It was June of 1996. We have a turn pike not far from my house were drag racers and muscle cars from all over the state come to meet and then set up races. I rode up there and met my friend at Roy Rogers the hamburger spot where all the action is. He hangs out there every weekend and is a real gear head. There was a guy with a 1968 barracuda (who had dropped in a 426 hemi) that showed up with slicks. he was talking to a guy with a 440 gtx and next thing you know everybody jumps in their cars and the parking lot empties out. About two blocks away is the spot everybody drag races. I get there just in time to see the start and the Cuda kicked his butt real bad. Everybody heads back to Roy Rogers and then this kid shows up on a lowered gsxr 750 with an extended swing arm and air shifter. I see the cuda and the GSXR kid talking and so they are off and the parking lot empties out and off to the drag spot we go again. The two line up, they both do a burn out to heat their tires and line up. The starter signals them with a flashlight and on the third blink off they go. The bike launches fairly hard but wheelies about 50 feet out and has to let off a little. that all it took and the cuda dust him bad. We all get back to Roy Rogers and the cuda guy starts checking out my 1150. He asks "How’s it go?" And I said "good". As I said earlier, my friend is "in the know" because he hangs out there all the time. He comes over to me and whispers "At the track, with those slicks I saw him run four passes in the 10.50 range." "I heard he has gone 10.25." Now at this time, my all time best without the nitrous on my GS1150 was 10.60 and with the nitrous only a little better, a 10.46. I had a lot of trouble with tire spin and keeping the front end down with the nitrous (juice), which I got much better at later.
He then asked me if I want to go at it, and my mind is going a million miles an hour. I figure on the street I can probably run a 10.70, maybe hit the juice late in third or Fourth and squeeze out a 10.60? Its so hard to compare track times with street racing because there is never the same amount of traction on the street and you always run slower, but so will your opponent. Then he says how about $500?" I start to sweat and turn really chicken, that is so way over my budget. My buddy Gary butts in and says "We will get right back to you" Gary then goes around to all his friends who are there and comes back to me says him and his friends will chip in but all we could come up with was $250. We find the Cuda guy and I tell him "I got $250 and that’s it" He agrees and we all go off to the spot every one races. On the way there my heart is pounding and my mind is trying to play out how I can possibly win this thing. First, I let some air out of the back tire. Next I remove the side cover and open up the hidden nitrous bottle. I turn on the electric shifter, and do a real long smoky burnout to heat the tire. After a couple of dry hops the tire seemed to really grab, so I backed up into my burnout tracks. As the starter signaled us to get ready I revved the bike up to about 8 grand, Glanced at the tack and backed it off till about 7000 and held it there. The starter lets us go with three blinks of his flashlight and I start slipping out the clutch and dialing up the gas the rest of the way. It was a good launch for the street, no tire spin, A small floater wheelie, I could not have done much better to be honest. But despite all that, I'm still looking at his taillights which is a really bad thing in drag racing! I guess those slicks hooked up a lot better than I had anticipated! I went through first into second and as soon as I hit third gear I began spraying the juice. Through out third gear I had only made up a little, but when I got into fourth I started to reel him in. It seemed he was running out of gear and had become flat and the 1150 was starting to make up ground fast. When I got the GS into fifth the finish line was coming quick and I could see the crowd standing and parked off to the side of the road. I had now caught the Cuda and as we crossed the line and My first thought was I lost, but it was soo close I honestly did not know. Remember, we are talking 140 plus mph close to 150 and I was tucked in behind the gages and fixated ahead just trying to go strait and live to tell the story. There was a big controversy with my friend saying I had won, and his folks saying I didn't. We both agreed no money would change hands but when the subject of a rematch came up he said he had pushed his luck enough already. After racing three times that night he was afraid the cops would be there soon. I was actually relieved with the outcome and was glad he had given us an out from the rematch. I survived with all my testosterone, had a great story to tell and to this day whenever I see Gary, he swears I won that night. What’s your story?
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