NHRA Top Fuel Motorcycle: A Historical Perspective
NHRA Top Fuel Motorcycle: A Historical Perspective
Author’s Note: The information you see here is a partial excerpt from my upcoming book, “Top Fuel Motorcycle Anthology,” which will be in print in the spring of 2026.
With the National Hot Rod Association, Gerber Collision & Glass, and NHRA Route 66 Nationals, presented by PEAK Performance, unfolding, it’s time to take a look at a bit of Top Fuel motorcycle drag racing history. The return of this class to the NHRA is a historic one for the Top Fuel motorcycle community, as this class is as old as the NHRA itself when viewed in a historical context.
To understand the historical importance of this May 19th, 2024 event, it is helpful to know some of the background of fuel bike racing relative to the National Hot Rod Association sanction.
Top Fuel Motorcycle’s roots, as an evolving category of drag racing competition, really began during the formative years of drag racing as a sport. During the late 1940s, progressing into the 1950s, as dry lakes, racers began showing up at Southern California “Speed Meets” held at abandoned airstrips; as the cars gathered to see who was fastest, so too did the motorcycles. Highly modified street bikes, mirroring the “Hot Rod” cars, began showing up to see who had the fastest machine.
For motorcycles, some of which ran fuel mixtures back then, one excellent example is the Harley Davidson modified street bike built by Chet Herbert, the father of famed and accomplished Top Fuel dragster racer Doug Herbert. This famous motorcycle, known as “The Beast,” is one of, if not the first fuel bike of its kind—a modified street bike built to handle a nitromethane-infused mixture.
As reporting from back in the day indicates, this 1947 VL Harley Davidson Knucklehead was altered by Chet Herbert, beginning sometime in early 1950. By summer, during the June/July Speed Meets at Santa Anna, in southern California, Chet Herbert’s Harley 1950 initially ran 103 MPH in June of 1950. It was ridden at the time by racer Johnny Hutton. During the bikes metamorphosis in the months/years that followed; the performance increased to 121.62 MPH, piloted by Al Keys. Ultimately, the bike’s peak performance came to 129.49 MPH, with Ted Irio driving. The fuel mixture was said to be a combination of alcohol, nitromethane, water, and castor oil, gravity-fed into Offenhauser Midget Carburetors.
Chet Herbert sold this bike to fund his newly minted racing camshaft business, which later became the legendary “Chet Herbert Cams.” During the early 1950s Speed Meets, this fuel-powered drag bike sometimes beat all the car entries, winning the coveted “Top Speed of the Meet” and defeating well-known drag racing pioneers like Calvin Rice and Art Chrisman—legends all.
As can be seen in the photos, Chet bobbed the fenders to reduce weight, removing anything not needed in order to lighten the motorcycle. While a stock Knucklehead of the day sported a single Linkert carburetor, The Beast used a pair of rare, Offenhauser Indy-type carburetors, modified to handle the Nitromethane, Methanol, odd mixture. Please note this drag bike was hand-shifted, foot clutch actuated, and the magneto kill device was a shocker to use on hot, sweaty days at the track!
The NHRA did not recognize the dragster class of Top Fuel cars until its announcement, late in the 1963 season, that beginning in 1964, the class would be contested for championship points. So prior to the 1964 season, there could be no official class of Top Fuel motorcycles per se, within NHRA. While Top Fuel cars evolved within the NHRA and other racing sanctions, Top Fuel motorcycles were not officially recognized as a competition class until the 1970 season.
Yet the fuel bikes, many of which simply ran on their own, independently, continued to evolve throughout the 1950’s and the 1960’s. Solid examples of this; George Smith (Sr.) co-founder of, S&S Cycles, built and raced “The Tramp” beginning in 1958, and raced it during the 1960’s, as did Clem Johnson with his historic Vincent known as “The Barn Job.” From the year 1960 forward, racers like Joe Smith, Marion Owens, Pete Hill, John Gregory, and Boris Murray were already on drag bikes, experimenting with fuel, throughout the first two decades of drag racing.
