found a picture of my hero from 30 years ago

RonKZ650 wrote:

What class did you run in NMRA Modprod? Here's a picture of a race a couple of friends and me towed to in 8/81 in Fremont, CA running D/MT for D modified turbo. Ran 8.78@158 with Rick Horn riding. Rick was pretty well known in the motorcycle dragracing scene back then. I remember we left at 10PM one night and were towing an enclosed trailer behind a half ton chevy with a straight 6 engine. Took 36 hours non stop driving to get to Fremont which I believe was about 1200 miles for an average of about 33mph. Needless to say we quickly went to bigger tow rigs. :laugh:

It was an NMRA H/M at that 1980 time frame. It had to weigh about 690 minimum with a 1015 motor. Towed a single place bike trailer but in 81 finally got a van. Hey we did what we had to do!

Good job on H/M class. I guess I don't remember much about that class. I remember one guy running I/M on an old sohc CB750 Honda and running low 10s for an incredibly fast old honda for the day in that heavy class.

Yes that was in the infantsy (1980) of NMRA. A lot of vendors/manufactures made some serious money during those early days and then the "Herd got thinned" with time and saturation and good and bad vendors. I/M was a 11 someting in 80 but like I said 80 was the infantsy of NMRA and developement of the aftermarket industry I have saved an old page from the NMRA section that was printed in the weekly NHRA paper that has all the class records and points standings from that time and who was involved. It's neat because it's kind of like a history page of that early time. Dave Schultz is on there running an 11 sec 400 triple kaw in Competition Elininator I believe. The standards changed very quickly at the time and when Jim Harris died, that was the end of NMRA but it was truely a great time to be involved in Motorcycle Drag Racing.
I went to a couple AMA Dragbike races this past summer to shoot my friends Top Fueler (I hadn't been to a National in over 20 years). Oh yes the bikes are much much faster today but the sights,sounds,smells and atmospher have changed little. That organization will be racing at 3 tracks this year including Martin Mich. that are within a 150 miles from me and my plan is to make all 3. It got in my blood all those years ago and it's incurable!