Horsepower Hustlers

If you've seen The Hustler, starring Paul Newman, then you already know this scene: there's the moneyman, there's the talent he funds, and there's the game they play. The moneyman and his talent travel the country setting up impromptu matches, and then do everything in their power to skew the odds in their favor. In The Hustler the game is pool, but at dragstrips everywhere east of the Mississippi a similar scene is played out in the high-stakes world of motorcycle grudge racing.What is grudge racing? In the simplest terms, grudge racing is street racing on the racetrack. If you prefer the grit and spontaneity of street racing but could do without the jail time and other dangers, then grudge racing is just your thing. Grudge racing is as close to anything goes as dragracing gets. There is no rulebook to determine the configuration of the motorcycles, so each bike is unique. Racers themselves negotiate the rules of each match (not to mention the often substantial monetary "prize") based on the bikes and the reputation of the riders, just like on the streets. Elapsed times and mph are speculated about but never displayed--scoreboards are typically turned off during grudge matches. Unlike a regular dragrace where times are measured down to the thousandth of a second, only the rider ever really knows how fast a grudge bike goes. Having only a vague idea about an opponent's performance serves to increase the gamesmanship--a key component of the grudge-racing experience.

Doing their part to discourage street racing, two of the nation's biggest dragracing sanctioning bodies--AMA/Prostar and the MIROCK Series--have flung open their doors to grudge matches at the end of their racetracks' regular daily schedules. AMA/Prostar calls its grudge program "Streetbike Chaos"; MIROCK's is "Afterdark Underground." Grudge matches happen to be good business for these promoters and track owners--racers pay to make a pass, but promoters don't have to worry about the payout. "Purses" are determined before the race by the participants, who pool together the resources of their supporters to match the pot of their opponents. Those that make the right choice double their investment. Get it?

Grudge racing's fan base is growing with every race weekend. Spectators pour into the gates after the regular racing program is over just to watch grudge matches. The power of the Internet also helps the grudge scene grow. Web sites such as the popular Psychobike.com are the cyberspace petri dishes that incubate grudge matches. On Psychobike.com discussion forums the same trash talking that was once restricted to gas-station parking lots now lights up computer monitors across the nation. Matches are arranged through a series of online challenges (and sometimes insults). Once at the track, the volume knob goes to 11 for the prerace show of mouth that is usually as entertaining as the races themselves. Just make sure you put the kids to bed before the grudge-racing program begins: AMA/Prostar attaches a "parental advisory" warning to its Streetbike Chaos programs due to this colorful action. No rules means a double shot of intensity trackside, so this adults-only label definitely applies.

The Grudge Battle Heats Up

Don't let the seemingly casual, no-rules nature of grudge racing mislead you. Competition is deadly serious, as evidenced by the summer-long showdown last year between two of the biggest names on the grudge-racing circuit, Keith "Shine" Dennis (a two-time AMA/Prostar 600 Supersport champion) and Johnny "Airtime" Locklear. Shine, racing out of Joe Marasco's Maximum Street Performance trailer (which was once referred to by a police officer as a "rolling casino"), started the season as the king of the grudge genre, taking all comers aboard a sick Suzuki Hayabusa called "Lulu II."

Fast-talking Shine may have started the season out strong, but the tide turned against him and Lulu at Prostar's Chaos in St. Louis in June when the pair lost to a North Carolina rider nicknamed "Burnout Bruce." At the next Chaos event in Norwalk, Ohio, Lulu came up short again, this time against another North Carolina heavy, the unusually soft-spoken Locklear. Norwalk was a tough meet all around for the MSP crew: Shine lost three races on three different MSP-built bikes, all going down to Locklear, who rode a bike owned by a North Carolina-based moneyman known in the grudge scene simply as "Hollywood."

"Carolina boys make the fastest streetbikes on motor!" boasted Hollywood, a smooth 20-year veteran of the grudge game. Hollywood was especially proud of the fact that the motors in his bikes were, as he put it, "built on Johnny's kitchen table." The North Carolina camp likes to play up their humble roots compared to Marasco's extensive shop facilities and fully equipped MSP trailer.

With Hollywood's financial backing, Locklear showed up at the next big grudge meeting at Indianapolis Raceway Park, but this time he rode a bad 'Busa brought north from Texas by a group Locklear would only refer to as "the Texicans."

Standard trash talking (and stalling) ensued between MSP and the North Carolina/Texas "Coalition of the Willing," until Marasco finally tired of the BS and called Hollywood out: "Any 'Busa you got. You've got two races."

"Let's do three," Hollywood replied. It's always a bad sign when your opponent, who's been mostly reserved up to this point, ups the ante on a proposal you just made. Hollywood didn't get three races, but he did get two.

