Elmer Trett and the Gods of Thunder: Chapter 6 – Class Dismissed
About This Series
This article is part of an ongoing monthly series on Dragbike.com featuring select chapters from Elmer Trett and the Gods of Thunder, the 2012 biography by Senior Editor Tom McCarthy. Released throughout 2026 to honor the 30th anniversary of Elmer Trett’s passing, this series chronicles the life, legacy, and impact of one of the most influential figures in motorcycle drag racing history. Each chapter explores Trett’s journey from humble beginnings to global Top Fuel dominance, while also preserving the deeper history of the sport and the pioneers who shaped it. New chapters are published monthly exclusively on Dragbike.com.
Before reading this article, read the previous article posts:
- Series Intro
- Book Intro
- Chapter 1 – Humble Beginnings
- Chapter 2 – The Origins of Mountain Magic
- Chapter 3 – The Teen Years
- Chapter 4 – North to Ohio
- Chapter 5 – Fuelish Intentions
Chapter 6 – Class Dismissed
Near the end of the 1975 racing season, the premier sanctioning body Elmer raced with, the American Motorcycle Drag Racing Association, or AMDRA as it was more popularly known, decided upon on a major rules change that helped Elmer make his fateful decision to switch from racing in a gas class to racing with nitromethane: they canceled his class. As the evolution of racing is ongoing, the AMDRA decided to drop the Top Gas (T/G) class, effective at the end of the 1975 season. The class Elmer stepped up to in 1974, the class he cut his teeth in, was now defunct as of December of the following year. Elmer had no choice but to change classes for the coming racing season.
A family scrapbook from the seventies noted an elapsed time of 9.62 seconds and 145.86 mph achieved at a race during October of the ’74 racing season for Daddy Zeus. The only time Elmer would ever go that slow again was if his motorcycle broke down during a pass.
At the start of the 1976 season, Elmer stepped up to the class of T/F for the first time. His T/G years were a great learning experience. Elmer learned how the ponderous double-engine motorcycle behaved at high speeds. High-speed adaptation was a lesson he would have to contend with for the next two decades as he would soon shatter record after record, year after year, while going faster each time. Speed magnifies everything greatly. Everything.
Beginning in the ’76 season with Elmer’s switch to nitromethane racing, the T/F bike record stood at 8.36 seconds, elapsed time, held by T. C. Christensen of Wisconsin. The “miles per hour” record stood at 174 mph, set by Marion Owens of Oklahoma, who would soon befriend Elmer as a fellow Harley T/F pilot.
At this point in time in motorcycle drag racing history, there were three major motorcycle drag racing sanctions; the American Motorcycle Drag Racing Association or AMDRA, which was a branch of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), DRAGBIKE!, a racing sanction out of upstate NY, and the International Drag Bike Association (IDBA). I.D.B.A. was a sanction that was a predominantly southern-based racing entity that hosted most all of its races in the southeastern U.S. While two of the sanctions hosted races across the USA, the AMDRA was the most important host of them all because of its ties to the NHRA, the largest motorsports racing sanction in the world.
While the Trett Family would race at times with all three sanctions, the I.D.B.A. was the favorite sanction of Elmer’s because of its roots in the southeastern United States. Elmer was living in Ohio during the seventies, where family ties beckoned. Racing in the I.D.B.A. allowed the Elmer family trips to visit relatives for mini vacations while still supporting his family business.
The class upgrade from T/G to T/F was a huge step for Elmer despite his being a seasoned racer. Top Fuel (T/F) is the pinnacle of racing in motorsports. No other class of racing, no matter how many wheels on the vehicle are involved, produces the speeds encountered in T/F racing. The class is totally devoted to who is the fastest on any given race day. Top Fuel was absolutely manifest destiny for Elmer. He was about to get what he wanted in life, a chance to be the fastest man on a motorcycle in the world. In motorcycle drag racing, this was not only the big time, but it was also as big as it gets.
