1985 Revisited

(Maybe, just maybe I finally figured out how to post a video right here on my very own blog)

The above is from some home movies from 1985. It was originally shot with an 8mm camera ....you know, the kind you set up a screen and projector to play. Yeah, I know; the dark ages.

We took our little Shovelhead drag bike out to Farmington North Carolina for the HDRA (predecessor to the AHRDA) National Finals. The good looking kid in the camouflage T-shirt is Bobby McGranahan, my racing partner and owner of the engine. The fat guy on the fast bike is me; the engine builder and owner of the chassis. Bobby was the pilot, but he always encouraged me to take the bike down the strip during test and tune to keep me enthused. His charity back fired on him though, as the following year I built a dual carb Knuckle motor to go in this same chassis, and went racing on my own. Bobby passed away several years ago, and we all still miss him.

If I am not mistaken, the gentleman in the red T-shirt adding H2O to the water box is Red Roberts, the founder of the HDRA.

BTW, the bike in the right lane did not break. It was not uncommon for our bike to win by that kind of margin.

When Shovelheads Ruled the World, Part 6

When I left off this story in When Shovelheads Ruled the World, Part 5 , we had just loaded up the dragbike to head to Farmington, North Carolina for the HDRA National Finals. That's a pretty good jaunt from Minnesota, so I had made special provisions. Yes, for the 4th race of the year, we had our 4th different tow vehicle. The year was 1985, and my wife and I splurged and bought a 1979 Dodge van just for the trip! To help with gas expense we bring along another local racer, Guy, with his Panhead that he ran in the Handshift Class. Guy has to be one of the most obnoxious people I have ever known, but hey, gas money is gas money! As I recall, Guy still had to put the heads back on his bike, so we loaded it in the back of the van so he could work on it during the trip. So it was just my wife Jane and I, Bobby, Guy, one other friend, Jim, and a Panhead in the van; the Shovelhead dragbike on our same little open trailer behind. Cozy might be a generous way to describe it.

Guy endeared himself to me forever by immediately demanding to know if I had tuned up the van because he didn't want to have to pay for any more gas than necessary, and complaining that he could hear an exhaust manifold leak, and that better not cause too much heat on his feet when he took his turn driving. Kind of took the wind out of my sails as I had felt like quite the hero for going out and buying a van for the trip. Turned out that Guy need not have worried about heat, because his driving was so bad that after one turn, the rest of us unanimously banned him from another turn behind the wheel.

In light of the above, undoubtedly the hi-light of the trip to North Carolina came when Jane started to make sandwiches. Guy, with his usual tact, demanded "Jane, make me one of those!" My wife is known by most of my friends to be pretty feisty, so we were all somewhat surprised when Jane complied without any comment. She got her revenge, though, soon after Guy's sandwich was passed back to him. His exclamation upon biting into a sandwich that included a slice of cheese still in the wrapper was priceless. The story of the cheese wrapper has become legendary among the old drag racers we know.

We arrived at the dragstrip sometime after midnight on Friday night. Of course the gates were closed, so the best we could do was find a field road approach to park on. No one got a comfortable nights sleep, but at least here the weather was mild. The next morning we were early to the track, and all set for a day of racing! Or were we? The first thing after unloading the Shovelhead, I opened my toolbox to double check all of the fasteners. What do you suppose was the very first thing to meet my eye but all four of the teflon wrist pin retainers!

That's right, in my rush to get the bike finished, I did the one thing I had been so worried about. I forgot to install parts, and here we were half way across the country! We were just very lucky that the retainers were in plain sight in the top of my toolbox! So, off came the heads again! No extra gaskets, so I would have to re-use what came off, but that didn't look to be a problem. In short order, I had the motor back together again, and ready to run.




With the modifications we had made since the last race, there was no doubt that the bike was faster. I believe that Bobby lowered his own 1/8 mile national record with the first pass. The competition was much tighter than at other races, with other bikes running times close to our old record, but thanks to our new found power, we still had a nice cushion.

