Neil Keen, 1934-2014

NEIL KEEN, 1934-2O14

IGNITION

NEWS

Part of the original "BSA Wrecking Crew," AMA national number 10 was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2000

Neil Keen, another of America's once-rich array of self-taught rider engineers, has died, age 79.

At one point, keen had dirt-track

racing at Ascot so nailed that he was untouchable for a year. In the "60s, moto-journalism tended to attribute success to hot blood and big balls, but everyone who was consistently successful had developed a technique that no one else had.

For Keen, that turned out in the long run to be motorcycle engineering: the development of improved chassis, sold under the Sonicweld and Trackmaster names. Keen was also part of the inspiration that resulted in Harley-Davidson's rout of the Triumph 5005 at Daytona in 1968-69. One day, while at CR. Axtell's Southern California dyno operation, they lifted the heads on a Harley KR. Something didn't look right, and when they made intuitive changes to increase airflow, power went up a bunch. Ax phoned Dick O'Brien, H-Os race manager, who flew right out to see what was up.

When I recently asked Keen for permission to publish that story (which he'd sent to a friend), he put me through hoops to get it right. "I want people to know that those KRs were very sophisticated. They were the MotoGP bikes of their time," he said. After a few exchanges, he approved my man us cript. He didn't want any ignorant non-dirt-tracker moto-journalist ettin~ it wrong.

Neil I<een saw the motorcycle clearly in his mind's eye and could relate that picture, and the design process, to what he'd felt and learned on the track. The Ascot scene of which Keen was a part was an intensely creative group, testing their ideas every week. He was part of a golden age, and he knew it.

Kevin Cameron