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Vintage Fuel Drag Bikes

1M views 3K replies 270 participants last post by  JOHN HANSON 
#1 · (Edited)
This is a new thread I am starting dedicated to Nitro Fuel Drag Bikes. If you were involved with a Top Fuel or Junior Fuel Motorcycle team in the 50s, 60s, 70s and up to 1994 (25 years ago) we invite you to join in and share some of your memories. Or, if you didn't belong to a team but share our passion please join in too. There are other threads here on drag racing so let's keep this about "Nitro". My first fuel bike was an A/F Harley back in 1969. My last was the twin-engine Harley "Freight Train" that I retired in 1985. I will be sharing many fond and a few not so fond memories. This video was filmed in '83 and '84. The opening burnout was me and "The Freight Train" at the 1983 IHRA Spring Nationals in Bristol Tennesee. That was back when Top Fuel Motorcycles were occasionally invited to join in with the cars in a special T/F Motorcycle class. The rest of the video was filmed by my wife and is a little shakey at times but a treasure to me since it is the only film I have of my 21 year motorcycle drag racing career. For some of you it will be the first time you have seen a T/F Motorcycle started on rollers. I hope you enjoy.
 
#421 · (Edited)
Well, I have given up on finding a magazine article covering my first IDBA National Event as a professional T/F racer so I will write this story totally out of a feeble memory from 31 years ago. It should be at least 50% correct..haha.

1979-MY YEAR AS A T/F MOTORCYCLE RACER PART 7

All the excitement of FINALLY being able to compete in an IDBA National Event as a professional Top Fuel Motorcycle racer had finally arrived. The weather was not going to be a problem and I had a couple local races under my belt so I did not have the anticipation like at Gulfport when I had not made a pass on it. I still did not have the proper T/F license and would have to make a couple shakedown runs before I could qualify. When Frank Norris and I (our wives didn't come this time) arrived at the Memphis drag strip on that Thursday afternoon the parking lot was filling with bikes. When we were directed to the T/F pit area it was very humbling. I felt unworthy of parking there. Looking back these 30 plus years I now know I entered into this elite gathering at the pinnacle of T/F motorcycle racing. Let me give you a list of the ones I remember there. Russ Collins and "The Sorcerer"; Elmer Trett and "Pure Pork" twin engine Harley; Joe Thronson and his double Harley; Pete Hill and his supercharged Harley; Kenny Annesley and Carl Ahlfeldt (the defending IDBA National Champions) with the "Orange Crush" twin engine Kawasaki; Ron Teson and rider Jim Bernard on their new supercharged single engine Yamaha; Marion Owens on his twin engine Harley; and little ole me. Oh yes, there was another rookie T/F racer there for his first race too on a supercharged single engine Kawasaki. "Chris" was his name. Chris Hand. Yes, the same Chris Hand who is still racing a T/F bike and will be at the Valdosta, Georgia race next weekend (Nov 12-13-14 2010. I haven't seen him in years). Danny Johnson was also there but had sold his second bike and it was not ready. Missing were the British bikes and Joe Smith with his double. They had all retired from racing. TC and Joe could have still qualified had they been there but that would not have been good for me. The reason I feel like 1979 was the pinnacle of T/F Motorcycle racing is you will notice that 5 of the 8 bikes listed were multi-engine bikes. It was the last year that happened. Some will say a couple years earlier was the pinnacle when ALL the qualified T/F bikes were multi-engined and the British bikes were still competitive. That would be an excellent point to debate. But for me it will remain 1979. We had an almost equal field of multis and singles because the transition to Supercharged singles was underway. And....another factor in my reasoning is that I was not a part of the elite a couple years earlier.

My bike went through tech without a hitch..but I didn't expect any problems. I was told I would need to make two runs the next day before I could attempt to qualify. A 330 foot hard launch and a 3/4 track hard run. I could make those runs during Sportsman qualifying as time allowed. I would just need to be ready.

By the time we left the track that afternoon most of the T/F pit area was empty. I had not got to talk to any of my heros other than short hellos. There was no way I was going to let on how inferior I felt in there presence. Never mind...when we pulled into our motel most of them were there. Collins, Trett, Thronson, Owens, Annesley.....were all in a common area outside bench racing....and I didn't know a single one. Then Danny Johnson rolled in and before long he had introduced me to them. I was the new guy and didn't get to carry on a conversation with any of them that day but like with anything you find someone or someones who become your buddies in time. Many of them did over the next 6 years I rode a T/F motorcycle.