John Gregory, who began racing drag bikes in 1951, soon began racing with fuel mixtures and later went on to build and compete with one of the most recognizable Top Fuel motorcycles ever created: The Hog Slayer. The world-famous Hog Slayer, Norton double won its first National in 1970 and went on to win 5 World Championships. T.C. rode the Norton to a 180.13 M.P.H. record in the Guinness Book of World Records.
During the mid-1960s, organized motorcycle drag racing began to take shape across the United States. One of the first notable organized annual motorcycle drag racing sanctions began with the forming of the Mid Atlantic Motorcycle Association (M.A.M.A.) in 1967. As printed flyers of the era indicate, there were organized motorcycle drag meets, which included classes of motorcycles grouped by engine displacement and type of fuel.
This bike was classified as A/FB, indicating a large bore displacement bike burning nitromethane. Therefore class A, plus the letter F, equaled that it was a fuel (B) bike. A designation of Jr./FB would be a smaller displacement combination fuel bike. This held true no matter the manufacture of the motorcycle, be it a Norton, BSA, Triumph, Vincent, or Harley Davidson. If it burned Nitromethane, its displacement determined its class, and, of course, the engine was not burning exclusively gasoline.
In National Dragster, Volume 42, page 3, 1966, a report from the NHRA Irwindale track noted that the Murray and Cook drag bike “Blazed the slick” to a recorded 10.01 ET @ 157.89 MPH on their twin-engine Triumph, an astounding top speed for the time period.
In 1970, with the formal formation of the AMDRA, as a sanctioned extension of the NHRA, under the direction of sanction leader Roy Strawn, organized motorcycle drag racing really began to come into its own.
Again, from the pages of National Dragster, the Indy edition, 1970: VOL XI 24, September 18th edition, 1970, page 18, Larry Welch Nabs the first-ever “Bike Eliminator.” This was during the 16th annual NHRA US Nationals. Twenty fuel bikes entered the event, for an eight-bike field competition field. Joe Smith was the #1 qualifier with a 9.21 @ 154.90 MPH recorded time.
In the semi-finals of the event, the quickest recorded A/FB (Class A, Fuel Bike) time was recorded by Boris Murray’s twin-engine Triumph with a stunning 9.03 @ 170.13 MPH, when Boris defeated Doug Gall. Larry Welch won the “1st Ever Bike Elim” as proclaimed by National Dragster. Larry clocked in with a winning 9.34 @ 161.29, and Boris Murray went quicker/faster with a recorded 9.14 @ 169.49, but Larry’s quicker reaction time won him the event.
Official NHRA Records were printed for the first time in National Dragster on page 45 of this issue. They proclaimed Joe Smith the quickest with his 9.16 and Boris Murray’s 166.35 the fastest for official NHRA “National” records. It is very important to remember here that official records needed to be backed up within 1%. So, while quicker and faster times can show during competition, the numbers had to coincide with the official rules of the day to be stated as official records.
Thus in 1970, Top Fuel motorcycles became recognized as a class of NHRA competition. The TOP FUEL motorcycle record at the end of the 1970 season stood fast with a 9.16 elapsed time by Joe Smith (single engine HD) and the MPH record was held by Boris Murray with a 166.35 MPH set with a double engine Triumph.
Top Fuel motorcycles flourished and evolved as an official class of competition with explosive growth during the AMDRA years the sanction operated on behalf of the NHRA, from 1970 through 1976. During this “Jurassic Period” of Top Fuel motorcycle drag racing, the diversity of drag bikes competing in TOP FUEL motorcycles was at its peak. It was possible for drag racing fans to attend an all-motorcycle event and witness single-engine and double-engine nitro bikes in side-by-side competition together. Double-engine nitro Harleys were very popular, as was the double-engine Norton Hog Slayer T.C. Christensen piloted. Also, the bikes of Boris Murray and Sonny Routt were standouts from the late 1960’s.
