Vintage Fuel Drag Bikes

[Keith Lee]

What a great shame that the Bowling Green events came to an end in such an ugly fashion. I still very much regret not coming over to take up the offer to go along to that meet in 1976 with the Hogslayer crew, as it was a classic that I read much about in the bike mags of the era.
Then again, that chance could have come in 1978 - and I would not want to have been any part of that. I can imagine from Frank's account that it was a very scary place to be.

One place there will not be guns and mayhem is Santa Pod over on our side of the pond in mid July. What there will be though is 6 twin-engined bikes out on track at the Dragstalgia event!
I now have it confirmed that the quickest of our doubles will be back out for the event, which must have the largest gathering of these bikes working for a long time.
More info at: http://eurodragster.co/news/news.asp?Story=june19#june19

Now if only we could sneak Hogslayer out of the Motorcycle Museum, I'm sure I could find someone to ride it!

[RAGBAK]

[frank spittle]

I truly hope the lawlessness at motorcycle drag races is over. I have not heard of any in a long time. The gangs are still out there but have mellowed it seems to me. There were several chapters of the Hells Angels at the Rockingham race a few weeks ago that were set up as vendors....selling t-shirts and other Angel souvenirs along side all the other vendors selling everything motorcycle related. I found myself at ease there and really enjoyed the race.

I hope all goes well with the weather at Dragstalgia Keith. Please keep us up to date. You know there are a lot of JJ readers who wish they could be there....me included.

[Racepres]

Originally Posted by frank spittle

I truly hope the lawlessness at motorcycle drag races is over. I have not heard of any in a long time. The gangs are still out there but have mellowed it seems to me. There were several chapters of the Hells Angels at the Rockingham race a few weeks ago that were set up as vendors....selling t-shirts and other Angel souvenirs along side all the other vendors selling everything motorcycle related. I found myself at ease there and really enjoyed the race.

Glad you had a good time.
Bowling Green is alot like that...But Bigger in Every Way.
And ...of course the Campground is still there!!

Originally Posted by frank spittle

I hope all goes well with the weather at Dragstalgia Keith. Please keep us up to date. You know there are a lot of JJ readers who wish they could be there....me included.

Me Also..wish well and wanna be included.

[Keith Lee]

Originally Posted by frank spittle

I truly hope the lawlessness at motorcycle drag races is over. I have not heard of any in a long time. The gangs are still out there but have mellowed it seems to me. There were several chapters of the Hells Angels at the Rockingham race a few weeks ago that were set up as vendors....selling t-shirts and other Angel souvenirs along side all the other vendors selling everything motorcycle related. I found myself at ease there and really enjoyed the race.

I hope all goes well with the weather at Dragstalgia Keith. Please keep us up to date. You know there are a lot of JJ readers who wish they could be there....me included.

I will check, but am hopeful that the webcam will be running at this event on July 12/13th, so you guys can see and hear the action.

Assuming it is covered, if you check out http://eurodragster.com you will find the link to the live coverage over the weekend - including those wild altereds Frank!

[frank spittle]

I had a great time Saturday at the Manufacturers Cup race at Virginia Motorsports Park. There were only 4 T/F motorcycles there and three of the riders were my competitors when I was still active 30 years ago. They are Larry McBride, Chris Hand and Sam Wills.

Larry and Steve McBride were once again at the top of qualifying when I left with a 5.97 after Q1 Friday night. Just before Q2 Steve told me the track could hold more and he was giving it to Larry. But Larry got out about 100 feet and went up in tire smoke and much like the great Elmer Trett gave the fans something to talk about by getting in and out of the throttle 4 times but smoking the tire the entire quarter. There is no one who can handle one of these machines any better than him.

On Q2 Chris and Sharon Hand were close with a 6.21. Chris has been active in T/F every year since 1979 and recently joined the prestigious 5 Second Club.

But the big news was Sam Wills, who came out of retirement last year to pilot Mike Dryden's new bike that Sam built. Sam ran a 6.16 in a test session on Friday. He is obviously getting more at ease with this powerful machine. Sam won the championship 30 years ago on the Terminal Van Lines bike when I was racing the Freight Train.

Another rider who has become very competitive is newcomer Dave Vantine. He ran a 6.15 on the Pollard machine. I understand he had no nitro experience when he was hired by the team last year. It takes a lot of personal will to move up in such fashion. I feel sure he was second guessing his decision to do so for a while but he seems very comfortable on it now.

[ejkelly]

I was there Sat and Sun as well. I asked Larry about some help with my project. I must have looked pretty hot, as he told me I could go up to his box (204) to cool off. I took him up on it. Sam ended up running a 6.06 against Larry's 5.96. Was a great race right to the end when I saw a small white poof of smoke from Sam's bike after the 1000' mark. It was Sam's personal best (so far). Larry won the meet with a 5.84 solo run. I too enjoyed Larry's multiple wheel stand run. Only he could pull off such a thing.

[frank spittle]

I was up in Suite 204 for awhile on Saturday. It was nice to get out of the heat.

Looks like Sam will be in the Fives before long.

I hope Larry and Steve can help you with your project.

[knuckleworks]

from today

[FearNoEvo]

Is that the Spook I see in the background on picture #2?

