Elmer Trett and the Gods of Thunder: Chapter 7 – Fateful Liasons
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
Chapter 7 – Fateful Liasons
Elmer’s entry into Top Fuel bike racing in 1976 could not have happened at a better moment in fuel bike racing history. The mid-seventies were a magnificent time of development for Top Fuel motorcycles; there was extensive experimentation going on in every facet of T/F bike racing. The spirit of revolution leading into evolution took hold in 1976.
In 1976, John Dixon of NC was experimenting with a supercharged Harley-Davidson motor fed by fuel injection, using a set of chrome-moly engine cases he made by hand. Joe Thronson, Marion Owens, and Elmer were focusing on twin-engine fuel-injected setups to power their Harley-Davidson drag bikes. Joe Smith, who won the NHRA U.S. Nationals three times, had switched from single-engine nitro to double-engine nitro, but at age forty-seven, had seen about enough nitro for one lifetime. The Harleys won their fair share of sanctioned races in the mid-seventies, but they were under constant attack by import motorcycles that were also evolving.
T.C. Christensen’s Hog Slayer, with John Gregory tuning the twin Norton engines, racked up impressive wins throughout the mid to late seventies. The twin-motored, fuel-injected, nitro-burning British-powered bike was much lighter than the hogs it was slaying. But the real trouble came from Japan, and its name was Kawasaki.
In 1975, Marion Owens’s brother-in-law, Carl Ahlfeldt of Oklahoma, began construction of a double-engine nitromethane-powered Top Fuel bike with two Kawasaki big-block engines. Fed by nitromethane fuel injection, the twin 900 cc engines with stock bore and stroke could produce close to 200 horsepower each. In 1976, when Ahlfeldt debuted the bike, even without all the bugs worked out, the motorcycle posted eight-second elapsed times during its initial outings. With multiple engines becoming the way to go, the inevitable followed in short order.
Russ Collins of R.C. Engineering in California soon showed up at a drag race with his triple-engine Honda, the Atchison, Topeka, Santa Fe, so named after the famous railroad. Three highly modified 750cc Honda power plants, guzzling nitromethane, made the enormous drag bike a threat to the twin-engine Harleys. Over 2250 cc’s of Honda power was a lot of motorcycle in size as well as in power. For Mr. Collins, innovation was his calling card, and he used it well against the Harleys.
Elmer was born and raised in an era of tradition throughout his upbringing. His motorcycling roots were in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the Harley-Davidson factory was a Mecca for the Harley faithful. For Elmer, when it came to the world of two wheels, there was only one real motorcycle, and its name was Harley Davidson. Jap bikes, like the British bikes, were invaders to the USA. Drag strips were battlegrounds; Elmer Trett, Danny Johnson, Joe Thronson, and Marion Owens were at war in Top Fuel bikes largely to defend the honor of their beloved Harley Davidson marquee. If it took two engines to beat the invaders, so be it. Elmer was in it to win it, whatever the price.
Elmer finished seventh in his first year out in Top Fuel bike eliminator with the I.D.B.A. sanction. One year later, Elmer advanced to third place with the same sanction as he learned of the monstrous machine. More than anything else, money held Elmer back during his journeyman years of fuel racing.
Elmer had worked a variety of jobs all his adult life that centered around his labor skills. Hard work, coupled with long hours, was the basic formula Elmer used to earn his income. He was either driving trucks or repairing motorcycles to earn what money he could, while Jackie kept the household in order.
Trying to pay bills and keep food on the table while working a fifty-hour-plus work week, then finding the time to build a race bike was only the start of Elmer’s frantic weekly work schedule. Hourly-paid daily jobs always provided the household’s primary income. Elmer’s need for fuel, bike parts, and a disposable income to go racing with had to come from side jobs, coupled with creative enterprise.
Elmer started fixing, as well as hot rodding friends’ motorcycles in his basement in the Ohio home to generate additional income. As he repaired and replaced his buddies’ street bike components, he found a new source of income: modified parts for race bikes. Elmer discovered he could take old, worn-out parts, modify them for racing, and sell them as high-performance race bike parts. The fact that the items were refurbished didn’t make them less valuable; in some cases, it actually made items increase in value. These items were now customized frequently to increase a Harley’s horsepower output. This gave rise to the family business known as Trett’s Speed & Custom. There was a sign in the shop that read: Harleys Only.
The family business enterprise entered it’s infancy during the same time frame Kelly Trett was in diapers. As the family business grew and income became available, the Tretts made their way to a few races in 1976 to test their first Top Fuel bike. With the current I.D.B.A. T/F record standing at 8.36 @ 174mph, Elmer’s initial testing was frustrating for him, to say the least.