Again Bobby was kind enough to let me make a pass on the Shovel during time trials. The fact that I ran in the 7.50's with my extra 45 pounds and inexperience showed that the Shovel really liked the new cam and higher compression.

Once again Bobby was able to breeze through eliminations with the most exciting moment being when the bike unexpectedly wheelied for the very first time. True, the front wheel came only about a foot off the ground, and Bobby didn't miss a beat, but it was such a shock to all of us, that it remains one of the hi-lights of the race. By the time our class eliminations were done, Bobby had won the Street Racer FL class, and set new 1/8 mile national records of 7.275 seconds, and 99.33 MPH.




Our performance in the run off between classes had yet to go our way at any of the races so far. Would this fourth time be the charm? We were sure hoping it would be. A little frustrating to have the quickest street class bike at three races in a row, and still get beat out for the "Street Eliminator" title. Tough part was, there was really no one to blame. Bobby's reaction times were consistently at least as good, and most times considerably better than the competition's.

As we checked the bike over to get ready for those final eliminations, everything was looking good. Since Bobby had just lowered the record in our class by about .04 of a second, we knew that he should be in pretty good shape in that regard since he would be indexed on the old record. The last thing to do just before we pushed the Shovel up to staging was to add a little more gas. And that's when it happened. One of those moments that seem that it should be inconsequential, but is locked in my memory forever. I was pouring as Bobby held the funnel. We both watched in disbelief as a minute piece of "fluff" from a tree lazily drifted down and into the funnel. Although it happened rather quickly, it was as if it was in slow motion. To this day I have to wonder if one of us might have grabbed it if we hadn't been taken so much by surprise.
We both saw it, then we looked at each other in amazement.

Such a small piece, what could it possibly do. I had no filter in the tank, nor in the fuel line, and it would not have been large enough to clog one anyway. Probably not large enough to even clog a jet! We may have had time to drain the tank, but it would have been cutting things pretty close. I made the executive decision and opted to ignore it and run the bike the way it was.

Soon we were in the staging lanes and time to start the bike. Only it wouldn't. I kicked, and kicked, and kicked, and kicked some more (I was in much better shape back then). Then Bobby kicked, and kicked, and kicked some more. When we lifted it off its kickstand, gas ran out the carb, so now we knew it was badly flooded. We both knew right away what had happened. Sure enough, our piece of "fluff" that had floated down into the gas tank, had made its way to the float needle and seat, and was keeping it from shutting off the flow of gas. We were about to miss our first round when in a fit of desperation we asked if we could start the Shovel on the rollers that were usually reserved for pro class bikes.

Now back in the "old days", rollers were the most common way to start your drag bike. Normally one set of them was set up near the front of the staging lanes. Picture a pair of giant rolling pins about 6 feet long mounted side by side with bearings on the ends and you have a pretty good idea of what rollers looked like. One rear wheel of a car or van would set on one end of the rollers and the bike's rear wheel on the other end. With the bike in gear and the clutch pulled in, the car would accelerate, getting the bike's rear wheel spinning at a good clip. Then when you popped the clutch on the bike, the motor would start turning. At that point when you gave it ignition, it would usually start almost immediately.

Neither Bobby or I had any experience starting a bike on rollers, and the Shovel was not going to start easily. Despite all that, Bobby handled it like a pro, so with just a few words of instruction from the gentleman running the car on the rollers, he had the Shovel's engine spinning over. Not starting, just spinning over. Seemed like an eternity, but it was probably less than ten seconds of the engine spinning over on the rollers before it cleaned itself out and roared to life.

