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Sammy "The Flying Flea" Tanner


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy with a Yamaha


Sammy


Sammy in a grandstands


Sammy autographing a helmet


Sammy


Sammy with his sign


Sammy at his B Day party


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy working on a bike


A young Sammy


Sammy with Don Graves


Sammy


Sammy and Jan Ballard


Sammy and Walt Fulton


Sammy and Sam Halbert


Sammy and Nancy Dustin


Sammy with Nancy Dustin


Sammy with Nancy Dustin


Sammy and Lauri Tanner


Sammy and Lauri Tanner


Sammy and Sam Halbert


Sammy


Sammy with Holly Metzler Walker


Sammy and Tom Fox


Sammy and Nancy Dustin


Sammy with Chris Agajanian


Sammy and Frank Pecce


Sammy and Joel


Sammy and Billy Meister


Sammy with Gene Woods


Sammy interviewed by Barry Boone


Sammy with Courtney Crone


Sammy


Sammy with Dan Rouit


Sammy with Bob Nichols


Sammy with Ronnie Jones at the 2013 Ascot Reunion


Sammy with Howie Zechner


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy getting a kiss


Sammy at Dan Rouit's Flat Track Museum


Sammy


Sammy on his 76th birthday


Sammy at Industry Racing


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy


Sammy and a baby


Sammy and his daughter Lauri


Sammy in a grandstands


Sammy at an event


Sammy and Nancy Dustin


Sammy and Peter Starr


Sammy and Don Schneider


Sammy and Courtney Crone


Sammy dancing?


Sammy with his birthday cake


Sammy on his 76th B Day


Sammy


Sammy with Bob Tocco and Nancy Dustin


Sammy with Michelle Davis and Michael Jay Hughes


Sammy with Preston Petty


Sammy with Peter Starr


Sammy with Bob Baily


Sammy with Les Payton and his grandson


Sammy with Sonny Nutter and Yoshi Kosaka


Sammy with Gene Woods and Ryan Fisher


Sammy with Dorothy Curry and Denny Edwards


Sammy is a VIP herre


Sammy with Sonny Nutter and Bobby Boogaloo Swartz


Sammy with Jimmy Oskie and Wally Pankratz behind him


Sammy with his daughter Lauri and Lyle Lovett?


Sammy


Sammy with Lauri and Morgan dancing


Sammy with Ted Boody's wife and daughter


Sammy with Chris Agajanian and Ronnie Jones


Sammy with Dan Rouit


Sammy with Sonny Nutter and Skip Van Leeuwen


Sammy with Bo and her sister


Sammy with Kathy


Sammy with family


Sammy and family


Young Sammy and family


Sammy


Sammy with a crowd at the NHRA Museum


Sammy with John Kacinski and David Aldana four flat track greats


Sammy giving Scott Talkington some news


Sammy with Mike Vaughan, Walt Fulton and more


Sammy at Sonny Nitter's 70th B Day party


Sammy at the Nationals


Sammy with family including daughter Lauri and son Jack


Sammy with Lisa Spinuzzi and others


Sammy with Doug Nicol and others


Sammy and Sonny Nutter and more


Sammy and Lauri having fun


Sammy's daughter Lauri partying with dad off to the right


Sammy's daughter Lauri still partying


Here's Lauri still at it


Sammy with Mickey Fay, Skip Van Leeuwen and Kenny Eggers


Sammy with Larry Shaw, Bill Condit and Ryan Bast


Sammy with Duane Van Leeuwen, Skip Van Leeywen, Dennis Mahan and Gary Bryson ready for a trip


