Joe Sawtus still gets a tear in his eye when he remembers his brother Bill, whose guidance played a huge role in Joe's success in business, racing and wrestling.
Bill Sawtus
Canadian Motorcycle blends a nice selection of old stock with all the latest parts, accessories, riding apparel and helmets.
Joe Sawtus (doing wheelie on left) was a three time Manitoba champ who won countless races.
Joe Sawtus was a YMCA wrestling champ and Olympic hopeful in the 1950s. Now 74 years old, Sawtus has amassed an amazing collection of motorcycle parts and memorabilia.
It had been a few years since my last trip to Canadian Motorcycle on Main Street, but the moment the door closed behind me, it was apparent things hadn't changed one bit.
Old motorcycle parts still hang from the walls alongside trophies, photographs and posters from races that roared through town decades ago. The path that begins at the front door still winds its way to the back of the shop, and the owner, 74-year-old Joe Sawtus, is still sitting in the exact same spot behind the counter that he has been inhabiting since 1970. "Right on, guy," he says with a flicker of familiarity in his eyes. "Take a look around and we'll be with you in a minute."
Five hours later I walked back out onto Main Street with a packed notebook and an enlightening story of one man's quest for life, love, and the pursuit of two-wheeled happiness.
Sawtus was born in 1933, during as he puts it, the Great Depression.
Joe's story quickly begins to unfold like a Charles Dickens tale, as it would appear his best of times were also his worst. "We were dirt poor," recalls Sawtus of growing up in a two room house without running water in the Brooklands area of Winnipeg. "But there was always food on the table and we were always laughing and kidding."
Joe got his start with motorcycles way back in 1944 at only 11 years old, riding on his older brother Bill's small British army bike, a Frances-Barnett model. Bill, who was a motorcycle instructor with the Winnipeg Light Infantry Division during the Second World War, was 16 years older than Joe, and treated him as much like a nephew as a kid brother. By age 12 Joe was roaring around on Bill's massive 1942 Harley-Davidson every chance he could get.
In the spring of 1949, still a few months shy of his sixteenth birthday, Joe was itching to get his first real job.
"There was a guy in our neighbourhood a few years older than me who had been fired from his job at Moore's Taxi for riding one of the company's Harley-Davidson motorcycles out to the lake, so I went down there, lied about my age and applied for the job," said Sawtus with a smile. Following a brief demonstration of his riding skills, he was hired on the spot, but there was one condition, he had to show the man his drivers licence the next day. "A friend of mine rode his bike down to the police station in St. Boniface for me and I walked in there as proud as a peacock and told the officer I just got a job at Moore's Taxi and needed a motorcycle licence," said Joe. "He never even asked me how old I was." After he handed over five dollars, the officer took Joe outside, strapped a walkie talkie onto him and told him to ride the bike down Provencher Avenue. Two turns later and the policeman told him to return to the station. He had passed the test, and the rest, as Joe says, is history.
Delivering parts and packages to every corner of the city on a Harley-Davidson was Joe's dream job, and when combined with the expert training he received from his brother Bill, he quickly became an accomplished motorcycle rider and racer.
A small yellowed newspaper clipping in Joe's photo album tells the tale of the first race he ever won, a hill climb event on the outskirts of town in the fall of 1949. At only 16 Joe beat out local legend Tiny Robbins and a pack of other riders, many who were twice his age. In keeping with his parent's wishes, Joe was the first member of his family to graduate from high school, majoring in auto and power crafts at Tec-Voc High in 1951.
Just as Joe's racing career was starting to really take off, he also took an active interest in amateur wrestling, and even trained with the Canadian Olympic team, almost making it to the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. After wrestling he returned to racing, and worked at a number of jobs, ranging from the railway, to driving a truck, working in a print shop, and even a stint as a corrections officer at Stony Mountain Penitentiary.
Joe competed in the Manitoba Motorcycle Clubs annual 50 mile marathon race consecutively from 1950 though to 1964. He won the race three times, and also won numerous other local races.
After quitting his job as a printer in the mid 1960s, Joe started a small motorcycle shop on Pembina Highway. Due to his notoriety as both a wrestler and a racer, Joe's shop was popular, and business was so brisk he quickly expanded to a shop on Spence Street. "Eaton's was selling Road King motorcycles through their catalogue and they needed someone to do their service work," said Joe. "It was a good deal that really gave me a boost in the motorcycle business." By the time Eaton's was done selling motorcycles in 1967, Japanese motorcycles were becoming the rage, and Joe listened to advice from his brother and became a Kawasaki dealer. By 1970, he had sold so many bikes he was able to buy his present location at 981 Main Street. "We stuck with Kawasaki from 1967 through to 1977," said Joe, our best year was 1972 when we sold more than 200 bikes. I remember one weekend we took in $22,000 and we didn't even have a cash register."
In those days Joe had as many as 12 people working for him, in addition to new Kawasaki sales, the shop also did full service on all makes of motorcycles. The overhead started to take its toll, and Joe stopped selling Kawasaki following the 1976 model year. The shop also stopped doing service in 1980, and since then Joe has focused his attention on the sale of motorcycle parts, accessories, riding apparel and a huge assortment of helmets. Nowadays he often sees third-generation customers in the shop.
Joe, who never married, lost his brother Bill in 1992, he still gets a tear in his eye when he talks about him at length, and acknowledges that if it weren't for the guidance and support his brother gave him, he is certain he would not have had such an amazing life. "Everybody should have a brother like mine," he said with a sigh. "He always looked out for me."
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Source: http://autos.winnipegfreepress.com/index.php?action=news&step=article&id=462#