Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.
Ken Maely, 78, of Corona, California died Thursday at 12:11 p.m. at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Riverside, California, according to the Riverside County Coroner’s office.
A call to Maely’s home was answered by a family friend who asked not to be named. She said that Maely went to the hospital for a regularly scheduled check-up, fell asleep in the waiting room and did not wake up.
Funeral services are pending.
Maely was inducted into the AMA’s Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999. He was famous around the country and the world for hand-crafting steel shoes for dirt track and speedway racing. He developed his own engines for speedway racebikes and operated a flat track/speedway training track on his property in Corona, California. Some of the biggest names in motorcycle racing trained at Maely’s ranch from time to time.
More information will be posted as it becomes available.
Reader reaction:
FIRST PERSON/OPINION
Via e-mail:
I just read the post regarding the death of Ken Maely. Ken was such a good person and had impacted the lives of so many people and racers it was unbelievable.
I was lucky enough to have spent many a days at Ken’s ranch practicing on his dirt track, which was located near his meticulously maintained oriental vegetable farm.
I always enjoyed listening to his stories and seeing him up on the hill laughing while Roland Sands, Mark Miller, and I tried to kill each other on our XRs. He would even call us up for the occasional pointer or two. Sometimes pointing out the small weakness in our opponent’s motorcycle or technique to make for closer racing. Of course this was strictly for his entertainment.
Ken was always willing to help out the racers, whether it was loaning us a forgotten hot shoe or one of his beater XR100s.
I remember when Ken made my hot shoe, I was lucky enough to watch him do some of the work and it truly amazed me how hard this really was. Apparently, he used these exotic metals that were really temperamental and he had to hold his breath while heating these things up.
He spent so much time and money on his track there was no way he could of ever profited from it. He just liked seeing the look on people’s faces that were enjoying themselves. Because of this, we would usually end up spending just as much time picking rocks out of the newly purchased sand or nailing fences up as we did riding. Miller was one of the few people that he trusted to drive the tractor for the afternnoon dragging.
Ken, thank you for the memories. You will truly be missed.
Mark W. Foster
Ex-AMA 250 GP #4
Portland, Oregon
FIRST PERSON/OPINION
Via e-mail:
It would take a novel to describe the qualities or positive impact Ken Maely had on other people’s lives.
You will be deeply missed, you old f–ker.
Mark Miller
Long Beach, California