Sammy with Bobby Schwartz, Cynthia Figuroa, Bruce McDougal and Dean Dickinson


Sammy getting an award


Sammy at a banquet


Sammy in a group


Sammy at a museum


Sammy autographing with others


Sammy in a grandstand


Sammy in another grandstands


Sammy checking out the babes


Sammy at the Ascot reunion in Pomona


Sammy with Sonny Nutter, Courtney Crone, Rick Goudy and Wally Pankratz


Sammy with Dan Rouit


Sammy with a group of greats


Sammy, Sonny Nutter and many more


Sammy and another crowd


Trailblazers 73rd annual banquet


Sammy and another crowd


Sammy another time


Sammy with a big trophy


Sammy at Elkhorn 5-Mile National Championship post-race victory circle interviews with Jimmie O'Dell


Sammy with other drivers


Sammy with a cute girl on his bike


Sammy with an actress on his bike with him


Sammy and Marie!


Sammy in JC's arms and crossing the finish line at Ascot


Sammy with his BSA


Sammy with Jimmie O'Dell Sr


Sammy with # 7


Sammy # 7


Sammy # 7


Sammy # 7


Sammy # 7


Sammy # 59


Sammy # 59


Sammy # 59


Sammy on the left


Sammy # 7 with JC Agajanian next to him


Sammy in the middle


Sammy with Robert Bates, Don Emde and Chris Agajanian


Sammy on the right with


From left Bad Bart, Buggs Mann, Peachtree Keen and Sammy at the 1962 Nationals


# 7


# 7


# 7


# 7


# 7


# 7


# 7


# 7


# 7


# 7


# 59


# 59


# 59


# 7


# 7


Sammy with Niel Keen and Dick Mann


Sammy leading Mel Lacher


Sammy will get by to win at Ascot


Sammy chases Alex Chinowski


Sammy outside


Sammy on the outside


Sammy chasing Chuck Jones


Sammy to the checkers


Sammy leading # 15


Sammy leads this one


Sammy leads again


Sammy on the outside


Sammy with Dick Hammer, Jack Obrian and Sid Payne at Saugus, CA


Sammy's coming!


Sammy's not in this pic, but it's so amazing I put it in!


Sammy in a match race with Don Hawley in the Bromme Offy at Ascot. I don't know who won, but I suspect the sprint car


Another shot of the match race


Sammy in a little car?


Sammy sits in the Agajanian # 98 in 1960. He had thoughts about racing it, but I don't have knowledge if he did. He did, however, get a few laps in the Bromme car, but he will have to answer any questions about his 4 wheel history


Sammy and Arai Helmets


Sammy's 75th B Day party


Sammy's 75th cake


Sammy memories


Sammy's leathers


Sammy's autograph board


Sammy's win streak 1960 thru 1970


Sammy wins again!


Coming events poster


Ascot program


Ascot program


Cycle Guide


Souvenir program


American Motorcycling


Ascot flyer


BSA wins again


BSA wins 5 mile National Championship


Sammy wins


Sammy sets new record


Stars


Triumph wins


Taking the bad with the good


More Sammy


The Flea Flees


Tanner wins at Heidberg


The Flying Flea

Sammy Tanner was one of the top AMA professional racers from the late 1950s through all of the 1960s. Tanner won a total of seven AMA nationals, including the prestigious Springfield (Illinois) Mile. He rode for the Triumph and BSA factory teams and was one of the heroes of the famous weekly Friday night Ascot Park races in Gardena, California. When Tanner first began racing as a young teenager, he was just 5 feett tall and weighed barely 100 pounds, earning him the nickname the "Flying Flea." He was also known for being one of the first riders on the Grand National circuit to wear white racing leathers.

Tanner was born on May 23, 1939 in Houston. He grew up in Houston and as a young boy loved to watch both sprint car and motorcycle dirt track racing. Fellow Texan A.J. Foyt was an early hero. He bought a sprint car as a teenager, but was too scared to drive it so he sold it, doubling his money. When he was 14, Tanner bought his first motorcycle – a Villiers James. Shortly afterwards, Tanner started racing in local field meets around Texas and soon earned a support ride on a 500cc Triumph.

