Friday, May 18th, 2012
2005 AMA/Prostar Top Fuel champion Jimmy “The Hulk” Brantley may have successfully learned to ride a nitro bike quicker than anyone else in the business.
Riding a Top Fuel motorcycle has proven to be a tremendously demanding task that has caused even great riders like Hall-of-Famer Terry Vance to walk away. Veterans of the sport continually reverberate the importance of years of experience when it comes to piloting one of these volatile machines. How then, did Jimmy “The Hulk” Brantley go from racing a few times on a street bike to winning a Top Fuel championship?
“I’ve always loved motorcycles and I have always done radical things,” said Brantley, the ex-Marine who raced off-shore power boats and flew stunt planes. “The first time I went to a race I saw the Top Fuel bikes in the pits and I knew I had to try it.”
Brantley’s debut race was at an AMA/Prostar event in Gainesville Raceway in the spring of 1999. The Hulk competed in the Street ET category aboard his Suzuki Hayabusa and was eventually defeated by AMA/Prostar regular winner Debbie Knebel. “I swore I’d never get beat by a girl again. That’s why I went to Top Fuel,” laughed Brantley. “There are no girls there.”
All joking aside, at the end of the 2001 season Brantley committed to making the transition to the nitro category and purchased the machine of England-based Top Fuel veteran Brian Johnson. From his very first outing on the 1,200-plus horsepower bike Brantley showed immediate signs of talent. However Brantley soon became overcome by the immensely steep learning curve that comes with working on a one-of-a-kind motorcycle. “It was very difficult to work on because all the parts were one-off,” Brantley said. “It was way more than I expected.”The final straw came in Brantley’s second pro race when he destroyed a motor in Atlanta of 2002. Soon after he decided to sell the bike to a buyer in France. Months later, eager to get back in the saddle and fully aware of his previous dilemma, Brantley began talks with five-time Top Fuel champion Larry ‘Spiderman” McBride about the possibility of building a new bike from the ground up. The idea was to keep the bike very similar to McBride’s and for McBride and his team to assist Brantley with tuning and maintenance. McBride saw an opportunity to add another bike to a class starving for participants and within no time the partnership was formed.
“I knew right away that Jimmy had the ability to do this with the right guidance,” McBride said. “It’s not something we could do for just anybody. I had a very good feeling about him from the beginning.”
After two full seasons of following McBride to the track on race weekends to learn as much as he possibility could, Brantley’s bike was completed and he debuted at the beginning of the 2005 season. From there Brantley went on to have perhaps the most successful AMA/Prostar rookie season ever.
He claimed the championship and became only the second rider in the history of the sport to run a five second pass. “I never thought it would it happen this fast. It’s a dream come true,” Brantley said. “I’m hooked for life. As long as we have a place to go race them, I’ll be there”.
Brantley just hopes that there is indeed a place to race. “I am real concerned the bike count is down and it’s very difficult for everyone involved,” Brantley said. “There’s some hope. There are few bikes being built as we speak and maybe some of the other guys will participate more. It’s a very expensive sport and it’s not easy.”
As Brantley mentioned, more bikes are indeed being built, which will benefit the class greatly. However, don’t expect any of the new entries to progress as quickly as the Hulk – few can.
Tags: AMA Dragbike, AMA Prostar, Jimmy Brantley, Top Fuel Dragbike
As a loyal citizen of FT Myers,
Come back JIMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!