In the first run, with Locklear versus Shine on Lulu II, Shine uncharacteristically dragged the clutch, and Locklear shot ahead. In a scoreboard miscue, the numbers flashed on and showed that Locklear ran an 8.29 at 164.21 to Shine's 8.40 at 162.76.

Back at the trailer, the MSP crew quickly prepared a different bike for the second match. While they waited, the crowd got to talking. AMA/Prostar 600 and 1000 Supersport rider Dustin Clark had an opinion about the apparent MSP slump. "Their shit ain't fast enough. They don't go over shit close enough. It's a Shine thing. He can get on almost anything and make it run good, so that's what they count on." Maybe so. In addition to the three grudge bikes, Shine and Marasco were also racing Pro Stock and Streetbike Shootout in the Prostar race at Indy, perhaps spreading themselves a bit thin. The North Carolina contingent and the Texicans, meanwhile, were only focused on the grudge matches. "You tell me another guy who can go through all that and maintain his composure," Shine says. "Tell them to come out on a Pro Stock."

When the second race went off, Shine was off the pace at half-track. "The battery touched the body and shorted the whole motorcycle out," Shine reported. "But that's dragracing. We'll be in Montgomery in full force!"

The Thrilla in Montgomery

Montgomery would be the last big showdown of the year between the Maximum Street Performance guys and the North Carolina/Texican crews, who had since united in a take-no-prisoners battle against Maximum Street Performance. Stakes were high, and both teams came to town with very serious racing equipment: in the case of MSP, a new bike built up specifically for this match.

The bike to beat in Montgomery appeared to be a motorcycle dubbed "The General," complete with four stars on the windscreen, a radical Hayabusa long bike built by Mike Brown's Max V. shop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. A close look at The General showed just how far grudge bikes had come over the course of the season, rapidly evolving to fit the new environs of the racetrack. At the beginning of the season most of the grudge bikes were just serious streetbikes with wheelbases stretched to around 68 inches running street tires. There are no rules in grudge racing, but part of the strategy for winning revolves around having a semi-sensible machine--you want to bring something that can win, not something that will scare off the competition. There's no win if there's no one to take the race.

The General was a different breed entirely. Featuring a radical, cut-down frame that positioned the rider very low and forward on the chassis and a wheelbase of more than 72 inches, The General was all business. "Basically, I use the cradle that goes around the frame and work from that point," Brown says. "I take 'em down and cut everything off the frame, all the tabs and everything." Brown moved the battery, fuel tank and everything he could forward on the bike. Instead of a seat, the rider sits on a flap at the frame's lowest point.

"What is that, a toilet?" asked Shine, pointing at The General's flap seat. MSP showed up in Montgomery with a brand-new grudge bike, a more conventionally configured bike called "Sam Houston" built specifically to take on The General (hence the name). Sam Houston was a handsome silver and gray Hayabusa, a very polished, very lightweight machine that idled with the throaty throb of loping cams. "Remember the Alamo" was lettered over the taillight.

"I got the real General!" Shine repeatedly shouted at the North Carolina crew. "Pull the windshield off that bike and give me them stars! I'm demoting that bike to a buck private!" While Hollywood was busy writing a list of names and numbers on a paper plate, Burnout Bruce (ironically, wearing a Keith Dennis T-shirt) finally stepped up to race Shine on The General. Once the terms of the race were locked in, there was a further delay while guys paced around the starting line with phones pressed to their ears. Calling in bets from around the country? Maybe...

When the bikes finally did their burnouts, The General spun a rod bearing in the water box, and Burnout Bruce had to wave off. "Tell Johnny to get his ass up here!" Shine yelled from the line. Locklear rode up on "Mad Dog," another radical Max V.-built long bike. Shine got out first and pulled away, but Sam Houston could soon be heard hitting the rev limiter as it spun the tire on the top end of the slick and bumpy track. MSP had lost again. The crowd erupted, and the summer-long, nationwide battle was over, with Locklear and the new long bike coming out on top.

Cheaters or Beaters?

Despite his success, Locklear is ambivalent about the rise of the new long bikes in grudge events. "They take all the riding out of it when they're like that," he says. "But we've gotta have one of everything, whatever they're racing." This year, Locklear plans to race a 73.5-inch, all-motor, fuel-injected bike that belongs to the Texicans.

