1971 Motorcycle Drag Racing Larry Welch ATCO - 4-Page Vintage Motorcycle Article

Description

1971 Motorcycle Drag Racing Larry Welch ATCO - 4-Page Vintage Motorcycle Article
Original, Vintage Magazine article.
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
Over 500 motorcycles showed up
for the world's biggest bike drag event.
It rained; more than 300 came back
the next weekend, and, in spite of the
intensity of the competition, nobody
turned any super times—except for Larry
Welch, whose automobile-tired 97 cubic-
inch Sportster cranked off one magnificent,
smokey pass (9.33-155 mph) and subsequently
wheelied itself right out of the ballpark.
• We were parked down at the other end of
the strip when Larry Welch came into view,
his enormous rear tire making the same kind
of urp-urp-urp noises that a funny-car
makes when the brakes are locked on. Larry
was out of his mind. “It must have been a
eight (meaning an eight-second run)!’’ he
hollered. “Never felt anything like it in my
life! The damn bike carried the front wheel
for, Jeez, it must have been 400 feet! Had to
be an eight!”
It wasn't—but it was the closest any of us
had come, or would come, at any time dur-
ing the running of the Atco National Cham-
pionships.
Larry had been there the week before. His
own Sportster had broken one of its com-
pression rings into three pieces, after which
Larry had replaced the two biggest ones and
pressed on, to no significant avail. As a mat-
ter of fact no one had done particularly well
the week before, the strip being extremely
slippery and the weather quite cold; but
mercifully it had rained in the middle of the
afternoon, and we were all back the next
Sunday to try again. Welch especially. He
had been working on a monster motor
(3ll/l6-inch bore, 49/l6-inch stroke) al! sea-
son in conjunction with Paul Burkhardt, the
noted California cylinder-builder; after see-
ing the top qualifier eke out a mediocre 9.70,
Welch figured he had The Plan: this great
mothering engine, complete with 74 cylinder
heads, his old-style Yetman chassis, one
gear, and an M&H automobile tire, original-
ly designed for a Volkswagen, fitted to a cast
aluminum wheel.
So Welch’s Sportster had plenty of trac-
tion: did it have enough motor? You bet. His
very first run, the run he swore had to be an
eight, produced a 9.33-155 mph, the bike
teetering on that very fine edge of traction
right between too much smoke and a wheel-
stand. No one else was even close.
The times were so bad, in fact, that a lot
of competitors thought the clocks were off-—
until the Draggin’ Daddy, Ron Fringer,
cranked off a 10.18 in qualifying, a number
that Fringer seems to be able to produce at
will on his AA/Gasser Sportster.
Ah, you’re thinking, the real reason the
times were off is because none of the charg-
ers were there. Wrong. Everybody, with the
exception of Joe Smith and Boris Murray,
showed at the Atco meet—in fact, over 500
motorcycles were in competition the first
weekend, 300 of which returned. Leo was
there, working with a frame that had been
built by Boris and which showed every will-
ingness to do poor Leo in. Routt was on the
scene with his 102-inch Triumph fuel double
and his 110-inch gas double (that’s 55 inches
per engine, in case you hadn’t noticed), both
of which, when it got down to the short
grunts, would let him down. Also in attend-
ance: Danny Johnson and his 107-inch
Sportster fueler; Pat Miller’s three-engined
Yamaha gasser, trying to get the job done on
one gear, and wishing for its old Triumph
transmission; the gorgeous needle-nosed gas-
ser of Gruszka and Fischer; Sunset Motors'
single-engined Norton and double-engined
Norton, both fuel-injected; Marv Jorgen-
son’s supercharged Sportster gasser; and the
heavyweight of the meet, a double-engined
BSA fuel 750 three, whose crew had brought
it all the way from Oklahoma only to find
that the bike had too much power for its
clutch.
What happened? Ron Fringer put togeth-
er a long string of good tens before losing to
Routt's gasser; Routt himself suffered some
fuel line problems at the start and was done
in by Gruszka and Fischer in the final round
of Top Gas.
In Top Fuel, Ray Belucci, aboard a super-
sanitary 48-inch Triumph, whipped last
year’s winner, Guy Learning, hung on when
Eddie Knight red-lighted (Belucci himself
crossed the center line, but in drag racing,
whoever loses first loses), and beat the awe-
some Yellow Peril of Danny Johnson...
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