Author Topic: 1950's land speed racers pics  (Read 40593 times)

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Offline John Noonan

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Not any 1950's land speed racers pics
« Reply #60 on: July 08, 2009, 02:16:41 AM »
Thanks racefanwfo,

Seldom seen slim,

Yep, I know how it works, used it the first few time's I posted but no longer work-ie...

OH well, don't worry about it...it's fine the way it is...

Joe it works fine..it is you.... :cheers:

Offline racefanwfo

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Re: 1950's land speed racers pics
« Reply #61 on: July 08, 2009, 03:02:54 AM »
hey joe how many times did you race tc and his bike the hogslayer.
what was your win loss record.
The speed that you wish to achieve is only limited by the depth of your wallet.

Offline Granddaddy Joe

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Re: Not any 1950's land speed racers pics
« Reply #62 on: July 08, 2009, 03:25:02 AM »
Thanks racefanwfo,

Seldom seen slim,

Yep, I know how it works, used it the first few time's I posted but no longer work-ie...

OH well, don't worry about it...it's fine the way it is...

Joe it works fine..it is you.... :cheers:

John,

You must be right but I don't understand it...The very first post I made I was able to select what I wanted Bold and click the "B", now it no longer does that...

Offline racefanwfo

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Re: 1950's land speed racers pics
« Reply #63 on: July 08, 2009, 03:45:03 AM »
 :cheers:
« Last Edit: July 08, 2009, 03:50:30 AM by racefanwfo »
The speed that you wish to achieve is only limited by the depth of your wallet.

Offline Granddaddy Joe

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Re: 1950's land speed racers pics
« Reply #64 on: July 08, 2009, 04:42:10 AM »
hey joe how many times did you race tc and his bike the hogslayer.
what was your win loss record.

TC and I raced against each other a lot, that's where the "Hogslayer" came from...We also had a series of Match races...Those were the most fun, we filled the stands at a few Drag Strips that never had more than a couple thousand people until we booked in...some strips were so bumpy we shouldn't have even been there...There was one that I remember very well, there was a big bump at the 1000 foot mark and it was a night Match Race...We both were turning over 175 and hit that bump and sparks would fly off the bottom of the frames and the front wheel got in the air, the spectators went crazy...It's funny about racing, we both agreed to shut off early on the last race, are you kidding, neither of us shut off, we hit that bump and both got out of control, my bike jumped in his lane with my front tire almost rubbing his slick...We came to a stop at the end sitting there in the dark taking off our gloves and helmets and Tommy said..."lets get our money and get the hell out of here"...Tommy and I were good Showman, Burnouts side by side, took a lot of time from the start of the motors until the green, always finish side by side through the lights...always over 170 and the ET times then were in the very low eights...We each wanted to win but putting on a good show for the Spectators was really what we were after, that's how we made our living and wanted to come back to race another day...

Tommy whipped me two out of three that night, I really never kept any win lose record with Tommy, or Boris Murray for that matter...I just knew that I won and Tommy won but probably Tommy won more that I did...

TC and Boris were the two best Motorcycle Drag Racing RIDERS I ever knew...during my Career...

BESIDE ME...


Bluenote

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Re: 1950's land speed racers pics
« Reply #65 on: July 23, 2009, 08:50:28 PM »
[quote author=Granddaddy Joe link=topic=4070.msg93642#msg93642 Tommy whipped me two out of three that night, I really never kept any win lose record with Tommy, or Boris Murray for that matter...I just knew that I won and Tommy won but probably Tommy won more that I did...

TC and Boris were the two best Motorcycle Drag Racing RIDERS I ever knew...during my Career...

BESIDE ME...


[/quote]
 
 
 
   Man but this brings back some memories , you , T.C. and the hogslayer ,and later Bonnie Truett, Russ Collins and a host of others.
 
    Wonder if you could do me a favor . could you ask Boris Murray if he remembers the 'Ring Ding Express' out of the Denco shop in the East Bay. 
 
 
 B.

Offline Granddaddy Joe

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Re: 1950's land speed racers pics
« Reply #66 on: July 23, 2009, 09:19:53 PM »
[quote author=Granddaddy Joe link=topic=4070.msg93642#msg93642 Tommy whipped me two out of three that night, I really never kept any win lose record with Tommy, or Boris Murray for that matter...I just knew that I won and Tommy won but probably Tommy won more that I did...

TC and Boris were the two best Motorcycle Drag Racing RIDERS I ever knew...during my Career...

BESIDE ME...



