The Eternal LIFE of Betty Drafton

It’s the original ‘who is she?’ scenario; a hot blonde on a motorcycle wearing a tight sweater over a bullet bra and turned-up dungarees.  Specifically, she’s riding a 1947 Velocette MAC bob-job, photographed while cruising through Griffith Park.  Photographer Loomis Dean’s unpublished ‘LA motorcycle women’ photo series from 1949 is Insta-famous, but little effort has been made to discover the back story on the ladies.  Luckily, their identity is now known, as the women were photographed riding (and even racing) at other times and places. There might be a sexist assumption that Betty Drafton and the other lady riders pictured in 1949 are riding ‘their boyfriend’s bikes’, but the LA ladies captured by Dean were rough riders indeed, who competed – as they could – in off-road competitions, and knew their way around a motorcycle.

In 1949 Loomis Dean was assigned by LIFE magazine to capture women motorcycle riders in Los Angeles.  Dean had joined LIFE only a year prior, after a stint shooting for Barnum & Bailey circus, and for the US Army Air Force in the Pacific in WW2.  Dean found an interesting group of women who regularly competed in SoCal events: the previous year they had each participated in an ‘All-Girl Trials’, as documented in the May 1948 issue of Cycle magazine.  The Royal Riders MC of Monterey Park organized the English-style trials, and 30 women showed up, which the article notes was a larger entry than the ‘All-Male Trials’ that were then the rule. This was an AMA-sanctioned event, and the women came from various riding clubs from all over Southern California.  While Cecilia Adams won the race on her special ‘Royal Indianfield’ – a Sport Scout motor in a Bullet chassis with a swingarm conversion – two women rode Velocettes in the event: Pattie Harker took 5^th place on her standard 1948 MAC, and Betty Grafton took 9^th on her bob-job MAC.  The rest of the riders used a real mix of machines: 8 Harley-Davidsons, 6 Triumphs, 3 Matchless, 3 BSA, 2 each Velocette/Ariel/Indian/Royal Enfield.

The most famous of Loomis Dean’s photos show Betty Drafton, Cecilia Adams (AJS), and Lucille Meeker (Triumph) riding through Griffith Park in LA, with their boyfriends in tow astride their own bikes. A few shots show Betty riding pillion on her MAC’s tiny Buco P-pad: she was young, looked sensational, and clearly enjoyed the attention.  Dean caught her pal Cecilia Adams doing donuts in the dirt, while Betty and Mackie watched; she was clearly a kickass rider, as evidenced by her win in the trials.  In 1953 Cecilia made the cover of Cycle magazine (Jan 1953) on an updated version of her Royal Indianfield, with the caption ‘Mama’s Day Off.’  Legend.

I’ve been digging but haven’t found much further about Betty Drafton, whose bike is modified in typical SoCal fashion as a bob-job: no front fender, shortened rear, license plate wrapped around the back fender, no electrics at all, Flanders handlebars and risers, solo saddle and P-pad, a flashy red/white paint job with matching white-center wheel rims, plus a ‘cocktail shaker’ muffler – a megaphone with removable end cap, as sold by Triumph in the race kit for their T100.  The front-wheel driven speedo remained.  Betty’s bike is very, very cool, and I’m tempted to build a replica just because HER.  As a contrast, Betty’s pal Pattie Harker’s 1948 MAC with Dowty forks is bog standard, as seen one the starting line of a women’s race.  Both MACs would presumably have been sold by West Coast Velocette importer Ernie Pico in LA.  Both bikes are probably still in a SoCal garage: where are they now?  A new generation of lady Velocette riders is looking for them…