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The Carolinas’ Full Throttle Magazine
The Last Big Harley Drags For Atlanta Dragway Story and photos by Alan Dockery everal Carolina race teams were at Commerce, Georgia’s Atlanta Dragway in the middle of April for the last race down this famous strip. Well, the last Big Harley Drags anyway. Two weeks later the National Hot Rod Association held the Southern Nationals as the Final Event T-Shirts declared racing there is over. Next time you see Bill Rowe, All Harley Drag Racing Association Boss, thank him for setting up this race and giving us one more time to enjoy a great old drag strip. A large apartment community has been built overlooking the staging lanes. And we know, those folks ain’t gonna be race fans. Like so many race tracks the property is too valuable for us to just play on it. OK, wipe the tears outta your eyes and I’ll tell y’all a little about the race. Atlanta was the 2021 season opener for the All Harley Drag Racing Association. Bill revived AHDRA last year and Harley Drags fans are happy since it means we get more races in our area. Commerce was a good one, too. I saw several of my old biker race fans there. Some even camped “on the hill” like we did for many years. A bunch of the Top Fuel field in Georgia was from the Carolinas or had close ties. Jay Turner Racing machines based in
Tii Tharpe Julian, NC, were well represented. Many of the entries in the field was racers y’all know. Tii Tharpe, East Bend, NC; Tyler Wilson, Walnut Cove, NC; Mike Beland, Maiden, NC and Tracy Kile, Asheville, NC, competed in the Top Fuel field. Jay Turner made it to the final round before losing to Ryan Perry. Johnny Vickers and his Hawaya Racing shop in the mountains is building Top Fuel Harleys now. Tim Kerrigan from California rode one of Johnny’s newest, very impressive builds. I need to ride over to Johnny’s shop and do a story for y’all on his new Top Fuelers. Armon Furr, Orangeburg, SC, lost to Michael Balch in the Nitro Funny Bike final round. Sam White, Chapin, SC, went out in the Pro Fuel Semi-final round. Mike Motto, Richlands, NC, won the Pro Open Class. Man, I love those big motor gas bikes. Ken Strauss, Terrell, NC, qualified at the top of the quickest index class, Top Eliminator, running against a 9.30 second index. Then he won it in the final round with a 9.473. Sorry if I missed some of the other Carolina teams, I didn’t get my usual paperwork this time. I saw lots of the Bagger Draggin’ Guys from North and South Carolina. Those bikes are fun to