Now the trick would be to get the bike to the starting line without running it out of gas by leaving the petcock off too long, or flooding it again by leaving the petcock on too long. Ideally Bobby would turn the petcock on at just the right time so that the float bowl would be just reaching full as the lights turned green. We'll never know how close Bobby came to timing it perfectly, but he must have been pretty close. The Shovel launched fairly good, but flattened out pretty bad in midrange. The bike in the other lane, another Shovel (but with a turbo and nitrous) had us by a couple bike lengths by the end of first gear.





Each time Bobby shifted, the Shovel would go flat as it was pulled down in rpm's, but would start running clean and gaining ground as the rpm's came up. But then, just as Bobby was closing in on the other bike, he would have to shift, and loose the ground he had just gained. So once again we lost in the first round of the eliminations between class winners. In retrospect, I have little doubt that I never had the main jet quite small enough for the low elevation in the first place, or else the extra fuel in the float bowl wouldn't have given such similar results as being too rich in the Colorado Springs race.

So was this a lousy way to end the racing season? Not at all. I don't think any of us spent more than a few moments in disappointment. After all, Bobby had dominated his class at all four races that we attended. Along the way he set a total of four national records. Not too shabby for a couple of guys who just set out to see how their bike measured up!

When Shovelheads Ruled the World, Part 5

Three races; three class wins and two national records. Not a bad start for a couple guys who only started out to go to one race to see how they measured up. So why would they be thinking about making their bike faster? I guess that just comes down to the basic reason anyone is involved in any kind of racing.

With only the National Finals left in the season, I suppose it was only natural for Bobby and I to try something to go really fast at the last race. Bobby was the ideal partner in this respect. No sooner had we discussed the possibility of more modifications, than he was on the phone researching it.

I am not sure who he called first, but I suspect it was Jim Leineweber. He gave us some specs for distance between the valves while they were on their seats to see which of his larger cams would fit. Jim was probably also the one who suggested higher compression pistons. Lacing up a wider rim to spread the rear tire out and get more rubber on the pavement we figured out ourselves.

A call to Axtell Sales down in Des Moines got us a set of higher compression pistons for the Shovelhead stroker. I wish I could remember with any certainty what compression ratio they where supposed to be. They may have been 12:1. That doesn't sound quite so radical in today's world of efficient combustion chambers, but at a time when the most common modification to a Shovelhead was to put in low compression pistons (7.2:1) it was enough to really get your blood pumping just thinking about it! And beautifully machined forged pistons they were. You could almost feel the horsepower just holding them in your hands!

The cam that we settled on was a Leineweber L5. More lift, more duration, even more power! This was a much more serious race for us than the previous ones had been, so once the parts were in, Bobby sacrificed a couple weeks of riding on the street so that I could get his motor ready.

But first, I tackled lacing the new wider aluminum rim to the rear hub of the drag bike. Again , Bobby had come through by calling around until he found a suitable rim. A wide 18" rim was almost unknown in the Harley world back then, at least in our little corner of the universe. Normally a simple job, lacing this rim was a little more challenging since it came with 40 dimples, but no spoke holes drilled. Nothing my handy Black and Decker 3/8 inch electric drill couldn't handle though; that and a good eyeball that is.

With a week to go before we left for the finals in North Carolina, I got the bike finished. The motor was out of Bobby's Low Rider, new cam and high compression pistons installed, and back into the rigid frame. I think in was a Friday evening when I had it ready to fire up. I pushed it out of my garage, and fired it up.

By the next Friday night we planned to be on the east coast ready to race, so I didn't see any point in babying the new parts. I revved the motor....maybe even a little more than my judgement told me I should. The engine sounded strong, but almost immediately it came to a sudden grinding halt. What had I done?!? I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. Obviously something had gone terribly wrong. Was it from my over revving? Had I made a mistake when I assembled the motor? What now?

So off came the heads again. The valves in one head were a mess; one broken off and the other bent and folded over; the piston far beyond salvage. All of the damage was in one cylinder, but it sure didn't look as if we would be going to the finals!

