Roger Reiman - Research

Walldog Mural - Connections

Starting on this post makes me think of the old saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words".  At each Walldog event we are given the task of producing a visual representation that will adequately depict  the mural theme assigned to us. Some mural designs are fairly straight forward and do not require much research. On the other hand, there are those subjects that we feel compelled to research completely and that we connect with on a very deep level.

In my last post, I mentioned that I was very intrigued when I first heard about the Roger Reiman Mural project. I found it interesting that Roger had competed on the old Daytona beach course and also that he won the first Daytona 200 race held at the Daytona International Speedway in 1961, the year I was born. Daytona has a long, colorful and sometimes tragic history going back to 1959. In June of 2003, I travelled to Daytona to attend the Dale Earnhardt Tribute Concert. I stood on the tri-oval and looked around the track that took the lives of both Dale Earnhardt (2001) and Roger Reiman (1997).

There was yet another connection that I felt when I heard about this project. My cousin, Punky (Neil Jr.) Manor was one of the top Dirt Track racers in the Upper Midwest back in the late 70's.  His life was cut short in a tragic highway accident in November of 1979. Because of this, I think I could relate on a deep personal level to the friends and family members who lost Roger.

Somehow I knew deep inside, that my design for the Roger Reiman Mural was going to have to be worth a lot more than a "thousand words".  Initially I was given only a few minor details abouts Rogers life, but I needed to find out a lot more.

Early Design Research 

Initially our research started out in the usual way. We started out searching on the web for any and all images and website information we could find. We came across the AMA (American Motorcycle Association) website and found the Motorcycle Hall of Fame page dedicated to Roger Reiman. That page gives a fairly good summary of Roger's racing career. Somewhere along the line, we came across a couple of phone numbers to try, well maybe more than a few!

My wife spent a few days making phone calls and had some pretty good success. She discovered that Roger's good friend Dennis Packee and his wife Dianne were the current owners of Reiman's Harley-Davidson Dealership in Kewanee. IL. Not only that, Dianne was one of the organizers for the upcoming Kewanee Walldog event. We also discovered that there was a Museum for Roger inside the Dealership, so we set up a visit with them as quickly as we could!

My wife also reached out to Roger's Sister and contacted the AMA to see if they had any photos that we could use for reference. The organizers of the event also mentioned George Sedlak and told us that he was interested in possibly helping to paint on the mural. Upon further research, George was the artist that painted helmets and bikes for Evel Knievel back at the same time Roger was building bikes for Evel.

I also looked for anything I could find out on eBay that had to do with Roger, the Daytona 200, Evel Knievel, etc. I found and purchased every magazine and photograph I could find. For my next post, I hope to consolidate all the information we have gathered to date, in order to move a bit closer to the ideation phase.

Below is just one of the images we discovered in our search. Next time I will share more, a lot more.