I was saddened to learn of Neil Keen’s passing on Saturday. Neil was one of the big dogs at the legendary, but brutal Ascot Park in the early 1960s. In 1961 he won over half the main events during an entire season of weekly races at Ascot. He won the AMA National there that season too. It was his high point as a rider.
Neil was one of those rare racers who started out primarily as a mechanic. When his rider George Everett was killed, Neil said he looked around and didn’t see anyone else he wanted to put on his bikes so he started racing them himself.
Neil Keen doing what he loved to do.
I think Neil actually enjoyed making a motorcycle fast as much or more than riding them fast. Former Gary Nixon mechanic Dick Bender once said that Neil was so dedicated to his work that on one occasion he saw Neil “fall asleep right on the concrete floor (of the garage). He didn’t have enough energy left to go back home or back to his hotel.”
Neil was rider rep for the AMA for several years and fought hard for rider safety. At one point he helped push through a rule that limited novices to racing 250cc machines. The stats showed a solid increase in safety after Neil’s time as rider rep.
He was also known for building racing bikes right up to the edge of the rulebook. Carol Stacy, whose dad Jules Horky was the AMA’s Competition Director from 1946 to 1974, said Neil always challenged the rulebook.
“He used to give my father so much grief challenging the AMA dirt track rule book, and dad use to give Neil the opportunity to show him where in the rulebook he found that information. Ultimately Dad won, but both had such respect for one another. Great memories of back then.”
I talked to Neil on the phone from time to time and had the great opportunity to spend a good amount of time with him back in 2006 at a Santa Fe Speedway reunion in Chicago. After he moved back to the Midwest in the mid-1960s, Neil once again, like he’d doe at Ascot, he became one of the top guns at Santa Fe Speedway’s weekly motorcycle racing program.
That particular day Neil had a lot to say about how to revive flat track racing. He was an adamant opponent of moving away from framers to DTX race bikes. I remember trying to steer the conversation more towards his racing days, but Neil was always looking forward and insisted on sticking with the subject of the day and making sure I understood what needed to be done to make racing better.
Whenever you’d go to a flat track reunion of some sort it was generally easy to find Neil, you simply needed look to where the crowd was gathered. Neil was generally holding court and everyone was interested in what he was saying. – Larry Lawrence
Rider Files 