As I took the engine apart, it became clear that the initial source of the damage was not the valves hitting the piston, or even the valves hitting each other. To this day I am not exactly sure what the cause was. If I had not revved the motor so high, would that have just delayed the "incident" until Bobby was on the strip?

My first instinct was to throw in the towel, but after talking it over with Bobby we decided to at least see if it might be possible to fix the motor in time. Our Matco Tools dealer, who had helped us out with some cash before the Iowa race in exchange for putting his sticker on the bike, offered to pay for a new piston if we wanted to try to fix it in time for the finals. That was enough to seal the deal. We got another piston coming, a couple of valves, and found someone who was willing to replace the damaged valve seat for us on short notice.

Time was running out, but it looked as though it might all come together for us. As soon as I got the head back from having the new seat installed, I did a standard 3 angle valve job on it. In retrospect, I hate to think how much flow we lost from that, but hey, sometimes ignorance is bliss!

Our original plan was to leave right after work on Thursday night, but now I would be re-assembling the top end right after work. The modified plan was to be loaded up and to leave from our house as soon as the bike was ready. I decided that it would be best to actually hear the engine run before we loaded it up, just in case I had neglected something. The last thing I wanted to do was to get to the east coast and find I had left a critical part in my garage in Minnesota.

As the clock neared midnight, I tightened the last few bolts, and a couple of kicks later the engine was running. We probably didn't let it run for more than 10 seconds before I shut if off and we loadeded the bike up. Against all odds we were on our way to the HDRA National Finals in Farmington North Carolina!

When Shovelheads Ruled the World, Part 4

When we returned from the drag race in Colorado, as before, we pulled Bobby's Shovel motor from my chassis and re-installed it in his Lowrider. Being younger then, it just would not do to miss more than a couple days of riding! After a few more weeks of riding though, it was back into the race bike for the stroker motor.

Bobby could not get away from work on the Saturday of the race in St Louis, a small snag that wound up changing the course of drag racing history! OK, maybe that is a little too melodramatic, maybe a bit overstated, but still, it is technically true. Though I had no desire to race the dragbike, Bobby convinced me that it was imperative that I run the bike on Saturday to sort out the change in gearing we had made via the installation of the belt drive primary from his Low Rider. He would fly down after work on Saturday to take over the piloting duties for Sunday eliminations.

So my wife Jane and I loaded the bike up on that little open trailer, hitched it up to our beat up Chevette (which I had recently put a trailer hitch on), and headed south early on Friday morning. The trip to St. Louis was uneventful, meaning that after 20 years, I do not recall a thing about it.

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, which forced me to face the real reason that "I had no desire to race". It had nothing to do with being afraid of the bike, after all, I had no qualms about testing it on the backroads at home. Obviously it was not due to a lack of interest in speed. If that had been the case I never would have built myself that first stroker motor. No, this was a little more deep seated than that, but no easier to admit. I was afraid of making a fool of myself in front of a crowd! Yep. That same fear that makes people afraid to get up in front of an audience and make a speech. The same fear that would keep a kid from raising his hand to answer a question that the teacher asked, even if that kid was quite sure he knew the answer. I have heard that this "phobia" is the most common in the world. I can well believe it, because I certainly suffered from it!

There we were at the track bright and early, and the track was opened up for time trials. I carefully and ever so s l o w l y went over every nut and bolt on the bike. I double checked everything I could think of the double check. The butterflies in my stomach were as big as crows. I considered making up a story about there being a problem with the bike that I couldn't fix until that night. Bobby would probably buy that, but what about Jane? Could I pull the wool over her eyes with her right there at the track with me? The last thing I could do was admit to her that "the big tough biker" had any fear of anything! In the end, that was what probably drove me into my leather jacket and with trembling hands (and I do mean trembling!) to strap my helmet on.

