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Pro Street (later known as Pro Stock)
In 1978 Brian decided that a move up to the newly created Pro Street class was required and this demanded a completely new bike. You could tell that Brian had a few tricks up his sleeve by then, the clue is in the name of the new bike. Enter the first incarnation of The Imperial Wizard. The bike ran a 1265 cc MTC engine from Ken Tipton’s Piston Company in Florida and featured a four-into-one exhaust. The frame was a stock Kawasaki item which underwent modification by Brian and a new rear swinging arm assembly was sourced from the USA. Brian fabricated the linkages for the four Amal carburetors and actually sold this equipment to several US teams. This bike was understandably dramatically faster than Bulletproof and clocked a best of 9.1 seconds at 142 mph. Whilst visiting the States in 1978 Brian was invited to ride MTC’s own Pro Stock bike in competition at an IDBA meeting at Gulfport, Mississippi. Brian went out in the semi final round to Vicki Farr who was a very accomplished Pro Stock rider at that time. He also took the opportunity to test a 1400 cc lump (a huge engine in those days) and a three speed gearbox in MTC’s frame at Bithlo, Florida. Unfortunately it screwed up the camshaft so that idea was swiftly dropped!
Instead a 1265 cc top end was purchased from Motorcycles Unlimited and with this set up Brian ran a storming 154 mph terminal speed which equalled the best terminal speed then achieved by Terry Vance of the famous Vance & Hines team. The back wheel on this bike was interesting. Brian wished to preserve the look of the original bike as much as possible and this meant that he needed a spoked rear wheel. These were not commercially available in the width required so Pete Davis of Puma Engineering spliced two 40 spoke rims together to form the very impressive 80 spoke item you see in the picture above.
The final power plant to be installed in this bike was another Motorcycles Unlimited piece, this time of 1327 cc displacement and this carried Brian through to the end of 1982 when things were set to change rather. This version of The Imperial Wizard recorded the first eight second pass by a Pro Stock bike in Europe with a 8.98 / 150.3 lap. Brian went on to clock an all-time low for him of 8.91 seconds which he did in an exciting race with Mick Butler who went one better with an 8.90 clocking. Brian’s best terminal speed was 154.01 mph. Brian and The Imperial Wizard completely dominated Pro Stock motorcycle racing in this country by winning both the National Drag Racing Club and the British Drag Racing and Hot Rod Association’s championships in 1980, 1981 and 1982.
Before leaving Brian’s Pro Stock career, it is worth mentioning that Brian’s company Johnson Engineering sponsored Mick Carter to the tune of a complete bike and leathers to run in Pro Stock between 1981 and 1983. The picture below, which was taken at Santa Pod on 22 September 1984, shows the bike after Brian sold it for reasons which will be explained on the next page.
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