I had been concerned Danny would want to share seat time with me like at Gulfport when we never got to race our bikes because of bad weather...and I would have...but he never asked. I believe he knew at that point he would not have time to run for the championship and build all the T/F bikes he was under contract to. Also, I could call on him if we had problems. So far, we had not blown up any shit (that would be too good to be true for very long). After we all got back to the room from eating dinner Frank and I did a little maintenance to the bike and went to bed. Friday was going to be a very busy day.....and Saturday......and hopefully Sunday
 
#422 ·
Come on Frank, eating lunch here and want to read some more..... :)

Not sure if you are doing this or not so if you are please ignore the rest but for long posts I write it in MS Word then cut and paste, you can set up Word to auto save as you go to. That way you lose nothing and if you wanted, you could join all the word docs together and basically have a book :)
 
#424 ·
Come on Frank, eating lunch here and want to read some more..... :)

Not sure if you are doing this or not so if you are please ignore the rest but for long posts I write it in MS Word then cut and paste, you can set up Word to auto save as you go to. That way you lose nothing and if you wanted, you could join all the word docs together and basically have a book :)[/QUOTE

I'm not sure what you are asking Pete. If it is to speed up my recollections of the '79 season I know most of you would like for it to go faster but I am a hunt&peck typist and still pretty much computer illiterate. Plus, the most important thing for me is accuracy. I love reminising back then but know some of my memories are not correct. I do much research with info I have retained but to me that just is not enough to know 100% what I am writing is accurate. For instance it took me about 4 hours to write the last installment but I had spent weeks trying to verify my memory. This ain't easy for me. Have patience and thanks for letting me know you are enjoying my story.
 
#622 · (Edited)
This is of course Dick Prime back in his prime (pun intended). Would you like to see what happened to some of those parts when Dick quit racing. He sent me these pictures a few years ago. I have not spoke with him in awhile and will do so to see if "The New England Flash" is still cruising the streets on this beast.
 
#429 ·
Once again the last 24 hours have produced some great posts.

jbfrmca,

Some great photos of Raslawski, Leineweber, Smith......and that pic of McClure in his dirt dig days is priceless. I sure miss him. Phyllis was at the AHDRA Rockingham race a few weeks ago.

Danny f,

That is the best shot of Dick Prime's double I remember seeing.

bbdiamond1974,

Thanks for you comment.
 
#430 ·
Would love to have met Jim McClure - and I really like the dirt drag bike picture of him that was posted. He looked to be a great character, and is so obviously still missed by those who knew him.

The Dick Prime shot is also great. There is just something about those old doubles. To me they are just so much larger than life.
I am pleased that I managed to get to see a few of them, and hope that one day Goliath 2 may once again come to life. No pressure Frank!:)
 
#431 ·
1979-MY YEAR AS A TOP FUEL MOTORCYCLE RACER PART 8

I had a good night's rest and was feeling good as we rolled into the pits that Friday Morning. We unloaded the bike and went over it getting it ready for my first test run. I was told by the race officials to be ready by 9am and they would work my run in. I can't remember if Chris Hand had his T/F license yet or not. He probably did because I don't remember him being out there with me for test runs. We fired the bike about 8:30 and it brought about everyone who could get away over to our pit area. There were not many spectators there so it was mostly other racers. We were in the staging lanes just before 9am and the Sportsman bikes were already running. I had my leathers on and was slightly nervous. We didn't have to wait but about 10 minutes before we were called. I would be the first nitro bike down the track. The track official warned me not to make a full pass. "I will disqualify you from this race if you do". He had been told that I had already made about 10 passes on it since Gulfport where Danny Johnson would have rode it if the weather had co-operated and was afraid I would be too confidant. He was right. I had no hesitation about making a full pass. I felt confidant and at ease on this bike. It was really more stable than the Fuel Harley I had rode 10 years earlier. We fired it and I once again rolled into the bleach box (that's what the water box was called back then) in high gear and did a nice burnout. Frank pushed me back to the starting line and lined me up in the groove. I launched hard and stayed on the throttle for what I judged to be 400 feet and shut it off. One down and one to go. We pulled it back to my pit area and prepared it for my final test run. Our first round of T/F qualifying was at 1pm so we were not rushed. It gave me time to walk through the pits and relax a little. I walked over to the Pro Stock pits and talked to Superbike Mike Keyte who was one of my buds from my Pro Stock days. He asked me to be careful. There was always concern from your friends about nitro.

