LUCIFER’S HAMMER, SAYS IRISH LEGEND, WAS A comet sent by the Devil to destroy a village invaded by foreigners so evil that they made Lucifer himself jealous.
The first Milwaukee-built V-twin to carry the factory’s colours at Daytona in 10 years, Lucifer’s Hammer scored a convincing victory on its debut appearance at Daytona in March 1983. The dirt-track great Jay Springsteen, a legend in his own lifetime was the winner of more AMA dirt track Nationals than anyone else, ever, en route to three Grand National titles by the age of 25. Springer was a god-given expert road racer, if only at that stage with just four such races under his belt in the previous seven years. He dominated the Cycle Week ’73 50-miler, defeating a field including the Ducati-mounted reigning TT F2 World champion Tony Rutter and defending AMA BoTT (Battle of The Twins) champion Jimmy Adamo by 24 seconds, easing up. A week later at Talladega, Springer was half a minute in front of Adamo to take a certain repeat victory when he unloaded on someone else’s oil on the final lap, while on his next ride at Elkhart Lake, the engine seized when a camshaft bearing broke up, sending him crashing into retirement again. But at Loudoun in June, Jay rode Lucifer to an excellent 13th place overall in the AMA National Formula 1 race against the Honda, Suzuki and Kawasaki fours and all the TZ750 Yamahas, earning valuable Grand National title points into the bargain in the days when road racing and dirt track events all contributed to your points score. But although Jay’s oval-track commitments precluded his racing the bike ever again, Dave Emde took it over to register a couple of second places behind Adamo that summer, before Carolina dirt-tracker Gene Church was entrusted with it for the final race of the season at Daytona in October, which he won after a thrilling three-way battle with the Ducatis of Adamo and Joey Mills. In bookending the season
