VALE

AVE ATQUE VALE Del Kuhn 1925-2021

The Latin phrase ave atque vale — hail and farewell, I salute you, and goodbye — used especially in a eulogy to a hero certainly applies to legendary racer and motor officer Del Kuhn. One of the nation’s top off-road racers in the 1940s and ’50s, Kuhn passed away peacefully on March 24. He was 95.

According to his bio in the American Motorcyclist Association Hall of Fame, Kuhn was born in Camp Douglas, Wisconsin, in 1925. He settled in the Los Angeles area after serving in the Navy during World War II. He joined the Compton Roughriders Motorcycle Club and started riding in off-road club rides.

He soon started racing and competed on his Army surplus 45-inch (750cc) Harley-Davidson. He stripped down his V-Twin warhorse for off-road use despite trend at the time favoring single-cylinder British off-road bikes. Eventually he wore out his war surplus hog and had to borrow a Matchless to compete in the 1948 Greenhorn Enduro. Despite being on a borrowed bike (with a rigid frame, at that), Kuhn won the two-day event. That performance in one of the toughest races of the era earned him a sponsorship from British motorcycle importer Frank Cooper.

During his career, Kuhn was always a threat to win, and the tougher the event, the better he seemed to do. And the competition was equally tough, he rode against talented off-road riders such as Ernie May and AMA Hall of Famers Aub LeBard, Max Bubeck and former Dealernews sales manager John McLaughlin.

Notably, he won the Greenhorn again in 1950 and 1951. Because the 1950 Greenhorn was awarded the AMA sanction for that year’s national enduro title, Kuhn’s victory also earned him the 1950 AMA National Enduro Championship. That same year, Kuhn and LeBard helped establish the Catalina Grand Prix on Santa Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California. The Catalina Grand Prix became one of the most popular races of the 1950s. During the 1951 inaugural race, Kuhn charged through the field to finish third.

Kuhn achieved an emotional victory at the classic Big Bear Endurance Run in 1952, where he raced in a tribute to a close friend who had died in that same race in the mid1940s. (See Don Emde’s sidebar).

In 1955, Kuhn retired from racing to focus on his career as a motorcycle patrol officer for the California Highway Patrol, a position he held until 1979. In his nine-year span of racing, Kuhn became one of the country’s best-known off-road racers.