About 11am we fired the bike to prepare for the final test run. The spectators were getting there so we had a larger crowd this time. I let it run for about a minute and shut it off to the usual applause and the "man you are nuts" from a guy and " Pleeeese be careful" from his wife. We pulled it out to the staging lanes and waited for the "crank it" signal. After getting the signal within a few minutes we fired it and I did the burnout and the 3/4 track run. It was hard to shut it off early and felt like it was ready for a full pass. When we got back to the pits Frank Norris started prepping it for our first qualifying pass. I walked over to the tech area and was issued my T/F licence. HOT DAMN!!!! I finally got them. As I was walking back over to my pit area I heard a Fuel Bike fire and knew instantly who it was. It was the most awesome bike there...a Fuel bike that sounded more wicked than anything I had ever heard....ever...ever. It was Russ Collin's "Sorcerer". If you ever heard that bike you will not forget the sound of the two Honda 750 engines joined in a "V" with a supercharger sitting in between. Collins had already ran 199 mph and we all knew the next run could be the first "200". I don't remember If Byron Hines was still working on it or not. That was about the time that he and Terry Vance quit R.C. Engineering and formed Vance & Hines. All the rest of the T/F bikes fired getting ready for our first round of qualifying.

At 12:30 we were called to the staging lanes. This is where I need some magazine articles. The rest of the weekend is not in my feeble memory bank. All I know for sure is that I qualified for my first race and did get to race on Sunday but did not win. I don't remember what position I qualified in the race or what round I lost. We did have more than 8 bikes entered in T/F so I did have to earn a spot for Sunday. It had to have been uneventful for me or I would have remembered blowing some shit up or almost crashing. I don't remember who won but it was probably Annesley. He did not have the fastest or the quickest bike but he just knew how to win and Big Carl always had a good ride underneath him.

My 1979 season was already half over. I had several bookings for the remaining time and a couple more IDBA Nationals. Stay tuned.
 
#434 ·
I am leaving for the race in Valdosta Ga. It will be the first time I have seen Chris Hand and Larry McBride race (in person) in over a decade. They are the last two T/F racers still riding who I raced against. Both have been at it over 30 years. I will give a report when I return.
 
#435 ·
I am at Valdosta and the weather was perfect. There are four Harleys and four I-4s entered in Top Fuel. It was nice to see some my old buddies from when I was still racing including Chris Hand and Larry McBride who 25 years after I hung up my helmet are still racing. We bench raced from back in the day along with Ray Price who has his Harley entered with Tommy Grimes riding it. I will have a lot to post from our conversations when I get back but after the first round of qualifying it is Korry Hogan on top with a 5.81 seconds @ 243 mph. Veteran builder and T/F pilot Sam Wills was there helping with the chassis tuneup. I would say he helped, huh. Hogan crashed this bike here one year ago and after living through it retired. After Sam worked on it he was asked to come back and agreed to make some test passes. He told me today before his blast he had made a couple "straight as an arrow" runs on it and was optomistic it was ready. He was right. On this run he went straight down down the track and did not even need to lean off the side to correct it.
 
#437 · (Edited)
Two Veteran Fuel Motorcycle race teams faced each other in the Valdosta Final, one Harley and one I-4. Veteran rider Larry McBride vs veteran Ray Price's Harley and new rider Tommy Grimes. Larry beat Tommy. I will post Larry's time when it is official and I will have alot to post about my 2 days there.
 
#438 · (Edited)
1979-MY YEAR AS A T/F MOTORCYCLE RACER PART 9

I have mentioned I was a Collector Car dealer and was taking a year off to follow my dream but when a new opportunity came along to potentally expand my business I followed that too. My Dodge Maxi-Van was doing fine since slinging the driveshaft out but when I ran across an ad for a new larger van I looked into it. It was basically a Champion Class B motorhome without any living quarters inside. It was almost exactly the same size as the new large 1 ton Dodge vans you see on the road today...some being converted into motorhomes. In 1979 Champion Industries called this new venture a Handi-Van. Dealer opportunities available the ad said. I called the number and the guy told me I could buy one at their motorhome dealer's price if I wanted to give it a try. I would not be obligated to purchase any more. This was a win-win situation for me. I needed a new hauler and maybe-just maybe I could sell some to other racers.

