Rickey House

On Sunday, with a very quick field of T/F Harleys ready to rumble, it came down to a final round match-up between Bobby Malloy and Rickey House. Bobby went red with a .178 RT handing off the win to Rickey on the “Shark Attack” bike. The teams provided wheels-up entertainment every round and they now have six races remaining with the NHRA in the Mellow Yellow racing series for 2017.

Just a week after the two initial NHRA races concluded, 2014 IHRA Nitro Harley champion Mike Scott of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, announced he has inked a deal with Steve Dorn Concrete and the Dorn Racing T/F bike, prepared and tuned by Mike Romine is coming out of mothballs and going NHRA drag racing. Mike signed the deal with the sponsors and the remaining six NHRA Mello Yello races will be attended by this triumvirate of seasoned veteran Top Fuel Harley racers, beginning with the next race March 31-April 2 in Las Vegas.

It will be more than interesting come first week of April when the ADRL Series begins in Rockingham and the T/F Harleys are forced to pick and choose which championship series they will follow. The NHRA Mello Yello Series racing for the first time has T/F Harleys on national television on a Sunday afternoon. Motor Mania will be covering the ADRL Tour series, and it’s all well and good that Motor Mania TV covers the sport; this is highly valued by all, but it’s tough to compare internet TV coverage vs Fox Sports, mainstream television. Motor Mania IS rock solid viewing, seen by all, world-wide. But to see the great Top Fuel motorcycles on regular TV, on a Sunday afternoon, that’s a sponsor in waiting’s dream. Which Top Fuel Harley teams are ready, willing and able to capitalize on this remains to be seen, but opportunity is knocking loud and clear.

And while we are on the subject of opportunities for motorcycle drag racing to get out there and be seen by a new audience, Tyler Crossnoe heads up the Outlaw Street Car Reunion race, and on March 23-26 Tyler’s OSCR IV will welcome Pro Street motorcycles into his big Drag Radial type race. The 6-second, 200-mph no-bars street-type bikes will be out there with Pro Mods, Crow Mods and the fastest-quickest street cars in the world. Thousands of drag racing spectators, many new to motorcycle drag racing, will see the spectacle of these great motorcycles.

It will be interesting to see if this can help the spectator and bike count for the Man Cup motorcycle drag racing series when it comes to Memphis in June at the same venue. Some cross promotion by the two sanctions can only help one another here. NHRA announcer heavy weight Brian Lohnes will be one of the announcers for the event and he’s a big fan of the Top Fuel Harley motorcycles. This can only bode well for the motorcycle drag racing community.

The first weekend in April, the T/F Harleys will be in Las Vegas at The Strip and the following weekend the Man Cup motorcycle drag racing series will begin with the season opener at SGMP. New to the Man Cup series in 2017 will be ten-time European T/F champion Ian King who has come to the USA to see if he can defeat the Spiderman and claim the first USA T/F bike title since Brian Johnson did it in 1986.