Cool pictures however please stop posting the same thing in different forums.
John
PS those guys riding like that were wild. :mrgreen:
J
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.
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.
Hello Joe and welcome to the forum.. :cheers:
Tell us more about this Tom Fellow.. :-D
J
Joe,
I was asking about Tom N..
Nevermind..Tell Baz Hello.
J
Great to hear you are still with us, Joe......I had the pleasure in seeing you run many a time at the drags..
About the same time period I was running a Triumph out of Bill Graves's shop in Pasadena........Bill called the bike "Senator" because Bill said "It made lots of noise....and did not do much".......we had fun.......
Great to hear you are still with us, Joe......I had the pleasure in seeing you run many a time at the drags..
About the same time period I was running a Triumph out of Bill Graves's shop in Pasadena........Bill called the bike "Senator" because Bill said "It made lots of noise....and did not do much".......we had fun.......
Is this one of the Baker Brothers of the late 50's...?
[/quote
Joe,
Can't be, he is about 72..... :wink:
Quote,
"I remember looking at "Joe's" bike photo's in CYCLE Magazine,
and using pencil and protractor to figure out wheelbase,
rake, trail, CDa, horsepower, etc".
I'd like to see that...??
That issue is still on my shelf,
with the calculations in the margin......
You should see the Enz calc's....
Slopoke,
What happen to your postings...
I use www.post-wink.com
eliminates anoying posts within 72 hours.
What do you use ?
WOW.....Never know who'll you'll discover on this site!
For those of us who grew up racing drag bikes Joe Smith is a Legend and a Hero. I had 650 triumphs but always wanted a 9 second Harley like Joe Smith.
When I got drafted in 1965 I took a dragbike mag to boot camp. There was an article on how to build a 9 second Harley like Joe's....that mag and article got me through my two year stint in the Army, Thanks Joe!
I never did get my Harley dragbike but thanks to people like Joe I'm still racing bikes, 51 years later...
Thanks for all the memories Joe.
Buzz
Where are these Munro items located?
Geo
Where are these Munro items located?
Geo
Let's see, Granddaddy Joe:
This should be in bold, and this might well be italics. What do you think? Here's some of the other stuff:
Color"Marquee"
Does that help answer you -- the things still work here? If so -- must be something with your connection or 'puter or something. Try again. . .
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...
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:
hey joe how many times did you race tc and his bike the hogslayer.
what was your win loss record.
[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...
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.
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!
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.