Terry Vance
Multi-time NHRA Top Fuel Champion and founder of Vance & Hines
1970s Honda CB750
"My first bike was a 750cc Honda. It was a gift from my father that I later modified for drag racing. It was the summer of '71, and this picture is at Lions drag strip in Long Beach, California. I had found out about drag racing from a friend, and after a couple of bracket races, I was totally hooked!
"I was just out of high school and could make a couple hundred bucks by winning the motorcycle bracket, so I was set! It was total heaven: I was 18 years old and making money racing a motorcycle--what could be better? We eventually got this bike to run high-9s, and thought we were bad ass! As luck would have it, without this motorcycle I would never have met Byron Hines at Lions, where he was also racing a 750cc Honda. There was never a more important motorcycle in my career than that bike."
Jamie Hacking
Former AMA Supersport and Superstock Champion and current member of Team Monster Energy Kawasaki
1978 Italjet 50
"My first motorcycle was a '78 Italjet 50cc dirtbike that I got when I was 6. There was no racing history in my family at all, but we used to have a guy across the street who raced motocross for the Husqvarna factory. I spent most of my time over there in his garage, handing bolts to him, wiping things off and stuff like that, so my interest for motocross pretty much came from him."
"My parents didn't have enough money to buy me a dirtbike, so my grandparents ended up buying it for me for Christmas. This picture was taken on Christmas morning, downstairs in the house. I was really excited to ride it--and my family pretty much made me go ride it because I'd begged for this thing for so long! I remember them loading it up in this little trailer, and we went and rode it at the local soccer field. It was snowing pretty good, and the field was pretty frozen underneath. I couldn't really get it started without stalling it, and I remember my granddad looking at me and saying, 'If you can't take off on this thing, it's going back.'"
"I remember revving that thing up and dumping the clutch on it and taking off and doing a few circles around the field. I was getting a little bit more comfortable with it and then ended up crashing into the goal post. They were metal goal posts and I hit pretty hard, and I got up crying and screaming because I'd messed up the bike! It had metal fenders and a metal gas tank, and I'd bent the front fender and smashed the gas tank in! I raced that bike a couple times before I outgrew it.
"About two years ago, my dad found one on eBay in Europe and picked it up. It's in rough shape, and it's still in the crate, and I haven't gotten around to restoring it yet. But hopefully I can get around to putting it all back to original."
Cook Neilson
Former editor of Cycle magazine and current fine-arts photographer
1964 Harley-Davidson Sportster
"My first bike was a '64 Sportster XLCH, bought new for $1435 in the fall of '63. It caused me to be suspended from college for one year, leading to a seven-year National Guard commitment. Three good highway wrecks, not all of which were our fault. Two Bonneville speed records in '66, another one in '69. Temporary holder of AMDRA Top Fuel ET record. Helped me get hired by Gordon Jennings to Cycle magazine staff in '69, where I met the young lady who has been my wife for 30 years now."
"My Sportster gave me a life-long affection for large-displacement, V-Twins. It frequently endured weird mixtures of nitro methane and propylene oxide; there were occasions when it did not, leading me to a deeper understanding of crankshaft assembly procedures. A boon companion. We did everything together, from bouncing around the Grafton scrambles track to commuting to my summer job at a cement plant in Tampa, Florida, to selling encyclopedias door-to-door in Louisville, Kentucky, to racing at Indianapolis and Bonneville and Lions and Irwindale.
"Without my Sportster....Leapin' mother o' Jesus! Every other road I could have gone down would have been a total disaster. Hard not to love a bike that does that much for you."
Enjoyed this Post? Subscribe to our RSS Feed, or use your favorite social media to recommend us to friends and colleagues!