Life as a whole for Elmer was about to be amplified in the extreme because of his move to Top Fuel racing. Elmer’s gasoline-powered bike, Daddy Zeus, had a chassis that was very unsuited to the powerful engines required for fuel racing. His gas motors were also not built strong enough to withstand the pounding from nitromethane combustion. Everything Elmer had raced with for the last six years had to be upgraded or replaced. This took time and money Elmer just didn’t have at this point. It would take close to two years for Elmer to integrate his racing program into the professional fuel bike ranks.
A new chassis was the first issue because the frame that held Daddy Zeus together was not strong enough to run nitro. It was under strength for the power he was about to apply to the rear tire. Too much horsepower applied to an insufficiently strong chassis will twist a frame like a pretzel, causing a motorcycle to change direction on the racetrack, sometimes without warning. Changing direction unintentionally at speeds over 170 mph during hard acceleration could ruin any racer’s day. So, Elmer had a new chassis constructed by Bonnie Truett of Kansas. The new chassis was necessary not only to handle the more powerful nitromethane-powered engines, but to get that power to the pavement. A ten-inch-wide car tire would now be needed to grip the racetrack.
This expenditure was important as Elmer was opting to spend what little money he had for safety while letting performance take a back seat. The switch to fuel racing was a metamorphosis that had to be undertaken in steps for two reasons: one pertained to financial concerns and the other was to address the dangers that lie ahead. Elmer knew he had the engine-building skills to make a motor produce power, but he also realized he didn’t have the experience to relate to the eccentricities of nitromethane’s violent nature as a newcomer to the fuel ranks. Caution was necessary because nitro is liquid evil. For example, if a racer makes a mistake with the tune-up on a gasoline-powered motor, the mistake is usually found quickly and corrected. Then, the motorcycle goes faster. In nitro racing, if a mistake is made with the tune-up, it’s not uncommon for the motor to explode, sending engine pieces everywhere. Nitromethane is an equal opportunity destroyer. In nitro racing, tune-up mistakes equal broken parts.
CH3NO2 is the chemical make-up of nitromethane, which shows the compound has oxygen within the molecular structure. Therefore, nitromethane can combust, or support combustion, under less-than-favorable conditions, such as inside an engine’s crankcase. Nitro motors exploding like hand grenades are not uncommon during any fuel-racing event. Nitromethane racing can be as dangerous in the pit area as it is for racers out on the race track. Elmer had to learn the eccentricities of nitro racing quickly; he couldn’t afford the mistakes. Fortunately, Elmer had fast friends who were eager to help with his fuelish education.
As a result of his Top Gas racing days, Elmer was in close contact with all the top Harley fuel racers of the era. In 1973, Danny Johnson may have inspired him, but when Elmer actually switched over to fuel racing three years later, it was Marion Owens of Oklahoma and Joe Thronson of Mississippi who helped Elmer during his initiation into fuel bike racing. Especially Marion Owens; Elmer and Marion had a lot in common.
Marion was a stout man, like Elmer, over two hundred pounds. Marion, as well as Elmer, could manhandle a fuel bike when their malevolent machines developed a mind of their own. This was not kid stuff.
Marion started out just like Elmer, getting involved in motorcycle drag racing with his street bike. Marion’s motorcycle drag racing days began in the early nineteen-sixties with his street bike, then a modified single-engine drag bike, and finally a double-engine nitro Harley during the nineteen-seventies. Marion started experimenting with nitromethane as early as 1963; the same year the NHRA first allowed fuel racing as a class in NHRA drag racing. But way back in 1963, there was no officially recognized Top Fuel (T/F) class exclusively for motorcycles.
It was during the nineteen-sixties that nitromethane-fed motorcycles gained in notoriety as the cars became the real stars of fuel racing. Marion Owens took note of this, made the necessary modifications to his race bikes to handle the nasty liquid, and then began his nitro-apprenticeship. Approximately a decade later, he helped initiate Elmer into T/F motorcycle drag racing, after the class became a category of competition.
