash at a race in Dayton, Ohio, in October of 1949, and it was a bad one that left him with extensive nerve damage to his left side. The accident left Pennell’s left arm immobile, but that didn’t deter him from racing. Even though he gave up flat-track racing, Pennell still competed for years in off-road enduros.
“I moved the clutch over to the right side of the handlebar, along with the front brake, and propped my left hand on the bar and rode,” Pennell said matter-of-factly. “Every once in a while, my left arm would fall off and I would have to stop and put it back on the bar.”
Pennell became AMA district referee Joe Gee’s assistant in the early 1950s. Under Gee, Pennell served about every function as an AMA race official from timing and scoring to referee to starter. Pennell also worked with Davis, who became the AMA chief starter after his racing career. Pennell cites Davis and Indy 500 starter Pat Vidan as major influences in his career.
“I was smart enough to copy some of the things they did,” he said.
Pennell’s day job was as an administrator at the Columbus Police Department. His job was perfect in that he had 30 days of vacation per year. He used most of that vacation time traveling to the races all across the country, working everything from flat track to road racing to motocross.
Former AMA race announcer Bob Applegate remembers Duke as nothing if not meticulous.
“I’m a self-confessed neat freak and very organized,” Applegate said. “It gives me strength knowing my stuff is all clean, operational, and ready to be used for what it was made. Duke made me look like a small-time kid in this area. Sometimes when I would help Duke with his postrace teardown, I found myself being told how to drain and wipe down the outside of a hose before coiling it up and just how to coil it up so it would be perfect for storing in its special compartment ’til next use.
“He kept logs and record books of everything, and his shirts were always impeccably clean, pressed, and adorned with the appropriate patches or custom embroidering of the time, or event. He always had the coolest embroidered stuff, custom-made for him. He turned me on to the world of containers and the Zen of containerizing. No loose stuff rolling around in this guy’s rig. No hunting for the bag of [whatever]. Duke had custom bags, boxes, sleeves and containers for everything, all marked or clearly labeled, all weather-proof and, of course, well made.”
That attention to detail carried over to the track. Gordon Lunde was assisting Duke at Daytona one year when Gordy got an unusual request.
“His timing beacons weren’t lined up properly at start/finish,” Lunde recalled. “He had me run to the top of the banking on the tri-oval to align them during a race! Good thing there were a few big gaps in traffic.”
The only thing Duke loved even more than racing was his wife, Bee Gee, and he was proud to declare his dedication to her. His Chevy Camero even had personalized license plates that read “Bee Gee.” I remember that the first time I saw the plates, I thought the owner of the car was a die-hard fan of the pop group. I had visions of songs from Saturday Night Fever playing on a continuous loop on an 8-track tape player inside the car.
Bee Gee died in 1990, and Duke retired to Port Orange, Florida, not far at all from Daytona International Speedway, a track he loved. Despite having the use of only one arm, Duke was an avid golfer and bowler. He was proud of the fact that he bowled a perfect 300 twice and also made a couple of holes-in-one during his retirement.
“People really hate it when I hit a better drive than them on the golf course,” Duke said with a smile in a 2005 interview.
Duke passed away in Florida on December 2, 2007, leaving behind a reputation as one of motorcycle racing’s most colorful personalities and most dedicated workers.
“I collected lots of heroes during my days of involvement with motorsports,” Applegate said. “It’s a hero- laden industry full of characters larger than life itself. They are the stuff legends, books and movies are made of. I look forward to the ‘Duke Pennell Story’ and am proud to have been a little part of it.” CN