In the Summer of 1958

By Al Kozak

When my friend Mert Lawwill and I finished our junior years at Boise High School in 1958, we dreamed about the fun we’d have that summer. For Mert, fun was racing motorcycles. For me, it was playing baseball. We both wanted to earn money over the summer, but the jobs had to fit into our recreational schedules, and not vice versa.

I was on an American Legion team that had players from all over the Boise area and we played teams from other cities in Idaho. I don’t remember an age limit, but I do remember one of our players was twenty-nine, although he didn’t look it. The guys on a team we played from Mountain Home Air Force Base looked to us to be in their thirties or forties, but when you’re a teen, everyone looks older.

Mert already had his racing license and was racing locally as well as out of town. I think the first pro event he entered may have been that summer at the Clark County Fairgrounds near Battle Ground, Washington. Dean Huskey, who had a fancy 1955 Chevy blue-and- white two-door, volunteered to haul Mert’s race bike there on a trailer, and John Ahlin and I went along with them.

On the way, Mert admitted he was nervous. He had heard rumors that the guys he would be racing against were older hot shots, really fast. A lot of people in Boise had told him he wasn’t good enough to race with the big boys.