Elmer Trett
Elmer Trett began drag racing on a street Harley in the mid-1960s at Thorne Hill Dragway in Kentucky. In 1970 Elmer saw a photo of Danny Johnson’s gas dragster bike and decided this was what he wanted. While this was his first all-out race bike and he was running it on gas, he was still able to defeat some of the best nitro burning motorcycles of the time. Elmer was a typical drag racer. Once he got what he believed was the maximum out of the gas bike, he moved up to top fuel bike. In 1976 he built his first top fuel bike, a twin-engine Harley Davidson. In a very short time, Elmer became the prominent Harley racer in the US, through the Harleys days as the top dog were coming to an end Elmer did push his way into the seven second range. Elmer was the quickest and fastest Harley rider ever, holding the ET record at 7.67, this was when he retired the Harley. In 1981 Elmer switch to what was listed as a Kawasaki engine but was really and Elmer Trett engine. He had the bottom in cast to his specs, custom made the crank, rods and pistons, reversed the head in order to hang a supercharger in front of the engine. As he became more familiar with this new combination, Elmer began to turn the top fuel class on its collective ear. On September 5, 1983 at the NHRA US Nationals in Indy, Elmer became the first man to cover the quarter-mile at over 200 MPH when he posted the speed of 201.34, a speed that earned admiration throughout the racing world and a spot in the Guinness book of world records.
Typical of all competitors, Elmer continued to look for ways to go quicker and faster by redesigning the engine parts to be stronger, lighter, and more powerful. He was the first top fuel bike rider to top to 210, 220, then 230 MPH and drop into the low six second ET’s. Elmer not only raced what he designed and built, but he also manufactured these parts and made them available to his competitors. Elmer did not confine his competition to just the US either. He took the championship title several times here and in Europe and held titles in many organizations such as Dragbike, IDBA, NMRA, and ProStar, to name a few. Elmer was also a typical racer and his time in that his family serviced as his pit crew. His wife, Jackie, was the first pit crew person, and as daughters Gina and Kelly grew up, they soon joined in as part of the crew. Elmer was also an unselfish person who always stood ready to loan parts or give advice to competitors and even helped form an association for the top Euler’s to race with the other associations drop the class. Just two weeks prior to the crash that killed him, Elmer came close to his last request to break the five second barrier when he ran a 6.06 ET at Indy.