Elmer’s entry into the class of Top Fuel came at a very fortuitous time in motorcycle drag racing history. Motorcycle racers running fuel instead of gasoline were as old as drag racing itself, but the formal competition class of Top Fuel bike really started in 1967. To grasp the importance of Elmer’s timely entry into the class of Top Fuel, one has to first understand the evolution of the class.
Drag racing, as a sport, can be traced to its beginnings in Southern California. Land Speed Record racers (LSRs), who once trekked to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and the dry lakes of El Mirage, California, held organized racing events in the late nineteen forty’s to see who was fastest. It didn’t matter if the racing machine was two-wheeled or four, if it went fast, “Hot Rodders” wanted to know who, as well as what, was fastest. In the beginning, drag racing was all about speed.
Organized competitors soon started dragging their cars and motorcycles out of their garages to “speed meets.” These were meetings to see who was fastest. Thus, drag racing was born. In the beginning, only speeds, not elapsed times, were recorded to see who had the fastest machine at a speed meet. Actual precision clocks were used to time the distance a car would cover along a known, measured segment of the racing surface, so that when a vehicle traveled a fixed distance in a measured amount of time, the actual speed of the machine could be calculated. Using a fixed distance to calculate speeds based on elapsed time became the bedrock of the new sport called drag racing.
Due to the need for a long, straight, flat racing surface, abandoned airport runways became the perfect candidates to host “Drag Meets.” This also helped establish 1320 feet, or one-quarter of a mile, as the distance to race from start to finish.
The very first weekly speed meets were held at the Orange County Airport in Santa Ana, California, on July 3, 1950. These weekly events soon became advertised locally as the “Drag Races at Orange County Airport.” The cars lined up each week to see who was the fastest, and soon the motorcycles joined in.
According to former NHRA historical statistician Chris Martin, who penned a publication, The Top Fuel Handbook, printed in 1996, noted that, “Motorcycle drivers terrorized Santa Ana for the first couple of years. Al Keys set the top speed of the meet at least six times aboard Chet Herbert’s 80-Cid Beast motorcycle during the 1950 season.” Motorcycle drag racing’s roots are as deep as the sport itself. So, too, was the use of ‘funny stuff’ in the fuel tanks to produce more power.
Exactly when racers started using nitromethane as a racing fuel in motor sports is not precisely known. When drag racing took serious note of its presence is very well known; February 3, 1957. This date is as famous as it is infamous amongst true nitro maniacs; it’s the day driver Emory Cook drove the Cook & Bedwell dragster to an unheard of speed of 165.13 mph. At the time, the greatest recorded speed of a drag racer was 159.01 mph. Race directors froze the timing clocks so various people could see the time for themselves and assess the situation. Cook was asked to make another pass, so Cook & Bedwell prepared the dragster for history. They wheeled the car back out and, this time, stopped the clocks at a reading that produced a “trap” speed of 166.97 miles per hour.
The nations leading drag racing publication at the time, Drag News, ran the following headline with their February 9, 1957, edition of the newspaper, “Santa Ana Places an Immediate Ban On Any Fuel But Straight Gasoline.” The speed produced by the nitromethane-powered Cook & Bedwell dragster, and the rising costs of racing fuel cars, were suddenly threatening all of drag racing in the eyes of the track operators and race team owners. Meetings were held at major race tracks, and soon the word was out there that, as of April 1, 1957, only pump gasoline was legal at drag races; nitro was banned.
Yes, folks, there was a time in drag racing when nitromethane was actually banned from use in the sport. Racers being racers and seeking the best in performance, it was too late. Pandora’s Box was already open. Drag racers do not go drag racing to see what rules they can comply with. Their need for speed is relentless. So the experimentation with nitromethane, propylene oxide, and benzene continued much to the chagrin of track operators everywhere. With or without a ban, racers on two and four wheels never stopped pushing the limits of speed and power. Such is the nature of a true racer.
