From The Beginning...

I just never had a chance. My father Ray raced cars, motorcycles and boats while I was growing up and well into my teens. We raced a flat bottom drag boat and then moved on to a low 10 second bracket 1 corvette as a family hobby. My Dad's always been a real nit picker when it comes to attention to detail. He taught me how to build big block chevy rat motors when I was 15 years old. I was basically molded by dear old Dad to keep the shop clean, pick up your tools, and most of all pay attention to every little detail during the assembly of a race motor, trans or rear end. I started driving the car when I was sixteen. It was a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. When you start running in the low 10s in a 3200 lb. manual shift car, you quickly start finding the weak links in your drive train.

I learned to ride motorcycles when I was 8 years old on my first minibike and have played on and raced dirt and road bikes ever since. I worked at Coast Honda in Santa Cruz, Ca. as a wrench starting at 17 years old and at 19 was promoted to service manager. There's nothing like hands on experience to master your craft. By this time my Dad decided it was time to get out of racing so we sold our car and all the hot rod parts, but by now I had the taste of high horsepower and drag racing flowing through my veins. The year was 1975 and I had no choice but to take my street bike to the race track. I started on a 400 Four Honda. After winning many of the local bracket races and the Fremont Raceway Bracket Championship the owner of Coast Honda decided he would back me with a sponsorship for local promotional purposes. I raced the Honda 400F and a new 750F at many local and national drag bike races. In 1976 I won two national Drag Bike USA events and finished runner up at another. I set the ET and mph records on both bikes in the Stock and Super Stock classes. I then slowly moved up the ranks racing in Modified, Altered, Funny Bike, Pro Street and Top Fuel. I raced Hondas, then Kawasakis and next Suzukis, which I'm still running today. Along the way I logged over 50 National ET and speed records and have won 4 National Drag Racing Championships.

Some of my highlights were: 1980 when I was the first to break in to the seven second zone on a gas only powered turbo charged Kawasaki Funny Bike prepared by Kosman Specialties, the 1985 Top Fuel title and my pro Street number one plate in 1990. My 1497cc GS based Pro-Street Bike ran the best of 7.97 ET @ 179 mph without wheelie bars, which I am still proud of today. I also started Holeshot Performance Products in 1980 and have been working my butt off ever since.

Another enjoyable venture was running my motorcycle drag racing school that I developed in the late 80's. Just when I got it up to speed with a few hundred classes under my belt, magazine articles and TV coverage the damn race track in Fremont California closed for good and that was it. The next closest track is just too far away to do the school and run my business. In the future there's a chance I may open another School in Hollister California at a new privately owned 1/8 mile track. We'll have to see how that pans out.

I'm so busy these days I only get to race sporadically. But when I do I still enjoy the challenge of tuning and chassis set up, as well as the rush of a good 7 second 180 mph pass.

I hope you enjoy this photo gallery from the past and present.