I hated to fly then as I do today. But that was the quickest way to get it home. The plant was in Indiana so I made my plans to fly to Fort Wayne where an employee would take me to the plant.. My flight was to leave on Friday morning May 25th at 8am and connect at Chicago's O'Hare International airport before continuing on to Ft Wayne. My wife had been after me to take her to a movie just out. I didn't care anything about seeing a movie about a couple divorcing but we went to see Kramer vs Kramer on the Thursday night before my flight. I'm glad I did. Good movie. She had me out to the Charlotte airport about 30 minutes before my plane's departure time (times have changed) and I boarded my flight. I didn't like it at all. I was wishing I rode a train or bus. I had an erie feeling.

After a nervous flight we arrived at O'Hare. I wanted to kiss the ground but quickly made my way to the next leg's departure gate. I was a little more at ease with the final leg to Ft Wayne. I was picked up on time by a company employee. It was about 3pm so I had time to do the paperwork there and get on the road back home before the 5 o'clock traffic. The guy wasn't very talkative so we were listening to the radio about 3:30 when a news break interupted the music. That had been a plane crash. The details were schetchy but it was bad and it was at O'Hare. My stomach started churning. I was just there...on a plane. I had made it to my destination and didn't have any more flying to do. I wouldn't have. A DC10 (the second largest plane at the time to the 747) had crashed on takeoff. It was on fire. It didn't look good for any survivors. I was looking up to Heaven and saying a prayer for the passengers and also thanking God that was not my plane. It turned out the left engine had fell off at just 500 feet of altitude and the plane rolled over and crashed in a field. All 271 passengers died. It was the worst airline tragedy in history on US soil ( I believe it still is). It was caused by a mechanic cutting corners when replacing that engine. For the rest of that day and the next day while driving home I was constantly hearing reports on the radio. It really made me ill.

It would be 15 years before I got on another plane and I was still thinking about that crash. Below is a picture of that Handi-Van at a Farmington race. I had about 6 speakers in it to listen to the 8 track player. Supertramp's "Breakfast in America" got the most airplay that year but Frank Norris was a huge Donna Summer fan so she got almost equal time. I did not get a single order for a Handi-Van so that endeavor didn't work out very well. After the racing season was over I sold it to a local contractor. He must have drove it 10 years.
 
#440 · (Edited)
Here is my first report from Valdosta. Since this is a Vintage thread I will only post pictures of some of the Vintage guys I was racing with 30 years ago and their current rides. Larry McBride won T/F with a 5.83 at 232 mph. I believe that was his best run of the weekend. He was beat by Chris Hand during the eliminations but Hand crossed the center line and was disqualified. The pictures below (clockwise) are of Kelly Trett looking at Larry McBride The next is Jackie Trett. Kelly is the late Elmer and Jackie's youngest daughter. The next is the electric powered dragbike that McBride is involved with. Larry turned high sevens at nearly 170 mph with it and it makes no noise other than slicing through the air. Very impressive. The next is a repost to show you how skinny a hippy looking Larry was 30 years ago when I was racing him. As you can see he has taken good care of himself and is still very fit and trim. The next is Chris Hand and the last is Ray Price's Harley. It was great to see them all again.
 
#441 · (Edited)
This was Danny Johnson's last T/F bike. It was built by him and Puppet about 25 years ago. It is powered by two Suzuki 4 cyl. engines mated together in a "V" much like Russ Collin's "Sorcerer" but it was not supercharged. In my opinion it is the most awesome bike Johnson ever built. It is still around but like "The Sorcerer" is not together. I took this picture at Darlington in the late eighties-early nineties and I believe his son Ronnie was riding it at the time. I have another picture of Danny and the crew with it I will scan and post later.
 
#443 ·
Frank, your mention of the DC10 crash brought back memories for me, from my second trip to America in 1975. We had to stop on route as the cargo door on our DC10 would not shut properly. A new shaft had to be fitted - and it was a failure of that part which had caused a DC10 to fall out of the sky a few months earlier!

That Suzuki Danny built is a beautiful piece of work Frank.
Would have liked to see that one. Do you know what sort of times it ran?

Daamud, that is a meaty blower you have for that bike.
What make and size of motor did it run originally?
 
