IDBL season over, NHRA ready to wrap up, Man Cup set for World Finals

Dale Hamilton, Pro ET champion.  (IDBL photo)

Additional IDBL class champions known at this time are: Pro Mod - Brad McCoy, 4.60 Class – Boo Brown, Pro ET – Dale Hamilton, and in Street ET – Dustin Lee. The 2018 schedule for IDBL was not available at press time, so look to the December Motorcycle Memos for the update on this next month.

In other sanction news, the 41st Annual Man Cup Mann Hill Garage World Finals will get underway on Wednesday, Nov. 15, with an opening day of test and tune. On Thursday racing begins with the DME All Star Shootout and $10,000 cash on the line for the winner. If the winner of the shootout wins the Man Cup Pro Street class for the event, that’s an additional $3,000 and if a racer sweeps the two major competitions, the Man Cup sanction will throw in an additional $1,000 cash, just to sweeten the pot. So, some lucky and talented bad-ass Pro Street bike racer can come away from the World Finals with $14,000, the largest amount yet offered up for the no-bars bikes.

The Man Cup World Finals will truly be a World Class event with racers from all over the globe attending. Some of the biggest and best drag bikes from all over the world will be at the event, including racers with their drag bikes from: Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, just to name a few that are pre-registered at this time.  This five-day event is the biggest motorcycle drag race of the year and will be broadcast via Motor Mania TV.

In NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle action; it’s been a stellar year for NHRA P/S motorcycles as the class has seen full-fields at every event and sometimes as many as over two-dozen drag bikes in competition for a sixteen-bike field.  While some are concerned about the NHRA expanding the Mickey Thompson Tires Top Fuel Harley program and the obvious question, will this hurt the P/S bikes; there is no foundation for this fear at this time. In fact, 2017 was one of the strongest years ever for Pro Stock Motorcycle and they will be back in force for the 2018 season.

At the last race of the 2017 NHRA Mello Yello season, before the finals; Vance & Hines Pro Stock motorcycle pilot Eddie Krawiec won the Toyota Nationals at The Strip in Las Vegas. This was Eddie’s seventh win of the year, his 43rd win during his, 13 years of NHRA P/S Motorcycle competition.  Eddie defeated John Hall, Angelle Sampey, and Scotty Pollacheck, on his way to victory. The NHRA AAA Club Auto Finals will be held November 9-12 in Pomona, CA, to conclude the 2017 season for NHRA competition.

In closing, it’s with a measure of sadness and respect that we report the passing of Junior Pippin, NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle stand out. Junior hailed from Conyers, Georgia, owned a trucking firm and was a good, good man, who will be missed by many in the motorcycle drag racing community. So large was Junior’s foot print in the NHRA P/S motorcycle drag racing world that Terry Vance of Vance & Hines Racing called upon P/S bike racer Chip Ellis to race a new VHR Harley Street Rod at the coming NHRA Finals, wearing his “Pippin Racing” leathers.

The VHR team will still field the bikes of Andrew Hines and teammate Eddie Krawiec, as well as the third bike to be piloted by Chip Ellis.  When Chip Ellis got the call from Terry Vance asking him to ride the additional bike, he was flabbergasted.  Junior Pippin passed on Sunday, November 5th, 2017 due to cancer, and he may be gone, but he will never be forgotten.