Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126656
J (Above) Elmer Trett turned in a solid ride en route to the Top Fuel win. (Below) Russ Glasham's first-ever NMRA final turned into his first-ever NRMA Funny Bike title. (Above) Randy Mason and crew celebrete after Mason defeated Terry Vance in the Pro Stock final. (Below) Rick Stetson continued his winni~g ways in Pro Comp, taking his 11 th streight. D National Motorcycle Racing Association Western Nationals Trett tops Top Fuel, Glasham pulls FB upset at .GelR By Skip Johnson IRVINE. CA, AUG. 20-21 This year's National Motorcycle Racing Association's all-bike drag race at Orange County International Raceway may have been the last all-motorcycle event to ever run there, but that didn't stop the nation's top compe,titors from puttin'g on a crowd-pleasing show. The "Last Western Nationals" became a very important event for those in contention for class titles because of the recent cancellation of the Denver all-bike round means only one remaining all-bike event. The inconsistent cloudy/muggy conditions for the approximately I~O Pros and sportsmen kept the fuel bike tuners guessing while the rest of the heavily Eastern-based Pro comi-ngent were trying to remember what combination worked best last year. For this year's winners - Top Fueler Elmer Trett, Pro Stocker Randy Mason, Funny Bike rider Russ Glasham and Pro Comp champ Rick Stetson - the western trek was worth the trip, while others wished they never left home. 12 "1 Qualifying Coming into this round with a comfortable Top Fuel points lead, veteran pilot Elmer Trett, with the help of his enthusiastic family/crew, was top qualifier with a crowd-pleasin 7.29/196.9$ pass. Terry Vance and tuning wizard Bryon Hines put their Suzuki· powered rocket into the number two qualifying spot with an impressive 7.41/187.50. Vance attempted to better his position in the final qualifying session but lost his fire on the .starting line. NMRA director Jim Harris had to refuse a noticeabl y upset Vance a restart because NMRA rules do not allow Top Fuel or Funny Bikes to be refired after they leave the burnout box. Vance was not the only one with troubles in Top Fuel. Russ Collins. aboard his legendary, fresh-from-a· two-year-retirement, dual-Hondaengined "Sorcerer."lost a piston. rod and head on a mid-afternoon qualifying pass. Funny Bike qualifying proved exciting and expensive for most of the six-bike field. Current points leader George Brice put his beautiful turbo Kawasaki into the top qualifying spot with a 8.0~5/168.5~. Brice had a qualifying pass stopped short when the engine and rear wheel locked up about 500 feet from the start and slid him to a scary. stop. Number two qualifier was John Sands aboard his 1219cc Honda. Sands ran into trouble in the final session when he turned the thro,tle 0!1 too hard whi •••• I. ... started a chain reaction, beginning with stretching the throttle cable and ending with letting the engine die and bending up the transmission shifting forks. New to the Funny Bike field was the former Top Fuel team of Ron Teson and Jim Bernard, who showed up with a brand new Vance Be: Hines Racing-prepared, fuelinjected Suzuki. Builder Teson said they made the switch because the Funny Bike class is "a lot less expensive...you can build a bike real close with mostly off-the·shelf parts." Their first pass on the new machine put them into the race with a 9.75/86.0 run that also sent them back to the shop to replace the broken stock gearbox. Eventual class winner Russ Glasham, a privateer from Henderson. Nevada qualified third on his 5-yearold injected Kawasaki with his second-quickest·ever time of. 8.467/ 159.01. Pro Stock was the largest field of Pros with 10 riders competing for eight spots. 1982 Pro Stock champ Terry Vance, aboard last year's Suzuki, which has not been run since last October. was top qualifier. with a competitive 8.672/150.7 posting. Kawasaki rider Randy Mason was second, followed by "Superbike" Mike Keyte and point leader Bob Carpenter. who experienced tire separation problems during qualifying. The bump spot was 9.125 seconds. Pro Comp champion Rick Stetson qualified his Suzuki ahead of HarleyDavidson-mounted Jim McClure. Super Modified saw Gary Codwin and Frank Giordano continue their respective Honda/Kawasaki battle with Godwin ending up top qualifier, turning a 10.154/126.58 to Giordilno's 10.289/12 .28. 'i I .. • Final. r The Top Fuel run-off began with the second elimination round and saw Trett making a bye run .a'I1d Vance pitted against a freshly repaired Collins. The popular Vance/Collins hattie never materialized as the Sorcerer lost its fire on the line and Vance was forced to solo. The final was the last Top Fuel race to ever run at OCIR and it was' a fitting climax. Trett and Vance both gated well with the edge going to 'the blown and injected 1~27cc Kawasaki of Trett. who continued to motor on to a convincing win. Elmer was happy with his performance. saying "We did what we came todo...winl" Trett seemed to spend the least amoun~ c?f time working on his machine betWeeJlL rounds and when asked about it, be gave all the credit to his crew and sponsors, including MTC Engineering. Karata, Jardine Headers and Treu's Speed and Machine. His et'I!W spends ~o to 40 hours per week prepping and maintaining the machilie that has won five out of the last six even ts enteredo ,. The Funny Bike rounds were full of the biggest upsets of the day. Both Brice and Sands, the nation's number one- and two-ranked riders both broke on the starting line of their respective races. Brice hadjust put in his second gearbox in as many days, finishing within minutes of the first round.' Sands went out in the first round too, with a possible crankshaft problem, giving his competition Nigel Patrick an easy single, except Patrick's immaculate Kawasaki spit a rod through the cases near the finish, putting him on the trailer for good. In the only round to have two machines compete, Jim,.~rl}~r,d.}w~ed .t!tf, 4ft