Hot Times in the Summertime

In the summer of 2018, a very hot one indeed, the motorcycle drag racing sanction now known as the XDA or Xtreme Dragbike Association was coming in hot on the weekend of July 27-29 for their 18th annual, WPGC 95.5 FM Bike Fest. A whopping 789 entries filled into nine classes giving drag bike racers a weekend of fast and furious action at their home track, Maryland International Raceway in Budds Creek, MD.

The premier class of Orient Express Pro Street Motorcycle did not disappoint this weekend with 17 of the world’s quickest Pro Street motorcycles going head to head. Rodney Williford’s 6.61 and 224.73 were the quickest and fastest of the weekend for the class. But steady goes to the win as Chris Connelly took home the W on Sunday.

Rodney Williford

As an interesting side note, Rodney Williford of Williford Racing made four runs on the weekend in the 6.60’s in the blazing heat of mid-July, and set a new XDA record for the Pro/Street bike class. His 6.61 elapsed time is currently #1 on the GOAT list (Greatest Of All Time). Nine of the top ten on the GOAT list are turbocharged; eight are Suzuki Hayabusa’s, one Honda and a one very cool, old school Suzuki GS, Nitrous bike. Pro Street – not for the meek.

Another outstanding achievement of the event was the 18 entries in DME Real Street racing class and the re-setting of both ends of the Real Street records. Going into the event, the elapsed time record was 7.659 and the MPH record was 193.16. Eddie Chapman, of Pocomoke City, MD, re-set the marks to 7.654 @ 195.17 MPH. Jeremy Teasley defeated Spencer Claycomb for the class win on Sunday.

Top Fuel motorcycle match racing was also on tap for this event. Larry “Spiderman” McBride and Dave Vantine put on a show for the drag bike fans with 5-second elapsed times and runs near 250 MPH. Larry’s quickest of the show was a stout 5.76 @ 250mph flat.

Speaking of America’s favorite arachnid, he performed with great gusto at the Man Cup Fast by Gast Nationals on July 13-15 at Dragway 42 in Ohio. Larry qualified #1 with a spectacular 5.88 @ 241 followed closely by Pingel Top Fuel series points leader Dave Vantine’s 6.03 elapsed time. The two titans of T/F motorcycle met for the final round match up on Sunday, but the event was halted by a downpour with many of the finalists in the lanes Sunday evening.

A welcome addition to the Man Cup Top Fuel bikes at Dragway 42 was the first Man Cup appearance of the T/F Harley team of Jason Pridemore. His stunning blown and injected Top Fuel Twin was there more for testing than actual competition, as the bike has undergone major changes in the last 14 months, so the D-42 appearance was really shake-down time for team Pridemore. While the numbers they produced were not the big numbers they are hunting for, there was a measure of success in getting the bike to produce consistently improving numbers without hurting anything major. The fans and racers got an eye-full just in seeing the beautifully hand-crafted monster.

As for monsters, Preston Bartlett of Florida is currently the point’s leader in Orangeburg Cycle Racing Pro/Fuel class and he’s getting a creditable challenge in defending his 2017 #1 plate from Sam White, who recently purchased Johnny Vickers “Terminator” bike. Sam qualified number one with a fine 7.32 and was more than Preston could hold off in their final round match up. Sam beat Preston 7.22 vs 7.32 for his first win of 2018. If Sam White can keep the momentum going there are two races remaining in the Man Cup series this season, September 14-16 at GALOT and November 15-18 at SGMP for the World Finals.