Every pass down the quarter mile, Elmer did three things: he learned something new about nitro racing, he went faster than ever before, and he broke something. Every pass. After burning pistons with alarming frequency, Elmer was fond of saying, “These motors run a whole lot better on nitro than they do on aluminum.” Elmer broke drive chains, power output shafts, bent connecting rods, melted clutch disks together, and shattered gears.
Occasionally, when the bike ran right, when he got to the end of the race track and pulled off the racing surface onto the return road, the magic came to him. He’d find himself on his Top Fuel bike he built with his own hands, parked on top end, next to the best Top Fuel motorcycle pilots in racing. He was now in contention with the best of the best; Elmer Trett had arrived. Now if he could just stop breaking something every pass so he could focus on racing, he could start winning. Making power was never a problem for Elmer, but parts breakage was, and one solution that came to him impacted his career for life.
At a race in Ohio, a local machinist with his girlfriend stood admiring Elmer’s double in the pits one day. They scrutinized every detail of the bike. One of them noticed what appeared to be a separation between an upper motor mount and the upper frame rail’s mounting surface. The upper motor mount looked cracked. The machinist spoke to Jackie, who happened to be standing nearby. “Excuse me, but I think I see a crack in your upper motor mount. It may have happened on your last pass.”
Jackie replied, “I’ll get Elmer, and we’ll take a look. Thank you.”
Elmer soon appeared and knelt next to the bike, wiping his oily hands on a rag. He stared at the fractured upper motor mount of the front motor. Damn thing had broken again. Elmer turned to the observer and said, “Thank you. That’s not the first time that’s happened. We’re gonna have to keep a closer eye on that top motor mount.”
The observer replied, “If you like, I can make you one that’s lighter than the one you’re using and it won’t break. I can machine you one up out of solid billet aluminum.”
Elmer extended his hand to the observant man who introduced himself, “Hi, I’m John Shumaker. I’m a machinist by trade. I’ve got a shop right here in Ohio.”
Elmer replied, “Let me get a piece of paper, please. We need to exchange phone numbers. I’ll give you a call after this race.”
By this time, Elmer was an accomplished machinist in his own right, having rebuilt so many engines in the past twenty years. But, Shumaker had skills Elmer didn’t have that came to his racing program at a critical time. Shumaker was a modern era machinist, fluent not only with the latest machine technology, but also with the latest in materials used by modern industry.
The Trett–Shumaker collaboration began with a broken upper motor mount. After they did a little brainstorming, Shumaker machined a new one up out of solid 6061-T/6 aluminum. Elmer never broke that mount again. This was the start of one of the most important partnerships in motorcycle drag racing history. For the next twenty years, their working relationship, based on friendship, would impact Top Fuel motorcycle drag racing for all time.
Aside from money problems, the biggest factor limiting Elmer’s ability to win races and go faster than his competition was parts breakage. It’s impossible to tune a drag bike for peak performance when it breaks something every pass down the race track.
The single most important rule in the tune-up for fuel racing is, first, you make power; then you harness it. Elmer came to know this rule well. A racer has no idea where they are with a tune-up if their machine can’t make a full pass down 1320 feet of race track. Elmer had problems; Shumaker had answers.
Whatever Elmer broke, he and Shumaker put their heads together to find a way to make things lighter and stronger. Because the topic was fuel racing, stronger always precluded lighter. Rare indeed was the day one man did not call the other throughout the late nineteen-seventies.
Shumaker’s shop was located in Van Wert, Ohio, not far from the Trett residence. Shumaker started in his trade with the Aeroquip Corporation, but decided being a self-employed man with his own machine shop was the best way for him to carve out a living. Their independence and love of all things fast made Elmer and Shumaker instant friends.
Shumaker was impressed by the sanitary appearance of Elmer’s drag bike at first glance. His race bike was cleaned and polished before every lap on the track, if there was time. It may have been a race bike, but it was an immaculate race bike. When Elmer got into serious drag racing, he took particular note of bikes attended to by Carl Ahlfeldt: everything was polished or chromed. There was great pride of ownership on display: it spoke volumes about the owner, and Elmer followed suit. Shumaker, Ahlfeldt, and Elmer were all master machinists, and their workmanship reflected that.
Ahlfeldt was more a builder than a driver. He did his share of driving at one time, but Carl loved the building, assembling, and tune-up aspect of motorcycle drag racing. Carl’s shop, Motorcycles Unlimited, located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, always turned out race bikes that were impressive to see and faster than they looked. Whenever Carl needed a driver, one Top Fuel pilot he called on was Anson Holly, another was Sam Wills, who also had a need for extreme speed. Carl’s liaison with Wills in the late nineteen-seventies had a huge impact on Elmer’s career in Top Fuel motorcycle.