The triple Honda of Russ Collins and the double-engine Kawasaki built by Big Carl Ahlfeldt entered the fray in the mid-1970s as well. Russ’s famous Atchison, Topeka, Santa Fe triple, went 8.46 @ 173 for the low qualifier during the Hot Bike Nationals in late 1974. Joe Smith, on his double-engine HD Shovelhead, defeated Russ in the finals when Russ spun the tire. Joe Smith ended the year 1974 with the TOP FUEL official record of 8.20 @ 176.47 MPH. One year later, at the end of the 1975 season, Russ turned the tables on Joe Smith. He ended the season with the new national record of 7.86 and Joe held the MPH record with a top speed of 182.55 MPH.
In 1976, the days of the multi-engine bikes were numbered when Ron Teson’s creation of his new Top Fuel Honda inline four-cylinder bike proved that a single-engine, supercharged motorcycle with four cylinders was quicker than any other combination – thus ending the double-and triple-engine dinosaur’s era. This also cemented the place of Top Fuel motorcycles in drag racing.
The AMDRA folded as a sanction at the end of the 1976 season due to financial woes. This temporarily ended TOP FUEL Motorcycle’s participation in the NHRA. It resumed in 1978 with the creation of its next incantation, the NMRA.
At the urging of NHRA Division 1 Director Darwin Doll, former Tech Director for the AMDRA, Jim Harris, a former motorcycle drag racer who also worked with Roy Strawn and the AMDRA, took up the helm of the newly minted NMRA, the National Motorcycle Racing Association, an officially recognized sanction offshoot of the NHRA.
This returned Top Fuel motorcycle class racing to the National Hot Rod Association. The NMRA was absolutely pivotal to the growth of Top Fuel motorcycle. Without the support and financial backing of the National Hot Rod Association, Top Fuel Motorcycle, would not be where it is today.
As an example of the tremendous evolution of Top Fuel motorcycle development during the NMRA years, in October of 1978, Russ Collins, on his new Honda, “The Sorcerer,” stunned the NHRA with a breathtaking 199.55 MPH blast. Then, in 1980, Bo O’Brachta ended the season that year with a jaw-dropping 7.08 pass, and the drag racing world proclaimed him “Seven-Oh Bo.”
In September of 1983 at the NHRA US Nationals, Elmer Trett ran the first official NHRA 200 MPH pass for Top Fuel motorcycles, with a 201.34 clocking during E-1. He also went on to win the event. The following year, at Indy in 1984, during the final season of Top Fuel motorcycle, as a championship point’s class, Sam Wills won the event over Brian Johnson of England and went 7.03 @ 195.23 in the process.
The National Hot Rod Association’s contributions to Top Fuel motorcycle as a class, are both vast and historical.
Unfortunately, in 1984, the NMRA ceased operations due to the death of NMRA director Jim Harris and the lack of qualified personnel to run the sanction. This also marked the official cessation of Top Fuel Motorcycles as a point class within the National Hot Rod Association.
For Top Fuel motorcycles as a class, this all came full circle in 2023, when the NHRA announced its 2024 racing schedule, including the class once again as a championship point class.
Officially the new Pingel Top Fuel sponsored class of competition begins on May 17 to the 19th 2024 at the Gerber Collision & Glass, NHRA Route 66 Nationals, Presented by, PEAK Performance. History will indeed be made that weekend as this will not only mark the return to championship points competition, but per NHRA competition rules, the Top Fuel bikes will be running 1,000 feet, as do the other fuel competition classes. In as much as no records exist for thousand-foot competition by TFM, every pass during the race will be a race, within the race, to see who sets the first official NHRA 1000’ Top Fuel motorcycle record.
Top Fuel motorcycle drag racing in 2024, with the NHRA, has a four-race schedule. The first event is the NHRA Route 66 Nationals, May 17 through the 19th, followed by the NHRA Virginia Nationals on June 21-23, the NHRA Brainerd on August 15-18, and the season-ending event at Charlotte, NC, at the NHRA ZMAX on September 20-22, 2024.
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Until Next time…
– Tom McCarthy |
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