While following the county fair circuit in the Midwest one summer, an announcer jokingly said that Tanner was a rock 'n' roll star back home in Texas. Fans swamped him after the race asking for his autograph and copies of his record, even though he had never made a recording in his life. The race announcer saw an opportunity and quickly put Tanner in the recording studio to cut a record, including a hastily written tune based on Tanner’s nickname. The song began: "When I was born in a Texas shack, Pop took one look and said send him back. No scrawnier runt ever lived than me, but now I’m known as the 'Flying Flea.'"

Tanner burst onto the AMA Grand National scene as a rookie Expert in 1958. The "Flying Flea" did fly and finished sixth in his first year on the circuit. Indicative of what the future held in store was his runner-up finish in that year’s San Jose National Mile. After defending Grand National Champion Joe Leonard’s track record was broken not once but three times in time trials, the 25-lap race turned into a barnburner. Carroll Resweber, who would go on to win the first of his four Grand National titles that year, and eventual winner Everett Brashear and Don Hawley swapped the lead back and forth an astonishing 55 times! When the checkered flag fell, Brashear was first across the line, but it was the rookie Tanner in second ahead of Resweber. Tanner had arrived.

Tanner, who had established residency in California, topped the AMA’s half-mile race points list in his rookie year, and duplicated that feat in 1959. That year saw the opening of the new Ascot half-mile facility in Gardena, California, and it was Tanner who won the first-ever Grand National held there that July. In that era, AMA nationals were run for varying distances and that race was an 8-mile event. Tanner’s skill, combined with the ultra-fast characteristics of the track, produced a new eight-mile race record, breaking the old record by six seconds.

Tanner’s early successes came while riding a Triumph sponsored by Johnson Motors, the West Coast distributor of Triumph motorcycles. Ascot hosted races every Friday night during a lengthy southern California race season and for many years Tanner dueled with the likes of three-time Ascot National winner Al Gunter, 1961 Ascot National winner Neil Keen, Elliott Schultz, Stu Morley, Troy Lee, Jack O’Brien and Don Hawley. From the opening Ascot National that Tanner won in 1959 through the 1966 event, the winner was either Tanner, Gunter or Keen. After his opening-year Ascot win, Tanner topped the half-mile National at the track three more times, winning in three consecutive years, 1964-66. He had switched from riding Triumphs to competing on BSAs, prepared by the legendary C.R. Axtell.

Although four of Tanner’s seven Grand National victories came at his "hometown" Ascot track, perhaps his finest ride was turned in at the 1964 Springfield Mile. Tanner took the lead on the 26th lap of the 50-mile race and he dueled the remainder of the race with Dick Mann, and briefly Ronnie Rall, before crossing the finish line first, a narrow three bike lengths ahead of Mann. His victory on a BSA at Springfield broke a 10-year Harley-Davidson victory stretch at the famed oval. Mann was also BSA-mounted, so the first Harley finished third with Ralph White aboard.

Two years later, in 1966, Tanner scored his fourth Ascot National win, and added wins in half-mile Nationals at Elkhorn, Wisconsin, and Heidelberg, Pennsylvania. He finished the year third in the Grand National Championship point standings, trailing only fellow Motorcycle Hall of Fame members Bart Markel and Gary Nixon. Sammy Tanner was one of the top AMA professional racers from the late 1950s through all of the 1960s. Tanner won a total of seven AMA nationals, including the prestigious Springfield (Illinois) Mile. He rode for the Triumph and BSA factory teams and was one of the heroes of the famous weekly Friday night Ascot Park races in Gardena, California. When Tanner first began racing as a young teenager, he was just 5 feett tall and weighed barely 100 pounds, earning him the nickname the "Flying Flea." He was also known for being one of the first riders on the Grand National circuit to wear white racing leathers.