Wills was a machinist and welder/fabricator who could literally build a motorcycle from the bottom up. Wills opened his chassis-building shop, Racing Innovations, also in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, not far from Carl. That he came to know Carl as they entered the Top Fuel bike wars set many important wheels in motion. There were several fateful liaisons during this period that shaped Elmer’s entire career.
Coincidentally, they also set the course for motorcycle drag racing history.
To simply say Elmer accomplished great things may well be true, but one’s greatness in deeds can only be measured by the might of ones foes. Enemies that could beat Elmer were few, but they were mighty.
There were two other fateful liaisons that emerged in the late seventies that Elmer had to contend with, shaping the history of Top Fuel bike and, in the process, his future. One was the emergence of a team that came to be known as Vance & Hines; the other was the collaboration known as the Terminal Van Lines team.
Two high school friends from southern California, Terry Vance and his buddy, Byron Hines, went their separate ways after graduating high school in the early nineteen-seventies. Byron did a tour of duty in Vietnam as a door gunner on a Huey helicopter, and Terry hit the streets as a teenager finding his way in life. In time, the two were reacquainted while working at the high-performance motorcycle shop R. C. Engineering, owned and operated by Russ Collins.
Collins was a West Coast entrepreneur with a penchant for high-speed motorcycles. He saw the emergence of motorcycle drag racing in the early seventies as both a marketing venue and a place to have fun. By 1974, Russ had two star employees hitting the drag races regularly, racing under the RC Engineering banner in the Top Gas class. They were a winning combination from the start.
With Terry Vance driving and Byron Hines turning the wrenches, they began dominating the racetrack right away. In 1975, with the AMDRA sanction, Vance had the Top Gas title locked up by September, after winning almost every race they entered that season. Elmer was racing his sophomore season in T/G when Vance & Hines first dominated. They beat Elmer every time they met. Elmer made note of this. The motorcycle they stomped him with was an R.C. Engineering creation that had Byron Hines’ hands in it right from the start.
The R. C. Engineering T/G bike was built from a pair of Honda 750 cc DOHC motors, which were built and tuned by Byron Hines. His tuning abilities were uncanny; he simply understood motors better than most people understand themselves. When it came to gasoline-powered motorcycles, with Hines tuning and Vance driving, they were always the team to beat. Years later, when they entered the fuel racing ranks, Elmer knew he was in for the fight of his life.
After the class of T/G closed out in 1975 with the A.M.D.R.A. sanction, Vance and Hines shifted their focus to the budding Pro Stock motorcycle class. Their boss, Russ Collins, had them not only working on the world’s fastest gasoline P/S bikes in the land, but there was a supercharged single-engine Honda under construction shortly after the demise of the Top Gas class. For Vance and Hines, they became the masters of the gasoline-powered bikes.
So dominant was Vance at winning races in the late seventies, Hines was named “Pro Mechanic of the Year” for back-to-back seasons in 78/79 with the I.D.B.A. sanction. After making a name for themselves with R. C. Engineering, they left Russ Collins to launch their own business venture, Vance & Hines Racing, near the end of the 1979 season. At the start of the 1980 racing season, the letters VHR first appeared at motorcycle drag races, indicating Vance & Hines Racing was out to win on race day. Winning races gets you noticed. Getting noticed impacts sales figures.
Gasoline-powered motorcycles were the most common and most marketable machines for VHR to relate to. That’s where all their wins were taken in drag racing competition, mostly in the class of Pro Stock bike with their Suzuki power. That VHR would win on Sunday, sell on Monday, was a given as they entered business on their own. There was one small problem with the equation that marketing-savvy Vance saw that needed adjustment: Vance wanted maximum exposure for their new business venture. They couldn’t get maximum press exposure with a gas bike.
Gasoline-powered motorcycles in 1979 didn’t get nearly the press that fuel-powered bikes got when race results were printed. Top Fuel bikes were the biggest, baddest motorcycles on the planet. Fuel bikes were the fastest; they got the most magazine coverage, and their race results always preceded the Pro Stock bikes. Fuel bike racing equaled maximum exposure. If Vance and Hines were to be the biggest high-performance motorcycle aftermarket company in the country, there was only one way to proclaim they were number one. They announced they were entering the Top Fuel motorcycle class.
The liaison of Vance & Hines and their ascension into Top Fuel caught Elmer’s eye right away. Vance & Hines Racing did not just win but dominated every motorcycle drag-racing class they entered. This was trouble with a capitol T for everyone in the class.
And then a team whose name began with a T brought a whole new can of whoop-ass into T/F.
Trett watched them rise up through the fuel ranks with innovation as their forte. Every year going faster, quicker, gaining strength while teaching everyone a lesson along the way. A terminal lesson. Enter the Terminal Van Lines Team.
The Next Installment of Elmer Trett and the Gods of Thunder will be released on May 15, 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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