One of the big pushes we’ve done here at Historical Sturgis is to seek to produce a definitive history of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. In doing that, we’ve discovered history that is relatively unknown. With history that is relatively unknown, or that goes against public perceptions, it is important to provide strong evidence for one’s case.
The first big correction we pushed was that the Rally is misnumbered. We’ve produced a few articles on that. Recently, we’ve also submitted a proposal to the City of Sturgis in order to get this numbering fixed. In order to do that, we have put together a small collection of articles that show beyond a doubt that we are miscounting the Rally. As in, our most recent Rally of 2023 should have been called the 82nd Rally, and not the 83rd, as it was billed.
We are posting those sources here, so others can also see what we are basing our argument off of.
What are These Articles?
Article One: The first article in the packet is the Black Hills Motor Classic Committee announcing that they would not hold a Rally, or their motorcycle races, until the end of the war. The reason they give is the “inability to obtain high-class talent” that year. This cancellation would continue through the war, and once the war was over, as per the article, they would then consider bringing the races back. That article is from January of 1942.
To put this in historical context, the prior month, December of 1941, the U.S. was forced to enter the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack on Pearl Harbor was part of a larger operation though which really cut of the United States from most of their supply for rubber. This shortage in rubber would lead to rubber rationing in January of 1942, and it was this rationing of rubber which later, in November of 1942, led to gasoline rationing. The idea was that less travel would reduce the amount of wear on tires.
The thing we want to make clear here is that the common idea that it was due to gasoline rationing why the Rally wasn’t held during WWII isn’t correct. The cancellation of the Rally was announced months before gasoline rationing was ever put into place, and gasoline rationing in itself had to do with preserving rubber.
Article Two: The second article is included to showcase an order put out by the Office of Defense Transportation which prohibited all automobile racing, including motorcycle racing. The purpose of this was once again to preserve rubber. This prohibition was announced in July of 1942.
Article Three: The third article announces the lifting of the prohibition on automobile racing. This lifting took place in August of 1945. Along with article two, what this showcases is that from 1942-1945, the Black Hills Motor Classic, as the Rally was known, which focused on racing, would have been prohibited. Meaning, that even if the Committee hadn’t made the decision to cancel the Rally at the beginning of 1942, it would have been forced to cancel it for a period of 4 years.
Article Four and Five: The fourth and fifth articles announce the return of the Rally in 1946. As the article clearly shows, 1946 marked the 5th annual rally. The previous four were held in 1938, 1939, 1940, and 1941 respectively.
Article 6: The sixth article looks at the reorganization of the Black Hills Motor Classic, which occurred in January of 1946. It mentions how during their annual meeting, it was decided to revive the Rally. Along with article four and five, this makes it exceptionally clear that it was not until 1946 that the Rally came back, and that it was the 5th Rally. Put together with the previous article, what we see is that the Rally was cancelled for four years, and only in 1946, was it revived.
Article 7-9: The seventh through ninth articles are included to show that many years no numbering of the Rally was published. While 1947 would have marked the 6th Annual Rally, that fact was often not mentioned. This was a common occurrence through the 1960s.
Article 10-27: The final articles are included just to highlight how often the numbering changed until 1965. Of note, Article 21-23 look at the Rally held in 1964. Articles 22 and 23 list that Rally as the 24th Annual Rally. However, Article 21, which is a clipping of the official advertisement that went out that year, states that 1964 is actually the 22nd Annual Black Hills Motor Classic.
We can also look at Article 25, which is a clipping of the official advertisement from 1963, which marks it as the 21st Annual Rally.
We can also go back to 1949 (Article 10), which should have been the 8th Annual Rally, and see that it was said to be the 11th Annual. This is even though in 1946, it was advertised as the 5th Annual Rally. This trend would continue with the 1950 being claimed as the 12th, 1951 as the 13th, 1952 as the 14th. These dates also don’t correspond to the modern dating of the Rally. (Articles 11-16)
This trend is then jumped, with 1953 (Articles 17-18) being called the 15th Annual Rally, or with it being said that it has been held annually for 15 years. This trend is picked up in 1954 (Article 20), with that Rally being called the 16th. However, the 17th Rally, as Article 19 shows, was said to be in 1956.
When taken all together, it becomes very clear that switching the Rally numbering happened multiple times and even sometimes having a Rally numbered twice (as with 1964 where it was called the 22nd and 24th).
The final article in the series is a clipping from 1965, which calls that Rally the 25th Annual Rally, even though as we have demonstrated, it couldn’t possibly have been. After that, that numbering sequence was held onto, which leads us to the misnumbering of today.
Here’s where you go wrong. In 1955 when I was 10 and downtown on a Saturday afternoon there was no “rally” as an official event. It was the Sturgis Motorcycle Races. So if you’re going to start attacking what number it is, you’ll have to get a clear definition of when the term rally began to officially be used.
As some background to my response, Dick and I’ve had this discussion on Facebook. So to really shorten up all of this. Dick’s claim is that the annual event we have here in Sturgis that celebrates motorcycle culture can’t be considered a “rally” if the term “rally” wasn’t officially used to describe that event. He makes the claim that in 1955, and other years, the event was the Sturgis Motorcycle Races, and thus can’t be considered an official rally. If we take his argument to the end, we would have to conclude that the rally, as an official event, didn’t begin until 1991, when the name of the event was officially changed to Sturgis Rally and Races. Meaning that the Rally is just about 30 years old, and that the official 50th Rally held in 1990 did not count as an actual Rally.
The issue is two fold. First, the official name of the event was never Sturgis Motorcycle Races. There is no evidence of that. People called the event, or described the event, as Sturgis motorcycle races, because that’s what was happening. Motorcycles were being raced. But that’s a descriptor, not an official name. The official name was the Black Hills Motor Classic, which started in 1938. In 1991, the Black Hills Motor Classic, and the organization behind it, officially changed the name to the Sturgis Rally and Races, and at that time created a consortium to manage it. So the Black Hills Motor Classic and the Sturgis Rally and Races are the same event, just a different name. Changing a name doesn’t erase the past.