Racing Into the Past

 

As we age, it’s not at all uncommon for many of us to yearn to revisit our “glory days”, such as they may have been.  Most who have been involved with drag racing will naturally gravitate toward reliving our times at the drag strip. I’ve been satisfying that urge for a number of years now, courtesy of a vintage ‘50s style drag bike nicknamed “The Knuckledragger” along with a couple different racing venues.  It began with the efforts of Wayne Skinner and his NVMDRA (National Vintage Motorcycle Drag Racing Association).  After putting on races in both Illinois and Iowa, Wayne talked me into entering the “Meltdown Drags”, a drag strip weekend at Byron Dragway limited to ’66 and earlier vehicles.  That became my venue of choice for my new one-outing-per-year habit until “The Iowa Hog Drags revisited and Nostalgia Reunion” came into being due to the efforts of Jay Rogers.  Extremely cool as the Meltdown Drags were, how could I resist returning to what had become basically my home track for about a 10-year period of following the AMRA (American Motorcycle Racing Association) circuit.

The last couple years of running The Knuckledragger at the reunion have been a blast, with the added blessing of seeing a lot of old familiar faces.  And I have to add that overall I am quite happy with the performance of the Knuckledragger.  12.03 @ 113 for the quarter and 7.65 @ 96 in the eighth mile pulling air through those tiny little Linkert carbs is about all a guy should ask of the old Knuck, especially given the need to finesse the clutch to keep from twisting the 90 year old VL frame into a pretzel. But of course there is always that spark of competitiveness that never really dies, so I might blame it on a certain red Honda that has been at most of those same races, and always out-ETs the Knuckledragger (you KNOW who you are!). Though we have yet to line up across from each other, inevitably thoughts of what my original drag bike was capable of running kept invading my thoughts (uninvited, mind you). 

So, why not recreate the bike that Jane and I raced during our most successful year of drag racing? Obviously that year was 1987, when we were fortunate enough to win the Pro-Stock National Championship, which was incidentally the AMRA’s first year for the class.   After all, I must have a few parts left over from that bike, …right?  So, project “The Beast” circa 1987 began again.

As it turns out, I actually had only a handful of parts left over from the original chassis.  The 21” front rim.  The dual cable throttle assembly.  The headlight visor.  The Superglide brake pedal assembly.  And, …that’s about it!  In the engine department the count wasn’t much better, though the parts were far more important: heads, cylinders, and carbs.  For those not familiar, the 1987 version of The Beast started life as a 1975 Superglide with the stock alternator cases modified to accept Axtell 3-13/16” bore cylinders and 5” stroker flywheels for 114 cubic inches topped with dual carb Knuckle heads.

Obviously the most cost effective way to duplicate that bike would involve finding a more or less complete mid-‘70s Superglide since I needed a frame, engine cases, and transmission. Well, a 1975 didn’t fall into my lap, but we eventually did find a ’79 that was priced right, and at $1200 it would suffice. Much work has been done since unloading the pieces, but the pictures below represent what we started with and what I aim to recreate. Stay tuned for some in-progress pics as I can spare the time. 

The starting point for a new "Beast"

 

The 1987 version