Sonny Angel

SONNY ANGEL remembers it like it was yesterday. But it was more than 50 years ago when he made his first serious attempt at the motorcycle land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, otherwise known as the word’s longest drag strip.

“The first three days in ’55,” he says, “that track was like runnin’ through oatmeal.” Continuous racing had pounded the salt’s crust into mush. Angel protested until officials graded the track. The next morning, he put new gears in his ’47 Vincent and reached a top speed of 144.69 mph. That would be his fastest-ever official time, and a personal record.

Angel is a motorcycling legend. Hang around long enough at his motorcycle shop, and you’ll hear his many stories. He began racing in earnest in the United States and Europe in 1947 and quickly made a name for himself, “mostly road racing,” he says, recalling campaigns at Willow Glen, Riverside and the Isle of Man.

A native of Tennessee, Angel visited San Diego while on leave from the Navy. “I liked the weather,” he says. “I could ride my motorcycle most of the time.” He eventually settled here and opened his shop on 18th Street in National City in the late 1950s. Sonny Angel’s has been there ever since.

Fast machines and memories crowd Angel’s shop. On any Saturday, you’re likely to find a group of regulars there for coffee and homemade cookies. It’s a tradition that over the years has included some of motorcycling’s royalty. In a photo album on the parts counter is a black-and-white snapshot of Angel with Burt Monroe, “World’s Fastest Indian,” now the subject of a movie starring Anthony Hopkins. The picture was taken in the shop’s yard in 1957.

Now 81, Angel is long retired from racing. The ’47 Vincent is parked for good in a corner of the showroom he built using the sides of packing crates. He thinks about how many times he ran that bike on the salt, how many times he missed the mark. He points to a piece of sheet metal that once housed the motorcycle’s tachometer. “Bend it down, and put a crimp in the front,” he says with certainty, “and it’ll do 150.”

Would he ever take a shot at Bonneville again? “Probably not,” he says, then adds, “But I might. I’ve done stranger things.”

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