As if it wasn't bad enough that I was afraid of making a fool of myself in front of all those people, now I had to also worry that they could see me trembling! There was no waiting line to speak of in the staging lanes, so I started the bike in our pit area, and somehow managed to make my way to the starting line. Luckily I had paid enough attention watching others that I knew how to stage the bike, but of course that was not enough to completely ease my mind that I would actually do it correctly.

I staged the bike without any problem, but now a quick decision was needed. Drag strips were supposed to have really good traction compared to the street. We didn't have wheelie bars (after all it was a street class bike!), but I had extended my frame 3 inches in the rear via welding parts of my old swingarm to the rigid frame, so I was not too concerned about that. A bigger worry was that I would stall the motor due to not enough RPM. Now that would be embarrassing! How much RPM did Bobby use? No clue! No tachometer! Now what?!?

Erring on the side of more RPM (a tendency I have to this day), I cranked it up and when the green light came on I dropped the clutch. The results were predictable, but still fairly spectacular. The bike's rear tire spun big time, sending the bike almost completely sideways with the rear of the bike going to the left. Without letting off the throttle, I corrected, which brought the back end of the bike back the other direction, way past center going to the right, but not quite as far as it had gone to the left. This process repeated itself a few more times, each time the swing lessening somewhat as the speed of the bike started to catch up with the speed of the tire.

I suppose that this might have scared me to death if it wasn't something I had done hundreds of times on the street! Suddenly all of my fear was changed to adrenaline! The rest of the trip down the strip was a pure thrill! It was over far too quickly. I came back down the return road and instead of heading back to the pits I signalled Jane that I was gong back into the staging lanes. I knew I had to get back on the track before the adrenaline rush changed back to fear!

I don't recall how many passes down the drag strip that I made that day, but it was enough that I felt pretty comfortable in front of "the crowd". Comfortable enough in fact that somewhere along the line, I glanced over to the bleachers only to find not more than a dozen people bothering to watch time trials for the street class bikes. So "the crowd" that I had been so worried about making a fool of myself in front of, turned out to be mostly a figment of my imagination.

That evening, Bobby flew into town, ready for his turn on the bike. The next morning, showers threatened to make his trip a waste of time, but soon lightened up and showed promise that the races might still go on. Once the skies dried up, there was still the problem of a wet track. Back then there was no fancy equipment to quickly dry the track. However, where there is a will, there is a way. The track management asked for volunteers to drive their cars up and down the race track to speed the drying process. Soon there were a dozen or more cars quickly making laps up and down the track.

Maybe a little behind schedule, but better late than never, we came to eliminations. As usual, Bobby ran away from the competition. As I recall his times were around 11.70 with MPH about 112. That was not enough for a record in the quarter mile though. Someone from Texas held that record at somewhere in the 11.20 to 11.40 range (I really can't remember for sure).

After winning our class, we received a rude awakening in the first round of the run off between class winners. What worked in our favor in the past (i.e. having our dial-in set to a national record that Bobby owned), was our downfall this time. Since we were running slower than the 1/4 mile record in our class, we would have a dial-in that we could not possibly run. When we got into the staging lanes, most of the racers were trying to hang back and not line up against a racer on the Shovelhead at the head of the line. I brashly sent Bobby up to the head of the line to race him, thinking he would be an easy mark since his bike was an 80 incher in the class below ours (Hot Street FL I think). Little did I know that this racer had set a new national record in his class earlier in the day. That meant that he was running with a dial-in slower than he was running, and we were running on one that was faster. Since there was no break-out, Bobby didn't have a chance.

Despite another first round loss in the run off between classes, we couldn't help but be happy with another Street Racer FL class win and trophy! But now we knew there was somebody out there who was faster (at least in the 1/4 mile). As we loaded up and headed home, Bobby and I were both faced with dilemmas. His was; how do we get the bike to go faster? Mine was; how do I get my engine finished so that I could race it myself next season? I'll get to Bobby's answer in my next post on this subject.

