Although guys had been street racing for years, sanctioned drag races did not come onto the scene until the late forties and early fifties. In California, one of the first hotbeds of motorcycle drags, the team of Tommy Auger and Bill Martz quickly rose to preeminence, generally besting all comers week after week. Auger and Martz raced three bikes, a BSA Goldstar, a Shadow (owned by Martz), and a factory Lightning (owned by Auger). Auger jockeyed and Martz wrenched. In hindsight, Auger attributes their success largely to two factors: potent fuel and a wariness of undue modification. Mixtures were tested in the BSA and then used in the Lightning. (They raced Martz's Shadow on pump gas.) Once they were satisfied with a bike's performance they resisted further tinkering, and made modifications only when they felt confident that they could revert back to their old set-up.

What follows is a memorable story from those heady days told just as Auger remembers it. Initially, while Martz and Auger will still sorting things out, Harleys ruled the Southern California drag scene. Top contenders included C.B. Clauson's "The Giant," Frenchy LeBlank's "The Brute," Jim Hunter's single carbureted Harley, and Lloyd Krant's "The Giant Killer." Virtually every weekend these combatants would descend on Santa Ana or one of the other local strips and race each other and take another turn as tops. As Auger and Martz knew, only beating the best of the Harley lot when everyone was running their best would serve notice to all the guys that they and their Lightning had indeed arrived. That opportunity came at Santa Ana when Martz and Auger went head to head against Lloyd Krant's "The Giant Killer." By this time the drags there were being held on an old P-38 landing strip, which made for interesting races. The far end of the right side was rather "washboardy" which created some handling problems, and the far end of the left side dropped off into a gully about three hundred feet beyond the finish line! Naturally this "hazard" complicated the shutdown process as the car or bike on the left would attempt to pull in behind his opponent to avoid flying off the strip. On this run, Krant was on the right, and Auger, staged on the left, faced the gully at the far end of the dragstrip.

The starter pointed at us to get ready. Lloyd depressed the clutch and reached down to slip his jockey shifter into first gear (actually second gear on a Harley three speed trans). I had my left hand in the air so Bill could see that I was not ready. As soon as Lloyd was in gear, I dropped my hand to the bars and pulled in the clutch.

Auger onboard; Martz alongside working the shift. Mid fifties.

Then, and only then, I would look down at Bill, who was down low on the right side of the bike. This was the sign that I was ready for first gear. He briskly snapped it into gear and I immediately fed it a little clutch to take the slack out of the transmission and the Renold's Billet Roller Racing chain (this was the only chain that would stay in one piece for an entire day).

CJ, the flagman, pointed at us again, and I was off like a shot. Bill said later that was the best hole shot he had seen to date. I took a quick peek over my shoulder to see if it was a start and CJ was waving the flag and Lloyd was coming like all hell had broken loose. I looked forward and popped second gear, carrying the front end past halftrack. Now I'm thinking, he only has to shift once and I have to shift three times. That extra shift is going to give that hog a big advantage--shit.

Oh well too late to think about that crapola now. I grab third and take my left hand off of the handlebars and grab a fork blade before my arm is blown back by the wind. I was tucked in by now like a coat of Du Pont's finest lacquer. Now fourth and the grand finale. If I miss this shift I'll never hear the end of it. If I did, I figured I would just ride that turkey right off the end of the strip and not stop until I got to Costa Mesa about ten miles away.

Just as I was ready to shift I could feel that 90 c.i. honker thundering up behind me like a possessed demon. I blip the throttle and pounded--fourth goes in without a hitch. I know that Harley is about pulling Lloyd's arms off by now and he must be close. He was no more than two feet to my right and his front tire was right at the back edge of my rear tire. I thought I was going to get run over, whether I won or lost, in the shut down area. The finish line was coming up--ever so slowly it seemed. I looked left and right and there were people on both sides craning to see the winner. Fellow racers on the left and the paying customers on the right.

We hit the first light and those Triumph forks on Lloyd's Harley were right at the Vincent's rear axle and time seemed to be standing still. Lloyd told me afterwards that he had the same sensation. It's only 132 feet from the first light to the finish line, but it looks like 132 miles!

Then as suddenly as time stopped, it was back to quick time. We flash across the finish line and I am ahead by half a bike length. I look over and Lloyd is looking me square in the face. We are only about a foot apart at 135 mph+. One slip and we are both eating asphalt for dinner. We roll out and veer away from each other by a few feet. I had planned to cut left, fall in behind Lloyd, and outbreak the Harley, lest I go off the short end of the strip, but I was covering ground too fast to be doing that kind of maneuvering, so I just braked as hard as I dared and flew straight off of the short end. Instead of landing with a thud, the bike sort of floated down to earth, and the dirt training helped me keep it up without too much trouble. The guys back at the line thought I had eaten it big time, due to all of the dust flying. We both got stopped and turned around and were riding back jabbering like monkeys when the ambulance, such as it was, came past us at about 300 per! We wondered what the hell was wrong and shrugged it off and kept on truckin' back to our parking spots.

I stopped at the tower and Tuttle wanted to know what all of the dust was about. I said I had no idea and where was the ambulance going? By this time Bill had run up and about knocked me off of the bike. "You ran 138 and change" he said. 138+! Damn straight. Lloyd and I got together after all of the hubbub was over and relived that one a zillion times. He wasn't sore because I left first. Instead, he thought we both got a good start. He slid a little sideways at first, but that was normal for the one foot up start. He said the Lightning just got off hot and stayed there. It's true that bike could make hamburger out of asphalt for the first 400 to 500 feet. Johnny Caffe was a member of our club and a dyed in the wool Harley buff. I mean for this guy the sun rose and set at Milwaukee, and that was that. Any other bike was pure trash, scrap iron, toys, not in the same atmosphere as a good ol' HOG. So all he could say for days was "I seen it, but I don't believe it." It was as if he had swallowed the bitterest pill in his life!