If the 1600+ horsepower, supercharged, nitromethane-burning Top Fuel Motorcycles (TFM) and the men who ride them looked insane enough before the first IHRA Triple Crown race at Darana – National Trail Raceway in Hebron, Ohio, the insanity amped up tenfold over the June 19-20 weekend.
Larry “Spiderman” McBride – probably the most experienced and successful racer in the history of nitro motorcycle drag racing – had the wind peal him off of his bike after a bump in the shutdown area in the first round of eliminations. It was a horrifying image as the well-known and beloved rider came off the side of the bike at about 200 mph. Untethered, Spiderman few through the air like Superman.
McBride slid along the pavement, fortunately only having a couple of slow tumbles before coming to a stop alongside the wall in the other lane. Also fortunate was that opponent Jaska Salakari broke a motor and wasn’t at speed as the fallen McBride slid into his path. McBride’s bike sailed off the end of the track, skipping over the gravel trap and diving 200 feet into the cornfield on the other side of Refugee Road.
Incredibly, McBride stood right up. He initially refused transport to the hospital, but relented when the medic assured him he would need stitches on his elbow. “What was my ET?” McBride asked from the ambulance. His winning 3.82 (eighth mile) would stand as low ET for the class.
When he came back from the track, the mob of well-wishers saw that he only needed three stitches, had a small wound on his knee, and a bruise on his back.
The bike was also in reasonably good shape. After a long rain delay, both bike and rider might have made the next round had everyone involved been feeling reckless. But they weren’t, and despite taking the winlight, McBride wouldn’t show for E2.
“I feel like I was in a washing machine,” McBride said a couple of days later. “When you hit a little dip like that, you kind of bottom out, you know, and then you come back up. Well, about this time that happened is when I was going for the brake. When it did that, it jarred me down and I lost the left handlebar. Then at the same instant, when I went down, I blipped the throttle and it sat me back up, and then it was all over with.
“Just fighting for my life then, just trying to get back to the handlebar, but it wasn’t happening. I finally just gave up. I said, ‘Well, this is going to hurt really bad.’ I knew I had to get away from the bike because I didn’t want to get caught up in the wheelie bars, and that’s why I made the exit. And so I just tried to keep my hands and my feet up as much as I could to try to just slide as much as I could. And man, the Vanson Leathers, did they ever work. Oh my God. My helmet worked great. You wonder why you pay all this money for gloves. When you need them, you need them.”
“That just goes to prove that it can happen to anybody,” said fellow racer Bob Malloy. “It’s dangerous, and it just takes one little incident. There are no Supermen – pun intended.”
Salakari was using a new crank that necessitated longer rods and everything else that needed adjusting to that. He found a weak link and was glad he did when McBride slid into his lane.
Salakari might have also been relieved to have McBride’s incident bump his own qualifying incident off of the highlight reels. Doing the burnout for his second qualifying pass, there was a mix-up in the alcohol-to-nitro settings on his unique dual-fuel system. Salakari also didn’t realize he was sitting out of the water when he grabbed a handful of full nitro power that registered 3.9 Gs, pulled his hands off the bars, and nearly threw him off the back of the bike. The kill switch did its job, Salakari gripped the bike tightly with his thighs and, as he said, “Steered the bike with my ass” until he could reach the bars again. It was a self-described “circus act” that went viral, until McBride showed everyone what viral really looks like.
Elsewhere in E1, TFM newcomer Gerry Hunt put .051 on Jason Pridemore at the tree before his blown I4 outran Pridemore’s blown Nitro Harley 4.01 to 5.18.
“I had a great time, was happy to qualify,” said Pridemore. “Me and crew made some mistakes, was not the best showing of a awesome machine. But we’ll try to do better at Milan. Sorry to see what happened to Larry.
“Would like to thank Darryl Cuttell and the entire IHRA staff for a place to run these machines, plus the hospitality – food, ice, and awesome purse that is up for grabs. And thank you Tim Hailey and Eatmyink for all you do for Top Fuel Motorcycle.”
Fellow nitro rookie Richard “Sandman” Deys gave up .071 to Mitch Brown at the tree and trailed 4.85 to 4.21 on the track.
“Our team did amazing,” said Deys. “We overcame a fuel leak that was spraying all over the rider, to a stuck valve that almost kept us from doing our last run, but as a team it was a good warm-up for us. Was our first large national race that we were able to attend, and for me as a rider it was improvement every single time. Being a new rider in Top Fuel with a new bike (built by Larry and Steve McBride for David Vantine but never raced), we’re still hammering out the details. Not only of the riding ability, but the mechanical ability, of everything going on, and it was, amazing. The atmosphere was calm.
“The racing was one on one. It was unbelievable how close most of the races were. We, as a team, left smiling, knowing that we’ve got this, and we look forward to future events. We can’t wait to be in (Milan) Michigan in three weeks. Just really stemmed the fire, if you know what I mean.