When Shovelheads Ruled the World, Part 3

So there we were in the foothills outside of Colorado Springs, a little concerned with how the bike would run at this higher elevation, but totally excited to find Bobby's name on the list of National Records. Having spent a year working in a Dealership in Pueblo, one might think that tuning the bike for that elevation would be a piece of cake for me, but that was not really the case. Believe it or not, the S&S carb was not found on half the Harleys on the road back then as they are now, hence I had limited experience with tuning them. We didn't even get to the staging lanes before we realized we needed to start leaning it out. Each pass showed the need for more jetting work, but the bike was running a little better with each jet change. When I put in the smallest main jet we had, the motor was still noticeably rich as it came onto the main. So there we had a bit of a dilemma. We were told that "the Dragonman" had an adjustable main jet at his shop that we could buy, but that would mean only having one or two passes to try to tune the adjustable main. We hadn't noticed any bikes in our classes running as quick as Bobby yet, so I made the call to leave well enough alone.

Of course once it was too late to get the adjustable main, the fast bikes showed up! My first job as a Harley mechanic was working for Conger's Harley Davidson in Pueblo, Colorado. I learned a lot in the two years of motorcycle mechanics school that I had attended, but it was nothing compared to what I learned in a year working for Dick Conger. So who do you think showed up Sunday morning, but Dick with an Evolution powered bike, along with a friend on an 88 inch Shovel (that Dick built) which was known for being among the fastest Harleys in Pueblo. Both bikes were "teched" into the same "Street Racer FL" class with Bobby. I don't think I ever got a straight answer as to the engine size of Dick's Evo, but I kind of always assumed it was an 80". I knew that if anyone could make a stock cubic inch Evo run with the stroker Shovelheads, Dick could!

Dick, on the Evo, his friend on the 88" Shovel, and Bobby all worked their way through eliminations without too much trouble. Time has taken its toll on the details, so I really don't remember whether it was Dick or Bobby who beat Dick's friend in the semi finals, but either way the finals were looking like a big showdown, at least in my eyes.

As Bobby staged the bike against Dick in the finals, I couldn't help but wonder if I had blown our chances of winning by not trying the adjustable main jet. That little 93" Shovel came through with flying colors though, despite a momentary "blubbering" in each gear! I felt just as elated as if I had been the one on the bike beating my old boss.

The "shoot out" between the winners of each of the street classes was truly anticlimactic, though it did provide a few moments of frenzied activity. We brought the bike into the staging lanes for the first round not suspecting any problems, but when it was time for us to go I couldn't get the bike started. I kicked until I was blue in the face, then Bobby kicked until he was. Finally I pulled a plug wire to check for spark; None! There were only a couple pairs of bikes still waiting their turn as I made a mad dash to where we were pitted to get tools. By the time I got back there were only two bikes left to run. The racer in the other lane was kind enough to wait for us, but all hope quickly left us when I inadvertently sliced a plug wire in half with my buck knife. I no longer recall what I even had the knife out for, but I suspect I was attempting to cut a tie wrap.



Didn't matter much though, both Bobby and I were still grinning about winning our class again. Afterwards, as we were chatting with Dick Conger, Bobby graciously mentioned to him that he must be pretty happy with the race results, since he had built two out of the three fastest bikes and taught the one who built the other.

Bobby and I had never heard the expression "quit while you're ahead", so much of the talk on the long drive back to Minnesota had to do with getting to the next race on the schedule, St Louis! That story will have to wait for another day though...

When Shovelheads Ruled the World, Part 2

If you read my last post titled "When Shovelheads Ruled the World", I left you as we headed south to the inaugural 4th of July "Iowa Hog Drags" in 1985 with our "Street Racer/FL" class bike. Located in the middle of a cornfield in the middle of Iowa, Humbolt County Dragway was an old 1/4 mile track that had been shortened to an 1/8 mile to compensate for lack of sufficient shutdown area for the newer and faster cars. Despite the facility being far from "state of the art" the event still managed to attract Harley dragbikes from all over the country. All Harley drags were new, but to the racers, the time was ripe!