 
 
 
   Man but this brings back some memories , you , T.C. and the hogslayer ,and later Bonnie Truett, Russ Collins and a host of others.
 
    Wonder if you could do me a favor . could you ask Boris Murray if he remembers the 'Ring Ding Express' out of the Denco shop in the East Bay. 
 
 
 B.
[/quote]

Bluenote,

Were you around Denco when I was in there every day for a time and we were building a new Double Engine Chassis to replace my old one...I never use it and I think Marion Owens has it now...

Yea, I'll relay your message to Boris...


Bluenote

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Re: 1950's land speed racers pics
« Reply #67 on: July 24, 2009, 04:41:05 PM »


Bluenote,

Were you around Denco when I was in there every day for a time and we were building a new Double Engine Chassis to replace my old one...I never use it and I think Marion Owens has it now...

Yea, I'll relay your message to Boris...


[/quote]
 
 
 
    I'd imagine we met a few times , I had a whole long series of Denco triples that I ran at Fremont and around the Bay Area street scene in those days ( yeah I know we shouldn't have been running on the street , but we were young and there was money to be had , especially from the Honda crowd that thought the sun rose and set with R.C. engineering in those days) , learned a lot about proper launching from Tony N. and a whole lot about the motors from Dennis and a guy named Rusty who used to port for them.
 
  Man this really does make the memories come flooding back , getting stopped in downtown San Jose once on a wicked  Denco built 750 triple and the cops looking in vain for a way to ticket me for the wheeelie bars , they finally just wrote me for the slick and let it go.
 
   Met a whole lot of people there , which led to a whole bunch of entertaining adventures that went on for years , trips down to the Pastrami Stand in L.A. ( bring your A game and money....) , moving to the big Suzukis and going to Daytona and hanging out at the Cabbage patch having my way with the big inch h/dS and the Honda crowd until Mike Bruso showed up on that nasty Sid Pogue built Kaw he rode back then , had a number plate on it that said 10.80..........YEAHRIGHT , that one cost me some money but I made it all back betting on him.
 
  Damn , nostalgia. Now Denco is but a memory , along with R.C. , Action Fours and a whole host of others , V and H makes more money selling pipes for japanese cruisers and if I say Truett and Osborn the younger crowd looks at me strange.

Offline tomsmith

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Re: 1950's land speed racers pics
« Reply #68 on: July 24, 2009, 06:21:45 PM »
Yes, Joe Smith ran faster with his knucklehead than my panhead (both engines in my frame).  I ran gas with a low compression (7:1) motor since I was still recovering from Bonneville and didn't want to go too fast.  I had 1/8" plates under the cylinders and my pistons were 8.5:1 without them.  Joe used a 4-speed transmission, where I ran a 2-speed.  This was the big difference.  Originally, Harley did not make a foot shift so we had to use 2 speeds with neutral in between so we wouldn't miss shifts.  Since tires were hard rubber, this resulted in a lot of wheelspin which in turn killed elapsed time.  I found this by accident at Lions when I started off on a lazy test run with no wheelspin.  My elapsed time was 10.65 seconds instead of my normal wheelspinning 12 seconds, and I even shut down and coasted some before I got to the traps.  This was the best elapsed time at Lions at the time for a gas bike.  Remember that everyone was in learning mode - what everyone now takes for granted was a mystery to us, although we could have used a little spare time to think.  The same wheelspin thing happened with my 56 Corvette,along with tire hop - it ran 91mph and 14.85 seconds in low gear.  It had a really wrong rear end ratio, so I went through the traps in first gear at about 6,000 rpm.  It was red-lined at 7,200.
139mph with no bike, but with speedo and helmet.

Offline Stan Back

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Re: 1950's land speed racers pics
« Reply #69 on: July 24, 2009, 07:06:47 PM »
Tom --

I understood everything up until the Vette.  Did you leave something out?

Stan
Past (Only) Member of the San Berdoo Roadsters -- "California's Most-Exclusive Roadster Club" -- 19 Years of Bonneville and/or El Mirage Street Roadster Records

