Right Back Where We Started

Given that the return of 4th of July weekend drag racing to Humboldt is imminent, I thought it might be fun to show the changes in our entry for that race over a span of years.

First up 1985, but technically not my entry.  This was Bobby's 92 inch Shovel motor (which I built for him) in my chassis.  We would pull the engine from his Low Rider for each race and then put it back the following Monday evening.  He set the HDRA L Class ("Street Racer FL") 1/8 mile record at the Iowa Hog Drags to 7.60.  I don't recall his MPH at Humboldt, but later in the year he lowered the record to 7.27 and 99 MPH. And yes, in the foreground is the size of the tool box we carried to the races.

 1986 - Same chassis but with our 106" dual carb Knuck on a cone lower end, and now named "The Beast".  We set the AMRA record at the Iowa Hog Drags to 7.64 and 93.95 MPH in the UBS (Ultra Big Stroker) FL class.  Later in the year we added another 1/4 stroke (to 114") and lowered the record to 7.12, and though we broke 100 MPH, by then Mike Magaro had bumped the MPH record for the class to just a tad shy of 106.

In 1987, using pretty much the same bike but with the addition of a 7 inch slick and wheelie bars, we made it to the final round in Pro Stock at the Iowa Hog Drags.  A kill switch malfunction on the launch gave the win to Bob Buckley (not that he wouldn't have won anyway) with his 93" Nitrous Oxide assisted Shovelhead. We had the last laugh though, by taking home the Pro Stock National Championship for the year.

1988's Iowa Hog Drags felt like the beginning of the downward slide into obscurity.  All new state of the art chrome-moly frame with an 8.5 inch slick and the bike went slower.  We won one round but were plagued with shifting problems and everything else it seemed.  We ran the bike in basically this configuration through 1993.

1996 - A bridge too far...  A Truett 3 rail frame with a 10" slick and B&J 3 speed transmission behind a 120 cubic inch Knuckle with a Vortech centrifugal blower and electronic fuel injection running in the Top Gas class.   We named it "The White Knuckle Express". Though my notes from the Iowa Hog Drags that year are a bit sketchy, it appears that a first round Bye run resulted in finding the blower seized after the pass. Never got close to hitting the potential of this bike due to every gremlin one could imagine all attacking in force and unrelentingly over a period of several years.

2019: July 6 at North Iowa Dragway.  God willing we will be there with "The Knuckledragger".  After the blower bike, this could be called "making drag racing fun again."  Hard to believe that its been 34 years since that first one.


NOTE: As it happens, none of the above pictures were taken at the Iowa Hog Drags, but they are from the years as mentioned.