[twistedtee]

Man, those are the bikes I used to sketch in my junior-high notebooks. M&H Racemaster, tank in frame and not much more!
Jerry
Rhode Island

[Alsledgehammer]

Havent been posting lately but speaking about the blow out in 1978 we where there did leave saturday thru the corn field with the owner in his cadillac to get to the hotel. Got back the next morning the guys burned some of those hay bales that night rolled them down the hills into a barn during rock bands playing tc said it was pretty wild you know he was in the middle of it. All day saturday those guys where running their own drags in the camp ground but using a 357 to flag off the riders so every minute you got a shot going off a few hundred feet away so we kept ducking into the trailer everytime a shot went off. I went back that sunday morning trounced the fastest guy there with our norton push bike to get ready for the first round where the triple fuel starved on the burnout shutdown against marion owens who by the way ended up runner up to Ron teson that year. I got a motion picture clip of about 8 seconds of the triple norton blowing the tire off in 1977 with its 8 inch tire it came to me looking for Tc footage turned out to be me so I will try to post it in the next few days its kinda cool. congrats to Joe on his induction we where there in 2005 for t c induction joe certainly deserves to be there pete hill & terry vance are the only other dragguys on the wall of fame. The meet was advertised in easy riders(bring your butt to bowling green) you could tell thursday when we got there too many wrong faces. kinda put the kebosh on what was the meeting place where the west coast guys came to battle the east coast not many national venues would draw all the players from both coast. allen mavor

[frank spittle]

I received an email from Joe Smith today and he continues to improve. His weight has increased from 127 to 160. He and his old buddy Jim Cook are back to golfing and he is out fishing today.
He did not mention being selected for the AMA HOF membership so I went online. Their latest information is three new inductees have been announced (none Joe) and more will be announced in the coming weeks.
Here are the present members with drag racing in their portfolio. All have Fuel Bikes on their resumes except Dave Schultz:

T.C. Christenson
Russ Collins Sr.
Pete Hill
Jim McClure
Cook Neilson
Leo Payne
Ray Price
Dave Shultz
Elmer Trett
Terry Vance

You are right Allen, there should be many more...including Joe Smith. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

[tripler]

Yep - That's The Spook... Last weekend was it's first outing in quite a while.. I sold it to Daniel about a year and a half ago and he completely rebuilt the '72 Kosman Chassis Big Twin and the photo was last weekend in Kjula Sweden... They've got a FB page (The Spook Racing Team) and are real nice folks..

[frank spittle]

I had another long conversation with professor Price yesterday, and as always I understand nitro a little better. I have stated many times I just rode the Fuel Bikes I campaigned and the only thing I had to do was mix the percentage of nitro my crew chiefs ordered.

Ray Price is a guy who can explain to low information racers like myself why shit happens, good and bad, when using nitro. Here is part of our conversation in his words.

"The amount of the volume of nitro we can burn in a 1/4 mile has increased significantly since I started racing Fuel Bikes. We use about 2 gallons per pass now compared to half that when I started. The more volume you can burn the more horsepower we make which increases the speeds which lowers the elapsed times. The reason we can burn twice as much is two fold:

1) Ignition---The ignition systems we have today will burn a much larger volume of nitro than we had 40 years ago.
2) Load---Heat is what burns nitro and the ignition system is only part of the ignition. Loading the motor creates heat also. A good example is an engine in a farm tractor. If you are driving the tractor without pulling anything behind it the engine runs cool. But when you start plowing you can sometimes see the exhaust manifolds turn cherry red. That is from loading the engine causing exhaust temperatures to rise significantly. Those extreme exhaust temperatures in my bike burn excess nitro increasing the horsepower. My first Funny Bike spun the tire the whole 1/4 mile and never loaded the motor until the very end of the run.

But there is a fine line in making a good pass. We have the bike set up to load the engine at the hit of the throttle to build heat to help the ignition system burn the huge volume of fuel we give it. If the tire loses traction there goes the load and the heat it creates and the ignition system can not burn that volume and we lose a cylinder. But if it stays loaded we can put up one of those low 6s at over 230 mph."

Thanks for the lesson Ray.

[knuckleworks]

Originally Posted by tripler

Yep - That's The Spook... Last weekend was it's first outing in quite a while.. I sold it to Daniel about a year and a half ago and he completely rebuilt the '72 Kosman Chassis Big Twin and the photo was last weekend in Kjula Sweden... They've got a FB page (The Spook Racing Team) and are real nice folks..

all of thoose bikes sounded awesome

[JOHN HANSON]

Does anyone recall Dr Dean Hill the chemist who was the fuel inspector for NHRA several years ago? He gave a seminar on nitro, how it works and how to use it. It was quite lengthy and someone eventually put on a cd. If you can get a copy of it, it's very educational.
Here's a real good site on fuel as well.
http://www.enginelabs.com/engine-tec...t-racing-fuel/

[frank spittle]

John Gregory sent me an email stating he and Jody will be at the Concours show in Michigan July 26th-27th. It will be good to see them again. The last time was the Reunion in 1997.

John is one of motorcycle drag racing's greatest innovators. T.C. was a great rider but it was John who gave him a bike he win on.

[greasystain]

i honestly wish those guys could get along. john and i have talked a few times and its always awkward if tc is around. john and i talked about flatheads for a while and he totally changed my perspective on flathead performance.

on another note i started to mess with putting the first drag bike back together again, im hoping to have it running by the end of the month

[drtybiker]

Does anyone here know of a Top Fuel rider name "Buzzard" I think from the Virginia area I was looking for any pictures of him if there are any out there, I was dissappointed to see The AHDRA did not run this past year, or has it been 2 years now there was a time when I attended the Bithlo event for like ten years strait then chased it from Bradenton To Gainsville and eventually back to Bithlo nothing like the smell of Nitro now is there , here is a picture of one of the last few tee shirts I bought in about mid to late 90's (if I can post it)