#510 ·
Daamud, that is a meaty blower you have for that bike.What make and size of motor did it run originally?
Just got back home from Christmas and parts collecting. Some good news some bad. The motor is a Shovel based motor with a 4" bore and 5.50" stroke, with my math this should be about a 138" or 2266cc for you metric folks. Heads have 1.95" int. and 1.75"exh. valves. Most parts should be salvageable or at least give me a direction to go. Bad news is I only have half of the crank:(!! Does anyone have any info on were to start looking for parts for this beast?

Also, I asked grandma to look for any paperwork on the bike. The only thing she found so far is a couple letters from Jim Leineweber on Swift Cycles letterhead dating back to 1961. Must have been talking cams for an earlier bike.

P.S. Looking forward to that E.J. Potter video!
 
#444 ·
Hard to tell at this point. I've got many boxes of parts. A bunch of stuff showing he had many bikes including a small GMC blower set up for a sporty. The box of parts I think go to this bike show a shovel with a 4" bore (piston rings i found) and push rods about 2.5" over stock size. After talking with my farther he said it had "hemi" car pistons in it, and that they've found the cases, one cylinder, two heads, flywheels and a pile of aluminum chunks. I just have to get back home to pick them up. So we'll see soon!
 
#445 · (Edited)
This is a picture of probably the most important Fuel Bike in existence. It is "The Barn Job" with builder/rider Clem Johnson. It was a mechanical work of art. Enlarge the picture a couple times and look at the detail work. This was the first Fuel Bike that I became aware of because it was in Hot Rod magazines. I didn't buy any magazines back then because I was still in school but I loved to look through them whenever the opportunity arose, mostly at garages in my neighborhood. This feature was in the early '60s. I thought he was nuts for riding it 150 mph. Before there was Leo Payne or Boris Murray or Joe Smith, I knew about Clem Johnson. He has ALWAYS been a motorcycle racer I have greatly admired. I got a huge thrill when I spoke with him by phone about 15 years ago.

Fast forward to this year. I have been helping John Stein with his book on motorcycle drag racing (more about that soon) and sent him some pictures, this being one of them. Turns out he knows Clem Johnson quite well and you can imagine the surprise when one day I had a package from John returning most of my pictures and when going through them running across this one. John had taken it to Clem and had him autograph it for me. WOW!!!!

Clem Johnson still owns this bike as he has for over 50 years. Joe Smith is one of only a few riders who made a pass on it. I believe he was the first pilot when Clem hung up his helmet.
 
#447 · (Edited)
This is the other picture of Danny Johnson's last Fuel Bike I mentioned I would post (Picture by Ron Rutledge). I have talked about Frog Thacker while re-living my 1979 year but did not have any pictures of him to go along with the stories. This is the best picture I have seen of him. As you can see he was getting up in years ( and this was some 20 years ago) but still a great rider (and very distinguished looking). He was riding for Danny at the time as he had done off and on for many years. He is one of the most fearless riders I have known. I have also mentioned Wilbur Beaty, Johnson's long time race team partner, in some previous posts. That's him to the left of Frog. I have tried to get in touch with Thacker for quite some time but he has disappeared from all my contacts. I was told he was very ill several years ago and fear the worst. This was at the old Bristol Dragway.
 
#455 ·
This is the other picture of Danny Johnson's last Fuel Bike I mentioned I would post (Picture by Ron Rutledge). I have talked about Frog Thacker while re-living my 1979 year but did not have any pictures of him to go along with the stories. This is the best picture I have seen of him. As you can see he was getting up in years ( and this was some 20 years ago) but still a great rider (and very distinguished looking). He was riding for Danny at the time as he had done off and on for many years. He is one of the most fearless riders I have known. I have also mentioned Wilbur Beaty, Johnson's long time race team partner, in some previous posts. That's him to the left of Frog. I have tried to get in touch with Thacker for quite some time but he has disappeared from all my contacts. I was told he was very ill several years ago and fear the worst. This was at the old Bristol Dragway.


Mr Spittle,,,,,,,, I raced Frog Thacker,,in the finals,,,in 2004 at the All Harley Drags in Kansas City MO........HE WON........( I will save the long version of the story for later)........can only find these 2 pics ---in the pits of his StripTease Bike............as memory serves me.......I heard about a year later at the Truett & Osborn all bike drags.....that he had passed away..........Gary Bailey

 
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