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The Short Exciting Life of Louis Torres 

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The Short Exciting Life of

The Flying Merkel

n early November 2018 I spotted this exceptional trophy in a Morphy's Fine & Decorative Arts auction December 05 - 06, 2018, lot 1466. It got 19 bids and it was a pretty good scrap...but I got it for $1,700.00 plus juice...for a grand total of  $2,146.00 delivered. Had the trophy been in a petro or motorcycle auction where the antique motorcycle community would have seen it, no telling how much it would have gone for!...So I'm very glad it was mixed in with a bunch of fine art...Even I almost overlooked it...I saw it on line about a month before the auction, but really didn't know what a Flying Merkel was so I dismissed it...Later I took another look and started researching the phenomena of the Flying Merkel and saw it's place in American motorcycle history...Then I started reading the rich history of the trophy's winner Louis Torres, and all the who, what, and where aspects of the trophy. The more I read the more I eye-balled it...I think it sat around $300.00 most the month...and I was thinking I might sneak up on it...I called Morphy Auctions and asked for a call during the auction so I could bid live by phone...Finally the big day arrived...Initially I figured I'd go up to around $1,200.00...But after all my studying up I got more bold...

The two aspects that had me were one,  the Flying Merkel was there at the beginning of motorcycle racing...not only a cool name for a motorcycle...but the engineering made it a winner...so it was part of the infrastructure of the sport...The second aspect was the winner Louis Torres...who'd have guessed this guy would be so colorful...Just some unknown guy I'd never heard of...

The research was tough...I had to deal with assembling facts for a story that took place in Tampa Florida 100+ years ago...Most of my intel were newspaper clippings from the sports pages of the Tampa newspapers from the c1912-15 era...I'm out on the west coast...If I were in Tampa I could access newspaper microfilm in person...Instead I've had to rely on what has been uploaded on the internet...

My main goal was to find a newspaper article giving the details of the race my trophy was for. One of my biggest challenges was the trophy isn't dated...I was able to find quite a number of newspaper clippings of motorcycle races the winner Louis Torres was in...Some of the articles had him riding other makes like Harley-Davidson, and Indian and others...So what I was after was an article where Torres won a...10 mile stock race....on a Flying Merkel....on the Tampa Bay Track...in which the trophy was donated by H.M. Stanford...Ideally a photo of the trophy would be the end all...But no such luck...It's like looking for a needle in a haystack and you don't even know for sure if the needle's there...Or in this case if the article was ever uploaded...Although I did find one article that documents H.M. Stanford  giving a number of trophies for an event that included motorcycle racing...Only the rest of the facts didn't fall into place...So at least I got that...

Winner of trophy Louis A. Torres 

From 1916 Motorcycle Illustrated Magazine

The Short Exciting Life of Louis Torres

Now let me tell you about the winner Louis A. Torres engraved on the trophy....He must have been something of a local celebrity there in Tampa...Because when I started going thru 1912-1915 era Tampa newspapers...I found clipping about his personal life as well as motorcycle racing...I read quite a number of articles in which Torres and another racer named Johnnie Marsicano competed in races...I didn't read much into that...but then I stumbled on an article about Torres getting arrested...for outrunning a cop on his motorcycle...The article said as much Torres scuffled with the officer after the officer chased him from Tampa to Ybor City, an adjoining town...Thereafter a melee broke out between Torres and the officer which brought the assistance of by standers to help the officer. It even reported Torres threw a chair at him...All very interesting...but even more so when I realized the officer was Johnnie Marsicano!!!...who Torres often competed against on the track...

Then another newspaper article gave a dramatic account of Torres eloping on his motorcycle with a girl barely eighteen...against the wishes of her parents...It's a very interesting article because besides all the drama, it provides two  facts about Torres that further help paint a picture of him...His best-man, Carl Aman, who went with Torres to abscond his waiting bride is indicated as a motorcycle policeman from the Tampa neighborhood of Gary...Which would imply Aman worked with the afore mentioned Tampa motorcycle policeman Johnny Marsicano...Who Torres, at least a few years earlier, was not on good terms with...Then...even more interesting...the article states that after the young couple tied the knot they went directly to Torres's Mother's house to live...And that his mother was the "widow of the late Judge Torres". That implies a lot...because that would mean that when young Torres was arrested and charged for the scuffle with policeman Marsicano....the judge of the case would likely have known Torres's father as a fellow judge...

However the love story wasn't over...or I should say...it was over...less than two months later on February 26th 1916 another article appeared in the Tampa Morning Tribune saying young Torres was being sued for divorce by his wife...

So all of this is very interesting...but I could never find the exact newspaper account of the trophy's race...It would be nice to know the model of the Flying Merkel...and the time...and who else was in the race...But that's what you're up against when you write remotely instead of on location where the microfilm is...Going off what you can cull from the internet is tough...Now if some reader of this piece in Florida should have the time...Nevertheless I'm very thankful I got what I did!...

Torres' Arch Enemy Charged with Murder

I'll give you a perfect example of being left hanging not being able to find all the facts...So I'm almost done going thru news clippings...and I come across a remarkable article in the Tampa Daily Times Sept. 24th 1915...about Louis Torres' feuding rival, Motorcycle Police Officer Johnny Marsicano on trial for murder...What a shock...The article gave a full account of the proceedings in the case...Relating how Marsicano allegedly shot a "Negro" man during a scuffle over his tires being stolen...Terrible and shocking...but just as bad...the article concludes by informing readers the trial would likely continue the following day...and then I could not find another article to learn what ultimately happened...No idea if he was acquitted...went to prison...got the electric chair...nothing nada...aaarrrggghhh!!!!

Well if you think that was shocking...stick around...After a little ways in on my research I speculated what ever became of Louis Torres...I sort of imagined he went on to own a motorcycle dealership...Then I came onto his obituary...He was killed in WWI, in France only a few years after his racing years in Tampa...see it below....

As mentioned two aspects of the trophy bascially had me...First - All the Louis Torres drama above...and...Second -  The phenomona of the Flying Merkel in motorcycle history...let's take a quick closer look at the Merkel in the next page....

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