According to Chris Martin, motorcycle drag racers from 1950 to 1956, like Louis Castro, Bud Hare, Lloyd Krant, Pat Presetti, and Tommy Auger, all won various Top Eliminator titles during the first six years of the sport. When San Fernando Raceway opened its gates for the first time in 1955, the Vincent-powered fuel bike of Duncan, Auger, and Martz took Top Eliminator honors that day. The fuel ban came in 1957, but the motorcycle drag racers, like the sport itself, continued to evolve.
In 1956, Joe Smith, a racer from West Covina, California, won his first trophy while racing his Harley Davidson Knucklehead. Joe started out on gas, but one season later, the twenty-seven-year-old racer was playing with funny fuel. The now 81-year-old racer, who’s still sharp as a tack, remembers his first fling with nitromethane like this:
Clem Johnson and I were racing as a team with my gas-powered Knucklehead, and one night at the old Colton, CA, drag strip, we tried Nitro and Alkie for the first time. We ended up racing the bike that same night, made 10 runs on 50% Alkie-Nitro. We ran all 10 runs in the high tens at over 138 mph. That was back in 1957. Colton was the only strip at the time you could run Nitro, and we were back quite often, raced a lot of ‘Top Eliminator of the Day,’ mostly against John Bradley, driving Gene’s Brake Shop blown flathead Ford Dragster.
Clem Johnson, who was racing with Joe Smith, created his own drag bike out of a Vincent, which is a true early T/F bike legend: The Barn Job. Clem was a machinist and hand-fabricated most of his own components. Clem stroked the motor from 61 up to 85 cubic inches, did the head modifications, and even built an aluminum frame for his bike in his barn, where the Barn Job was created. Johnson is said to have recorded a 9.82 at 151.51 mph! In the 1950’s, the fuel bikes were flying!
While the nitro ban was in effect for all NHRA races and, therefore, banned at all NHRA-sanctioned race tracks, it’s important to note that not every race track, nor every racer, is a member of the National Hot Rod Association. Because of this, if a track or racer was not under the wing of the NHRA, they were free to fly their own way. There were fewer places racers who used nitromethane could race, yet real racers always find a way to make things work, especially fuel racers.
Because fuel racers continued to push the limits and the rules by racing at venues outside the NHRA, the sanction eventually had no choice but to bring them back into the fold. In 1963, the NHRA lifted the fuel ban, beginning with the Winternationals season-opening race. For the first time, the NHRA recognized Top Fuel as a separate category of competition. This was the true birth of true Top Fuel racing.
Four years later, in 1967, the motorcycles followed suit. While sanctioned car drag racing was a product of Southern California racing, sanctioned motorcycle drag racing took root on the East Coast, specifically in New Jersey, at a racetrack known far and wide simply as ATCO.
In the mid-nineteen sixties, an East Coast motorcycle drag racer named Roy Strawn was roped into helping the local track owners stage organized motorcycle drag races. Someone had to organize all the racers, set the rules and oversee the operations. Roy became that man. He gave up his drag bike for the betterment of all in 1966. In 1967, Mr. Strawn, aided by his racing assistants, put together the first annual “East Coast Motorcycle Drag Racing Championships” held at Atco, NJ.
While actual records of the 1967 race are rare, results from the 1968 race are on record. A printed race flier proclaiming “The Third Annual” event set for Sunday, October 26, 1969, at Atco, herald the event. More importantly, on page two of the fold-out flier are noted the winning times for the 1968 event, which include Bob Barker of Columbus, Ohio, who won in Top Fuel Eliminator with a 9.40 elapsed time with a recorded speed of 149.50 mph. The race sanctioned by the Mid Atlantic Motorcycle Association officially recognized and held competition for the class of Top Fuel motorcycle. In the world of T/F bike, this was only the beginning.
Ten years later, in 1977, Elmer would begin his first full season of Top Fuel bike racing. In the previous season, when he first started learning nitro, Elmer did limited racing, more for developmental testing than for real competition.
