Fuels in the Early Days

Frankie,

I believe the FUEL you are talking about was Alcohol. The first Fuels that I can recall was Alkie or Gasoline with water injection. I was at the first race that was at Pomona and there was a lot of bikes there, after all in the beginning they were the fastest thing on the track. That was some time in the early 50's. That's where I first watched the The Beast and The Brute Harley's run. The only Carb that was around at that time was that brass M48 Harley Carb and I know from experiance that it need a lot more work to run Nitro than they had then. Some of the guys made a manifold to fit there Harley's and was running a Flat Head Ford Two Throat Carb, it sit up straight like on the car. I ran Nitro in that Brass Harley Carb in 1957 when Clem Johnson and I raced as a team and you couldn't even start the bike on fuel, you had to start it on gas keep the thing hot and quickly change the jets and restart.

I know Richards was running nitro around 1954 in his Triumph, Johnson was riding it and that was at Pomona.