Tanner was born on May 23, 1939 in Houston. He grew up in Houston and as a young boy loved to watch both sprint car and motorcycle dirt track racing. Fellow Texan A.J. Foyt was an early hero. He bought a sprint car as a teenager, but was too scared to drive it so he sold it, doubling his money. When he was 14, Tanner bought his first motorcycle – a Villiers James. Shortly afterwards, Tanner started racing in local field meets around Texas and soon earned a support ride on a 500cc Triumph.

While following the county fair circuit in the Midwest one summer, an announcer jokingly said that Tanner was a rock 'n' roll star back home in Texas. Fans swamped him after the race asking for his autograph and copies of his record, even though he had never made a recording in his life. The race announcer saw an opportunity and quickly put Tanner in the recording studio to cut a record, including a hastily written tune based on Tanner’s nickname. The song began: "When I was born in a Texas shack, Pop took one look and said send him back. No scrawnier runt ever lived than me, but now I’m known as the 'Flying Flea.'"

Tanner burst onto the AMA Grand National scene as a rookie Expert in 1958. The "Flying Flea" did fly and finished sixth in his first year on the circuit. Indicative of what the future held in store was his runner-up finish in that year’s San Jose National Mile. After defending Grand National Champion Joe Leonard’s track record was broken not once but three times in time trials, the 25-lap race turned into a barnburner. Carroll Resweber, who would go on to win the first of his four Grand National titles that year, and eventual winner Everett Brashear and Don Hawley swapped the lead back and forth an astonishing 55 times! When the checkered flag fell, Brashear was first across the line, but it was the rookie Tanner in second ahead of Resweber. Tanner had arrived.

Tanner, who had established residency in California, topped the AMA’s half-mile race points list in his rookie year, and duplicated that feat in 1959. That year saw the opening of the new Ascot half-mile facility in Gardena, California, and it was Tanner who won the first-ever Grand National held there that July. In that era, AMA nationals were run for varying distances and that race was an 8-mile event. Tanner’s skill, combined with the ultra-fast characteristics of the track, produced a new eight-mile race record, breaking the old record by six seconds.

Tanner’s early successes came while riding a Triumph sponsored by Johnson Motors, the West Coast distributor of Triumph motorcycles. Ascot hosted races every Friday night during a lengthy southern California race season and for many years Tanner dueled with the likes of three-time Ascot National winner Al Gunter, 1961 Ascot National winner Neil Keen, Elliott Schultz, Stu Morley, Troy Lee, Jack O’Brien and Don Hawley. From the opening Ascot National that Tanner won in 1959 through the 1966 event, the winner was either Tanner, Gunter or Keen. After his opening-year Ascot win, Tanner topped the half-mile National at the track three more times, winning in three consecutive years, 1964-66. He had switched from riding Triumphs to competing on BSAs, prepared by the legendary C.R. Axtell.

Although four of Tanner’s seven Grand National victories came at his "hometown" Ascot track, perhaps his finest ride was turned in at the 1964 Springfield Mile. Tanner took the lead on the 26th lap of the 50-mile race and he dueled the remainder of the race with Dick Mann, and briefly Ronnie Rall, before crossing the finish line first, a narrow three bike lengths ahead of Mann. His victory on a BSA at Springfield broke a 10-year Harley-Davidson victory stretch at the famed oval. Mann was also BSA-mounted, so the first Harley finished third with Ralph White aboard.

Two years later, in 1966, Tanner scored his fourth Ascot National win, and added wins in half-mile Nationals at Elkhorn, Wisconsin, and Heidelberg, Pennsylvania. He finished the year third in the Grand National Championship point standings, trailing only fellow Motorcycle Hall of Fame members Bart Markel and Gary Nixon.

Tanner hung up his steel shoe in 1972 and now operates an Arai helmet distributorship in Southern California.

Inducted in 1999

Tanner hung up his steel shoe in 1972 and now operates an Arai helmet distributorship in Southern California.

Inducted in 1999

Created 6/8/18

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