As we pulled into the line waiting for the gates to open early in the morning of that first day of time trials, we saw that the trailer ahead of us had a lay down drag bike on it. I had to remind Bobby that it couldn't possibly be in our class because it had a drag slick on it. That calmed him down a bit, and we got out of the car and introduced ourselves . The "Hot Dragster" class Sportster on the trailer belonged to Russ Hendron from Illinois. He and his pit crew of one had arrived in the middle of the night and I got the impression that if they did not win some money that weekend, there would be some doubt as to whether or not they had enough gas money to get home. Little did any of us know that by the end of the season, Russ would be well on his way to becoming one of the top "B Fuel" pilots ever!

We were soon teched in without incident by none other than Gary "Tator" Gilmore who was not only sponsoring the race, but was also one of the main attractions with his Top Fuel Shovelhead. We were much encouraged with his comment that the bike looked "really good".

Time trials went well, with Bobby quickly getting his timing down on the "christmas tree". We still didn't really have a clue as to the competition, though, as there were a lot of bikes and more arriving all the time. There was no qualifying in those early days for the street classes. Just time trials, and then directly to eliminations. When the time for eliminations came, you simply got into the staging lanes and were lined up with other bikes in your class. After the first round of eliminations you might get lane choice if your previous pass was quicker than your next round's opponent, but who that opponent was going to be was still determined by chance. The first few rounds of eliminations flew by with no serious competition.

We were aware that there was some serious competition to come though. The bike we were most worried about was owned and ridden by Pat Mater, at that time the president of the Minneapolis chapter of the Hell's Angels. He had a chopper with a 103" Shovelhead engine built by Eagle Engineering, the best known performance shop in the Twin Cities. Between rounds Bobby told me that he had seen him run a low 7 second pass earlier in the day. Now I was the one that needed to be calmed down! Bobby's best so far had been in the 7.6os.

Before we knew it, "our" bike was one of only three left in the class. As might be expected in a class with rules that stated "Big Twins displacing over 86 cubic inches", the other two remaining bikes were a 98" Shovel from Texas, and Pat Mater's 103" Shovel.

As we got our bike into the staging lanes and were preparing to line up against Pat, the racer from Texas announced to us that the bike with the lowest e.t. from the previous lane should get the "bye" run. I don't recall that Texas racer's name, but I do remember that besides the fast Shovel, he also owned a "Dragster Eliminator" class bike which was setting new records at the meet. Pat Mater was OK with the change in plans though. "I'll beat you this round, and beat them the next!" he exclaimed as he swung his leg over his big Shovel. Can't say I wasn't a little relieved. Now we were assured of a 2nd place finish at worst!

The showdown that I was concerned about never came about.The racer from Texas beat Pat Mater in the semi finals, and the finals weren't all that close. We beat the Texas bike handily, and it would have been a little anti climactic, except we were so excited about winning! Later Bobby admitted to me that he had told a "white lie". No one had run in the low 7's. He just wanted to "keep me on my toes".

The HDRA did things a little different in the street legal classes. Once the winner of each class was determined, they ran against each other with each bike "indexed" to its own class record. In other words, all the winners were run off just like a bracket race, except your "dial-in" was the national record for your class. Not a bad system.

Bobby won every round of the "shoot out" too, until he ran up against a skinny 16 year old kid named Doug Vacil on a ratty old Sportster. If that name rings a bell, its because he has been one of the biggest names in Top Fuel Harley racing in recent years, getting major sponsorship from Drag Specialties and Vance & Hines, and winning multiple national championships! Small world isn't it?

So we headed north to Minneapolis with a trophy, a bunch of adrenaline, and the hook set firmly in our mouths. (that last is a fishing reference; Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes, get it?) Within a couple days I had Bobby's motor swapped back into his Low Rider, and things may have returned to normal , if we hadn't heard about another HDRA race in Colorado Springs coming up in a couple weeks. How could we resist?