“It is an atmosphere like no other. We’ve been to NHRA events, we’ve been to all of the different organizations. What Darryl has provided for the rider is a platform where we can be free to worry about racing and not worry about the politics of it. It’s just unexplainable from a point of view of a racer, but we as a team – SPS Racing, and myself – we are so excited. We’ve got the Michigan event coming up, then we’ve got the big doubleheader at Maple Grove, and hopefully after that a final somewhere. What an experience. I’m proud to be part of it. I’m proud to be in it, and as a team, they’re more excited every time we talk about it, and we’re ready.”
Micah Fenwick gave away a golden opportunity when he redlit against Malloy, who broke the shaft on his supercharger and would have been soundly beaten by Fenwick’s 4.08.
“My redlight against Malloy was a hundredth worse than his redlight,” noted Fenwick. “That really hurt and cost me from having $15-30k hanging around in my pocket. Hard pill to swallow, and it’s been a long ride home, but all these bikes are so fast, each round can be won by who’s got the better light, so I’ll regroup and head to Milan in a couple of weeks and hope for a better turnout.
Malloy then needed to borrow parts from Fenwick to make round two, where he had a bye to the final due to McBride’s no-show. Malloy opted to just take the tree. In the other semi, Brown easily handled Hunt and had lane choice for the final.
“This was my best weekend experience I could ask for,” said Hunt. “Able to make my bucket list come true racing with my idol Larry McBride. He’s the reason why I got into this and for the first day racing at this level, I don’t think it could get any better. To take third place, that’s just crazy.
“But all my thanks goes to my crew, because they made it happen, changing a motor between rounds. Remember, this was the first time they have been together to be able to do that. That was awesome.”
Hunt may be new to nitro racing and his crew new to him, but the bike is the well-sorted piece formerly raced by Vantine and built by the McBrides. In addition, Hunt hired fellow Canadian Greg Pollard to make the tuning calls and had former rider Geoff Pollard there as well. Greg did the same job for Vantine, so it was a well-thought out, veteran approach for a new rider/owner like Hunt.
Lane choice didn’t matter in the all-FuelTech final as Malloy – who was in the final for both TFM and Nitro Harley – leaked fuel on his burnout and was shut off, leaving Brown to make a 3.94 victory lap for the $30,000 win, the biggest in the history of the class.
“We had a leak in the pits and I thought it was fixed,” said Malloy. “Good thing they shut me off; they did the right thing. But the motor wasn’t hurt and I was going to give him a run for his money.
“Still the biggest payday I’ve ever had. It was the biggest payday anybody’s had. That guy [Cuttell] is going out of his way in so many different ways to make it nice for the racer. He’s a blessing. The event was phenomenal. Everybody said it was great, and I talk to everyone in the industry.”
Brown owns Monster Race Products, which produces a brand new, billet cylinder head for inline 4-cylinder nitro bikes. It debuted nicely on the bike he co-owns with Dennis Bradley. Pro Mod driver Todd Martin helps tune the bike’s FuelTech controlled and fired system.
“I think all of us in Top Fuel Motorcycle appreciate the opportunity,” Brown said. “It’s pretty unbelievable, the payout and all that, and of course Larry coming off his motorcycle was a big thing that happened, and definitely probably changed how things went at the race. But we were fortunate to have a really good performance and make it to the final at the end of the day, so I’m happy about all that.
“You know, that was the first time out with the new billet cylinder head. I know you probably know I build the whole billet engine now, from the oil pan to the valve cover, in my shop, and so we were really happy about that.”
“That Monster head is going to be the key,” Malloy said. “But my bike still needs a lot of testing.”
The new components are a big difference from the cast pieces that Brown ran last year, including Brainerd, where he went through three motors. “Yeah, it was just a nightmare up there,” said Brown, who also admitted to struggling then to learn the new-to-them all-valve system.
National Trail was like night and day compared to Brainerd – racing all weekend on one motor and taking the win. McBride joked that unless Brown ran a 3.84 in the final, he deserved half the winnings. That’s a full tenth off, but Brown thinks he can get there.
“We’ll start slowly adding power back into it that we have taken out of it to be conservative,” said Brown, who didn’t want to scramble the insides of his new cylinder head in its first event. “You can’t just go jump into a whole bunch more power, because then it throws everything off. Throws your clutch off, throws everything off. We’ll just continue to ease that power that we have out of it to try to have a safe conservative start, just ease that back in a little bit at a time and see what happens.”
Brown thanked Dennis, Nick, Todd, Eddie, Sheila, Sandlian Iron and Metal, Monster Race Products, PennGrade Oil, Mile High Crankshafts, Steve Churchman, Scott Truett, George Bryce, Niles Gibson, George Babor at BPM, Ron Rees, Rob Flynn, MTC engineering, Sam Wills, Steve and Larry McBride, B&J Transmissions, Heikki Salmien and Antii Peltokski, Worldwide Bearings, Mickey Thompson and the PR Factory Store, Strategic Hail Solutions, his wife, three daughters, and mom.
Top Fuel Motorcycles race next July 10-11 at Darana – Milan Dragway in Michigan.
This story was originally published on June 27, 2026.
The post McBride Scares, Brown Scores at IHRA Triple Crown at National Trail Raceway first appeared on Drag Illustrated.
