Meltdown #10, Here We Come

For those who might not familiar with the Meltdown Drags, it is a full blown nostalgia event which has the goal of presenting a drag race just as it would have looked in 1966. That means no cars or motorcycles newer than 1966, and not even any wheels, paint jobs, or hood scoops of a style more modern than that target time-period. This year's 10th running of the Meltdown Drags will take place on July 17&18 at Byron Dragway, outside of Byron, Illinois.  The crew that puts on the Meltdown drags does a meticulous job of organizing and running the race. That attention to detail makes the Meltdown drags one of the premier events of its kind, which in turn attracts plenty of potential participants. The number of vehicles accepted for the event is generally limited to about 500.

Proof of the event's popularity with racers is evident in the pre-registration process. The Meltdown Crew opens up for email submissions at midnight of the New Year. The submissions require a picture of the vehicle as it will be raced, because just making the submission doesn't guarantee a spot in the program; members of the Meltdown crew approve each entry. 

The Knuckledragger at the 2017 Meltdown Drags

This year I sent off my email submission at 9:03 am on January first. Just over 3 hours later there was a notice on the Meltdown Facebook page that registration was closed. They already had far more submissions than the race could handle.

On the morning of January 3^rd , I received a notice from the Meltdown Crew that The Knuckledragger was the 257^th entry to be accepted for the race. So now you know what my plans are for July 17&18 (God willing). I won't be piloting the bike this year; I've offered the seat to Scott Dale, a very experienced Harley drag racer. To celebrate, I think I'll spring for a new rear chain for The Knuckledragger.

That doesn't mean I plan to abandon the Iowa hog Drags though. Again, God willing, The Beast will see some action in the midst of the friendly corn fields of Humboldt County on the 4^th of July weekend.  

4th of July Coming

 

So, with less than a month left to prep the Beast replica for the yearly 4^th of July drag racing extravaganza, I finally finished addressing the most prominent of the teething pains that were revealed last year. That would be my inability to get my feet onto the pegs in time to hit second gear.  It really tends to slow you down when the force of the launch sends your legs into a lay down position and you need to pull them all the way back to the sit up position to shift. By the time my feet were on the pegs, it felt like I had almost slowed to a stop (slight exaggeration but you get the idea).  Whether the culprit behind such unplanned acrobatics was old age or seating position, the solution seemed clear enough: convert the bike from sit-up to lay-down riding position.  And so, I did. The job was slightly complicated by my being unwilling to do any welding on what was last year a freshly painted frame.  

No air shifters for us

And a rear brake may come in handy at some point

 

I must say that a task like this is much easier with all the equipment I have now, that I didn’t have back when I took racing way to seriously.  Now I have a lathe.  Now I have a mill.  Now I have a TIG welder.  And now I have a band saw. 

That last little item, the band saw, brings back memories of days gone by though.  I distinctly recall somewhere around 1990, after Jimmy Cee and I had teamed up with the high expectation of conquering the AMRA Top Gas class with a supercharged Knuck.  But before we could do that, I needed to sell my old Pro Stock bike to help finance the transition.  About that same time, Jimmy brought on board a young friend of his that went by the name Pup.  Yeah, that was his “biker name” and it fit him well; still wet behind the ears, and I’d guess he had yet to see 20 summers.  I couldn’t honestly claim that I had socks older than him, but it was pretty dog-gone close. 

In any case, as part of plan, we would revamp the Pro Stock bike, put a Shovel top end on it (you just can’t go selling dual carb Knuck heads when you’re certified Knucklehead fanatics) and some cosmetic changes as well.  One of the things I did to “pretty things up” was to rework the fiberglass rear fender so that it filled in the area between the seat and the fender.  That meant it would need new fender struts, and guess who was the low man on the totem pole tasked with cutting the struts out from plate aluminum.  That’s right. Pup.  Remember that what I said about a band saw earlier?  Didn’t have one then.  What I did have was a coping saw.  Now, I’m pretty sure that a coping saw is a woodworking tool never meant to cut aluminum plate.  But Pup, God bless him, was so eager to be part of the team that he cut out those struts with an amazingly small amount of griping on his part, thus proving himself to be a valuable asset to the team. 

Seriously, a coping saw

 

The Pup's handiwork -the struts, I mean

Too bad the tank shell didn't make it into this pic

Well, Pup is still known as Pup to his old friends, though he grew up to be a bit of a bulldog (I say that with the greatest respect).  Another of those unforgettable characters brought into one’s life through the magic of drag racing. Hoping to see Pup, Jimmy Cee, and YOU at the 2022 Iowa Hog Drags and Nostalgia Reunion!

 

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.

Colorado Hog Rally 1985

Keeping in mind that there is somewhat of a "revival" of motorcycle drag racing scheduled over the 4th of July weekend this year in Humboldt, or what is now known as North Iowa Dragway , I recently added a post with pictures from the 1985 Iowa Hog Drags. So, now I thought I would add a few pics of what was, back in 1985, the next race on the schedule for the HDRA.  That of course was the Colorado Hog Rally held outside of Colorado Springs.  You might guess from the pictures that the strip was on the east (less scenic) side of "the Springs."

Tator Gilmore on his earlier single engine fuel bike

 

MO or Marion Owens on his double engine Shovel

A scene from the pit area

Not sure who ran this Sportster, but he had a classy tow bike

MO in the left hand lane, can't quite make out who is on the right

Griz Robinson from the Chop Shop with his first Top Fuel Bike

Bobby on our bike getting ready for a pass

 "Bad to the Bone"

The bike pictured above was named "Bad to the Bone" - it was a Sportster in a Yetman frame running (very well) in the Dragster Eliminator class which in other sanctions would be called Top Gas.  I do recall that it ran in the fives in Iowa (1/8 mile) and the owner, who was from Texas, did not pilot it himself because he said he was too big for it to be safe with him on it. 

Don't know who this is, but this shot at least shows that the track did actually have a spot for spectators

A Shovel sporting a blower - may have been a Colorado bike

Bobby in the right lane

Bike loaded and ready to go home with another trophy

Note the fancy trailer we made the trip to Colorado with.  Guess I was a bit too tall for the top of my head to fit in the photo, but in the middle is my good friend Stan from Pueblo, who we stayed with the night before the races.  Bobby was still grinning after his second win in a row.