Twin engines, each with a carburetor, were the first stumbling block for Elmer to conquer as he learned how to tune nitromethane-powered motors. Carburetors worked fine on gasoline-powered engines, but to feed the large quantities of nitromethane that a 100-cubic-inch Harley required, a better delivery system was needed. Fuel injection was the logical choice Elmer sought out. So he turned to a fellow fuel pilot for help, who was just getting going with a fuel-injected nitro Harley, a southern gentleman like himself who could help Elmer get set up: he called on Joe Thronson of Mississippi. At the end of the ‘76 season, Elmer’s double was headed to Joe’s shop for its new fuel injection system.
In December of 1976, Elmer and his assisting mechanic, Steve Stordeur, of Ohio, loaded Elmer’s double into Steve’s van and headed south for the Gulf coast. In Mississippi, at Thronson’s shop, they unloaded the eight-hundred-pound fuel bike, put it up on cement blocks, and Thronson took out his tools as the men assisted the veteran fuel racer with installing the new fuel injection system.
Elmer’s front engine had its cam cover replaced with a new one featuring a raised machined surface that accepted a Hilborn fuel pump. The carburetors were tossed into a nearby empty milk crate and replaced with fuel injector bodies sporting high-pressure fuel lines with brass spray nozzle ends. The bike started to look like a plumber’s dream date with two wheels. Many cigarettes hit the floor as the hours went by. The bike’s engines were checked for ignition timing prior to the initial fire-up. Thronson didn’t want any new holes in his garage roof.
A fresh batch of nitromethane was poured from a five-gallon can into a large neoprene jug, and then methanol alcohol was added in just the right amount to the nitro. A nearby squirt can was also loaded up with fresh methanol to be used as starting fluid. Thronson taught Elmer the basics. Elmer and Stordeur filled the fuel tank, as they prepared to fire up the monster for the first time with fuel injection and nitromethane. Hot Shot’s first T/F bike was about to come to life like the snarling monster that it was.
As Elmer spun the motors over, Joe squirted methanol into each injector body and flipped off the mag button allowing the motors to fire. The beast coughed then thundered to life. As the engines warmed up, not all the nitromethane coursing through them was being combusted in the cold. A lot of raw nitro started filling the air inside Joe’s garage. It was winter, so the shop doors were closed. The garage soon became engulfed in a nitro-fog. Elmer and Stordeur fought the urge to cough as their eyes watered; tears streamed across tortured eyeballs screaming for relief. The racers never wavered for a moment as they initiated the tune-up.
In the yellow-green fog that filled the garage sat Joe with his Santa Claus-like white beard, seated calmly by the fueler’s engines, tweaking the injector bodies. Joe felt the front cylinder jug of each engine with his experienced hands, then gently rotated the throttle with his right hand. Elmer and Stordeur controlled the bike from the front end of the bike to keep it from jumping off the blocks with every blip of the throttle. After each bark of the engines, Joe would adjust the throttle bodies a bit to sync the motors by ear. Elmer and Stordeur watched while listening closely as the master plied his craft. This was nitro-initiation 101. They couldn’t breathe or see at this point through the tear-gas-like atmosphere of the garage, but they could sure feel the thundering beast before them. Now that the tune-up was right, every small tweak of the throttle and the bike wanted to leap up off the blocks!
Thronson hit the mag button again, killing the engines. They were all pretty much blind by this time as they stumbled out of the garage into the cold night air. They were all laughing like school kids at each other with tears streaming down their faces.
Thronson laughed as he explained to Elmer, “That’s what it’s supposed to sound like, just like that, as soon as it warms up.”
Elmer allowed himself to cough now as his lungs could no longer hold it back. “Yeah I heard that, she sounded mighty crisp in there. Now, how the hell am I supposed to breathe and drive that thing at the same time?”
Thronson replied, “Welcome to Top Fuel, Elmer. You don’t have to breathe. You just have to go fast!”
The Next Installment of Elmer Trett and the Gods of Thunder will be released on May 1, 2026 on Dragbike.com
| For those interested in owning a printed copy of the original book, please contact Tom McCarthy. Limited copies are available. |
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