Same story with our man Hollywood. "That's the way I've got my bike now too," Hollywood says. Jimmy Murray of Motorcycle Performance in Lumberton, North Carolina, built Hollywood's bike, a fuel-injected Hayabusa with a seven-inch slick mounted 74 inches behind the front axle. "The only thing I hate about these long bikes right now is there's nobody we can run against," Hollywood says. "Shine and them is who we usually race, and they don't have anything that long to take us on.""No, we don't have anything that long," Marasco confirms. "Those bikes are a good 10 inches longer than anything we own. They all have slider clutches and slicks." However, Marasco is building something that might step the grudge game up yet another notch. "A long, long 'Busa called the `Loch Ness Monster,'" says Marasco. Sightings of the Monster have been rare to-date, but it is reported to sport a belt-driven, intercooled supercharger and nitrous. Yikes...

As the Loch Ness Monster illustrates, grudge racers are ruthless in their pursuit of every possible advantage. Controversy recently erupted when it was discovered that the Texicans were reportedly running alcohol/nitromethane fuel mix in the bike Locklear rides, good for as much as 200 (!) extra hp. It can also turn your motor into a time bomb, though, if you're not careful cracking the throttle. Locklear was all set to face off with Shawn Gann, the NHRA Pro Stock rider who also grudge races a serious, 73-inch, carbureted all-motor 'Busa, but the race was called off after rumors got his way that the Texicans were testing the nitro mix in their bike back in Houston.

Gann says he suspected something was up long before race day, when Locklear announced that he was going to take Gann by at least five bike lengths. "What am I gonna think?" Gann says. "Johnny doesn't say much, so when he says something he usually means it. I know what kind of power my bike makes, and it takes a lot of power to win by five bikes.

"Of course I'm not gonna run a bike with nitro," laughed Gann. "But how does anybody know they didn't run 10 percent nitro before? It's like Tabasco--a little goes a long way. You know what I mean?"

Doin' The Hustle

Running nitro in an "all motor" race illustrates the gamesmanship that occurs in a sport with no rulebook. Whatever deal you strike is what you're stuck with, regardless of what you overlooked, didn't clarify or forgot to ask about first. Grudge racing is often as much about the con as it is about the bikes and riders."My favorite thing is to put about half a quart of motor oil in the exhaust, and they will come find you," Marasco says hesitantly. "I hate to give that up, but it's entertainment. They think you are wounded and they will come to you immediately. `We've got 'em now!' they say. And we say, `Well, OK, we'll make one more pass...'"

Marasco rarely gets a good deal when setting up a race because everyone everywhere knows his rider. "When Keith Dennis rides for you, you always have to give up inches [a head start] or lane choice. We're always the underdog. A lot of races we gotta count on the other guy making a mistake to come out on top."Gann claims complete innocence when it comes to hustling. "I ain't never tried to pull the wool over anybody's eye--never," Gann says. "But I've raced people I knew could never win. And I feel bad enough about that."

Sometimes setting up a race is less about trickery and more about volume and intimidation. "All it is is small-scale violence," says Gann. "Most of the time it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I just stand around and watch the two people in the middle and it gets ugly. When they get a circle around them, nobody wants to back down because of the crowd."

Performing well under pressure is the ace up the grudge racer's sleeve. "What separates the grudge match is being able to handle the pressure of the bets," says Burnout Bruce. "I think it's a lot harder. A lot of people say, `Well, what if you're riding a Pro Stock bike in front of 25,000 fans?' What's that compared to racing for $25,000?"

Going Straight

Despite the intense arguing and disparaging trash talk that characterizes their interactions, a very high level of camaraderie and respect exists between most grudge-racing combatants. "They're good people, I like them," Hollywood says about rivals Marasco and Shine. "That's one thing about Shine and them--they will try it, they will gamble. I have to give them credit. Shine's got the goods and he's got the power."

"Me, Johnny and the guys here all live within a 20-mile radius," says Burnout Bruce. "We used to race four times a week, go hang out at the restaurant and do it again the next day. I enjoy racing everybody, and I don't hold a grudge against anybody."

For the most part, this former brotherhood of the street has made the transition to the track nicely. "It's much safer at the track," says Hollywood. That's justification for legit sanctions to schedule grudge races at their racetracks. "The people get to see it, and they don't have to go out to the highway and stuff. I wouldn't say I'm happier at the track, but one of our friends got killed on the street, and that took a lot out of us."

AMA/Prostar has taken a lot of heat from some of its series regulars since it started the Streetbike Chaos program last year, but after a few growing pains, it seems to have found its place. Brown even thinks the grudge phenomenon will develop enough to become a full-blown regular series class. "It'll be a class--that's how all classes start," he says. But if the current grudge-racing program forms the basis of just another laddered eliminations class on Sundays, you can bet creative, competitive minds will conjure up a whole new, even wilder category for Saturday night.

Just like Paul Newman's Fast Eddie character (with two broken thumbs and worse) found out, it's hard to give up the hustle.