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Welcome to the last page of motorcycle pictures from my own collection.  It is entirely devoted to the biggest and baddest machines of the late 1970s and the 1980s.

 

 


Both Clive Rooms and Rod Pallant have been in touch to clarify the ownership of this bike.  It was built by Tom Quinn and registered as AAC 13.  Tom called it Big Momma which makes perfect sense considering it has 8 cylinders and displaced a whopping 2026cc.
The bike then passed to Bob Webster and the race number changed to AAC 250.  A bit of work has clearly been done to it in the picture on the lower right.


 

Rod Pallant tells me that it is he in the red overalls with Barry Townsend opposite.  Well, he should know!  Rod reckons this pictures was taken in either 1977 or '78.

 

 

This bike was built by Terry Revill and then sold to Chris Stevens who campaigned it as The Predator (information coutresy of Rod Pallant).
The bike was powered by two Kawaski motors displacing a total of 2040cc.
At least at this stage competitiors had still not lost their originality of design.  But it would not be long before the blown and injected 4 cylinder route became the norm.

 

 

 

The Magnusson brothers' Top Fuel Bike.

 

 

Solely on the basis that this bike was sponsored by Mecman, I assume it belonged to Swedes Lennart Olofsson (who rode it down into the seven second zone) and Bo Christensson.

 

This picture was taken on 29 June 1985 and the bike has been identified by Marius van der Zijden, Rod Pallant and Ivan Sansom.
It was originally one of Henk Vink's bikes.  The chassis was constructed by Nico Bakker and Marius thinks it was aluminium, Ivan thinks stainless steel.  The bike was sold to Bob Feeler who had some success on it before selling it to Danielle Dieudonne who still owns it.

 

Two shots of the Woollatt and O'Neal B Fuel Bike.
This must be unique having the names of two Archive contributors on the same machine.  Steve Woollatt has a collection of pictures on the site, and elsewhere Pat Neal's restoration of Veney's Vega is the subject of a feature article.

 

 

 


Rod Pallant built and rode a fair few machines in Top Fuel Bike over the years including one powered by a V8 Rover engine.
The examples in these six shots use more conventional four cylinder power plants. Two injected motors are used in the upper three pictures, and one blown and injected lump in the lower three.
You can see Archive contributor Keith Lee in the upper right hand shot busily videoing away.


 

 

 

This magnificent streamliner was pictured at the 4th Transatlantic Drag Bike Race at Long Marston on 29 June 1985.  Marius van der Zijden thinks it was owned by a French team called Drag Mob.  I do not recall seeing it run.

 

 

 

This is Stefan Reisten's beautiful Shark Magic Top Fuel Bike.
It not only looked good, it went like you know what off a shovel.

 

These two pictures, and the one at bottom left were taken at the 3rd Transatlantic Drag Bike Race on 29 June 1984.
The picture at bottom right was taken at the 4th TDBR on 29 June 1985.

                           

 

Brian Johnson is to date (2011) the UK's quickest and fastest Top Fuel Bike rider despite having retired in 2001.
These two pictures show him on his first Imperial Wizard TFB which he bought from Carl Ahlfeldt of Motorcycles Unlimited in the USA.
Brian was the IDBA World champion of 1984 riding this machine

 

Left - a very wet Santa Pod on 7 April 1985.
Right - the 4th Transatlantic Drag Bike Race held at Long Marston on 29 June 1985.
The figure on the extreme left is Brian's great friend the legendary, and unfortunately late, Elmer Trett who was campaigning his Mountain Magic machine at this event.
Those were the days!
You can read an in-depth article about Brian's illustrious racing career by clicking here.

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(First posted 25 October 2011)