Offline Granddaddy Joe

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Re: 1950's land speed racers pics
« Reply #70 on: July 24, 2009, 11:57:32 PM »
Yes, Joe Smith ran faster with his knucklehead than my panhead (both engines in my frame).  I ran gas with a low compression (7:1) motor since I was still recovering from Bonneville and didn't want to go too fast.  I had 1/8" plates under the cylinders and my pistons were 8.5:1 without them.  Joe used a 4-speed transmission, where I ran a 2-speed.  This was the big difference.  Originally, Harley did not make a foot shift so we had to use 2 speeds with neutral in between so we wouldn't miss shifts.  Since tires were hard rubber, this resulted in a lot of wheelspin which in turn killed elapsed time.  I found this by accident at Lions when I started off on a lazy test run with no wheelspin.  My elapsed time was 10.65 seconds instead of my normal wheelspinning 12 seconds, and I even shut down and coasted some before I got to the traps.  This was the best elapsed time at Lions at the time for a gas bike.  Remember that everyone was in learning mode - what everyone now takes for granted was a mystery to us, although we could have used a little spare time to think.  The same wheelspin thing happened with my 56 Corvette,along with tire hop - it ran 91mph and 14.85 seconds in low gear.  It had a really wrong rear end ratio, so I went through the traps in first gear at about 6,000 rpm.  It was red-lined at 7,200.

Tommy,

Hi ya, yes those were the days, they were long ago and a bit sketchy in my mind...That old bike of mine back then went a best of 123 MPH at a 11.04 in 1956 at old San Gabriel Drags on gas...The same bike that year went 140 MPH at 10.65 ten runs at Fontana Raceway on fuel...I never ran a four speed, always ran second and third out of a three speed trans shifting with a jockey shift and no clutch...The tire I use was a 550-16 Dunlop out of an auto wrecking yard, the were natural gum rubber and only found on a few Sport Cars back then...later in the sixty's, running fuel with that same trans sit up, I fell down with my hand on that jockey shift, came back running high gear only...

I think in the fifty's it was just a bunch of guys getting together on the weekend and Drag Racing, back then there was a number of track to go to that was an hours drive from home...I don't think the learning mode came until the mid sixty's on...

Here's a story on this page of "no smoke runs" you might find interesting...   

http://joe-smith-drag-racer-true-bench-racin.blogspot.com/2007/06/1971-breaking-9-second-barrier.html


Offline RIFLEMAN

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Re: 1950's land speed racers pics
« Reply #71 on: August 02, 2009, 04:05:30 AM »
 Joe,
 Thanks for posting the link. Love reading about 'the old days'. Can't imagine what it was like to pull the trigger on those bikes.
 Men were men back then!
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Offline Granddaddy Joe

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Re: 1950's land speed racers pics
« Reply #72 on: August 02, 2009, 04:38:07 AM »
Joe,
 Thanks for posting the link. Love reading about 'the old days'. Can't imagine what it was like to pull the trigger on those bikes.
 Men were men back then!

Thanks Rifleman,

Drag Racing is a lot easier than leaving the throttle on as long as you do at El Mirage or Bonneville...

Funny about where you live, I live in Hesperia CA...

Offline Granddaddy Joe

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Re: 1950's land speed racers pics
« Reply #73 on: October 11, 2009, 04:03:41 PM »
Yep, I worked at Motorcycle Specialties HD on Garvey Blvd in South San Gabriel, who sponsored me, off and on for about three years.  Down Garvey a mile or two was Ed Kretz's shop.  I dropped out of college in 1952 and worked there full time in exchange for discounted parts and free labor on my drag bike since I didn't have any money.  I normally rode Joe Fernandez' knucklehead at drags and dry lakes.  Since he was good friends with Blackie Bernal, he set me up with Blackie and his drag Triumph in 1952 when he had his drag bike down for upgrade to billet cylinders and bigger displacement.  Joe thought I needed something to do while waiting for him.  I also rode a K-model Harley at Carrell Speedway and my HD Hummer on scrambles & Catalina.  John Gregurich sold the shop to Bob Laidlaw right about the time that Joe Smith initially ran his drag bike out of the shop.  I loaned my gas dragster (minus motor) to Joe Smith for a while.  He used his motor in it while he was building up his first drag bike.  Bob Laidlaw did the lower end on my dragster and I did the porting and upper end.  I returned to college in 54 after recovering from Bonneville and built up my gas dragster in 57 or 58.  I finally dropped out of college and got a real job in 1959 at Edwards AFB.  By that time I was married and had a kid.  College, wife, kid and a job kind of slowed me down permanently although my wife got mad at me when I quit running drags.

Tommy,

I found a picture of the time I used your Chassis, it not too good and that's me getting ready for a run, T-Shirt and a helmet, that's my Mom and Dad standing there..



Offline theazoldcrow

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Re: 1950's land speed racers pics
« Reply #74 on: October 11, 2009, 04:07:31 PM »
 :cheers: Grandaddy Joe,  that pic brings back some old memories of "the days"  Thanks for the post!         Crow.
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