Arriving at the track in Colorado, almost immediatley we were handed a "racing paper" that contained a list of HDRA National Records. Imagine our surprise to learn that Bobby was the 1/8 mile national record holder for both e.t. and m.p.h. in the Street Racer/FL class! But the story doesn't end there....

When Shovelheads Ruled the World

The year was 1985. The place; the suburbs of Minneapolis. I was working as a mechanic for the local Harley dealership and had built a stroker motor for the service writer over the past winter. His name was Bob McGranahan. A few rides alongside my 88 cubic inch Shovelhead stroker the previous summer was all it took to convince Bobby that he needed an engine like that!

In today's world of 96", 113", 124 cubic inch and larger Harley motors it is hard to envision a time when a mere 88" engine would impress anyone, but you have to realize that any engine larger than stock was somewhat rare back then. Harley had made a big splash when they came out with an 80" in 1979 (as I recall), and an even bigger splash with the then recently released Evolutions which were much quicker than a stock Shovelhead. But the time of the Evolution's domination was not yet come, and a Shovelhead stroker was still a thing to be reckoned with!

The engine that we built for Bobby's Lowrider was pretty much a copy of mine, but with a few upgrades provided for by his somewhat fatter wallet (due to his being single). Bobby's motor started as an 80", so the same 4 3/4" stroke made his a 93" instead of my smaller bore 88". We decided to try a Leinweber J4 cam that I had heard good things about in place of the Sifton 468+ that I had in mine. Bobby also sprang for a new S&S Super B carb in place of the old Bendix I used. But the single biggest improvement came about from Bobby meeting a fellow named John Petouli (my apologies if I spelled his last name wrong) at a swap meet. John was there with his flow bench, drumming up business. My guess is that Bobby talked his way into getting the "good guy" deal on having his heads ported. John probably had hopes of more work coming his way from the Harley dealership Bobby and I worked for. Turned out to be a pretty potent combination, though we had no idea how potent until a few months later.

That spring a poster came to the dealership advertising the first ever 4th of July "Iowa Hog Drags". There had not been a drag strip in the Twin Cities area for a number of years, so neither Bobby or I had ever been on one, but that didn't stop us from seeing what fun it would be! My Shovelhead's rigid frame was setting empty since I had burned a hole in a piston the previous fall (a whole story in itself, involving my stupidity, a high speed police chase, and a very long weekend in jail). I had my 61" Knuckle up and running, but it was hardly racing material. Bobby's Low Rider was fast, but in a stock chassis, I thought is was a little too heavy to race. The solution was obvious to us. We would take the engine out of Bobby's bike a few days before the races and swap it back afterwards! Bobby would pilot and I would tune!

A few days before the races, I tried to bring Bobby back down to earth a little by warning him that there would be guys there with really fast bikes that had been racing for years, and we shouldn't expect too much our first time out. But "our" bike certainly looked fast! As mentioned earlier I already had a rigid frame (actually a weld on hardtail conversion). I was running an 18" Sportster rim laced to my rear hub, and Bobby came through with the widest new tire he could find for it. I had spent much of the spring drilling holes in everything in sight on the frame and chassis. We used a fiberglass flat track tank that I had picked up at a swap meet ($15) and a fiberglass rear fender (swap meet -$10). Another friend, Dave Alderman, let me use a custom built front fork that was unbelievably light weight and featured clip-on bars. About the only things keeping "our" bike from looking like a full blown dragbike rather than a street bike were the lack of a slick and wheelie bars! A close reading of the rules showed that the bike would fit in the "Street Racer/FL class.

So when 4th of July weekend rolled around, we loaded up the bike on my home made open trailer, hooked it up to the beater Oldsmobile that we borrowed from my sister-in-law, and headed south. In my next post I will tell you what happened.