Did We Just Find The Most FAMOUS Harley Racer EVER?

earlier this month we got a call from a family out of the blue that claimed they had an accomplished drag racing motorcycle from the 50s and 60s they said the bike had gained legendary status during its racing days and it was nicknamed Big Bertha the problem is nobody had seen this bike in over 50 years we get calls about motorcycles all the time but I have to admit with this one I had my doubts but after just a few minutes on the phone I realized this could be legit they agreed to load the bike up and head eight hours to Wheels Through Time so we could see if it was the real deal if this motorcycle was what they said it was we could have just Unearthed one of the most famous motorcycles of all time Scott how you been bud how good how about you all right trip up was easy a great trip beautiful scenery so Scott's coming from Florida and inside the trailer is a race bike that was a record-setting drag bike uh commonly referred to as Big Bertha now Big Bertha was a famous drag bike raced out of Puckett's Harley-Davidson in Orlando in the 1950s famous drag racer Big Daddy Don Garlits challenged Harley Davidson to a drag race and the Pucketts crew showed up with Big Bertha the result would cause garlic to go back to the drawing board and redesign his race cars to make them more competitive thus altering the course of drag racing history Garlits would later become one of the most influential figures in Drag Racing all together it was the Puckett boys that made him fast because when they beat him on the track he went back to his shop said boys we got to do something better for years Big Bertha was the fastest quarter mile drag bike in the world and was influential in shaping motorcycle and Automotive drag racing history three more on that later but after its tenure on the drag strip it disappeared and hasn't been seen for almost a half century as we're digging into this trailer the question I had in my mind is is this really big Bertha in order to authenticate the bike we had to roll it out of the trailer and dig into the history of its Builders Lewis and Bill Puckett these guys were Harley Davidson dealers uh dating back what season to the 1940s before World War II uh his Louie's wife ran the business in Orlando while Louis was while he was in World War II so here's a little history on Pucketts Lewis Puckett is really credited with bringing the Harley-Davidson brand of Florida he opened his first dealership in Orlando and after Harley-Davidson saw his early success they offered him a deal to open six more stores across central Florida Windows St Petersburg Sarasota Clearwater Melbourne Cocoa Beach and Florida the name Pucketts became synonymous with motorcycling and would have a huge influence on the future of motorcycle racing some of the biggest names in racing history raced out a Puckett's shop they did everything from lightweights Little two-stroke 125s 165s to some of the fastest drag racers out there period as we roll it down the ramp you can see this machine is all business but is it actually the famous Big Bertha unbelievable incredible so guys drag racing stuff I mean this is strictly utilitarian stuff there's no Glitz there's no Glam it's base minimum what you need to run and that's it so the frame is pretty stock frame actually I'm pretty surprised it's a you know a brake crossovers cut off um but they were 80 people inch is that right so yeah 80 cubic inch a homemade clutch 415 pounds with the rider wow I wonder how big the rider was or how little the rider was yeah so check this out guys some of the trick stuff on this bike what you're looking at front mount Waco racing Magneto or actually that's an Edison excuse me uh chain driven from the inside if you saw the TT racer uh set up that we just finished on one of the shows really similar slightly earlier mag here on a later engine probably preference the oil tank is the transmission you don't need a lot of wood you're only running a quarter mile at a time probably heated up faster in the transmission kicker's deleted all right so they plug that it looks like they corked it or something uh so they plug the kicker here's your lines learning in the oil pump he said they did some custom Machining on the pump a tiny little Hummer peanut gas tank like I said they were the Hummer Pros these guys were doing everything from dirt track racing to land speed racing on Harley's little 125 platform some homemade custom drop bars on a pea shooter style Fork looks like a little homemade or some sort of spool Hub with sealed bearings a homemade clutch I wonder what's inside of it because the basket's like a 36 to 9 basket and then I bet the insides are all special stuff huge motor sprocket this is really trick guys a pair of dual carb oh God that's so cool so they've like completely you know a Linker you got a high speed and low speed right this one here is your low speed needle uh and that actuates with your choke right here this here's your high speed needle they've deleted them both I mean gone soldered them up this one they plugged in and staked and then they run the high speed adjustments right here which is a lot like it like a 20s and early 30s Harley racing carburetor is just runs that's why I'm looking in here earlier and there's not even a main nozzle in there and it's because they were using this to emulsify the fuel rather than a standard Harley main nozzle see those are the tricks we were talking about these things were set on kill mode guys I mean fast as you can possibly make a a bike as light as you can make it like we said 80 cubic inches they said they were running this on Benzene and methanol fuel I think which we think we know how to build fast stuff but these guys did it every single day so for us to even think about we could go as fast with the same equipment that they were going fast with it ain't happening these guys were Leaps and Bounds ahead of where we're at now you know there's nothing extra I mean this is as light as you can make one twist grip throttle here oh that still works really nicely don't flood it no no no accelerator pumps on this one and then look at this slick this thing is it's a fire stone probably a deluxe Champions and then recapped it so they just vulcanized this big monster piece of rubber and then shaped it shifter here it's probably one speed what a special motorcycle little history puckets they were going fast and racing since the beginning uh dealer before World War II even but in the 1950s they got hooked up with dick O'Brien in the 1950s Pucketts teamed up with speed Guru dick O'Brien to hone in their racing game whether racing on the dirt Daytona Beach or the drag strip pockets and O'Brien set the bar for Speed and helped develop some of the fastest bikes around their experience in teamwork culminated with Big Bertha a 1949 Harley-Davidson Panhead dragster built to run on nitromethane now this is where the story gets interesting and the detective work gets really heavy in 1957 the Harley-Davidson motor company hired O'Brien away from Pucketts to head up their Factory racing program over the next 30 years he was integral to each and every Harley-Davidson racing success it was in those same early years of O'Brien's career at Harley that a new name in racing was leading the pack Carol res Weber born in Texas Russ Weber moved to Milwaukee and became Harley's new Ace in the Hole Russ Weber captured four consecutive grand national championships for Harley-Davidson under the stewardship of his own tuner Ralph Byrne at the time that was an accomplishment that was unheard of now I know this story is lengthy but follow where I'm going in 1958 Russ Weber and burnt were preparing for the annual Beach race in Daytona and O'Brien hooked him up with none other than puckets to use as a home base while there the crew chronicled their trip through photographs which are now housed in the wheel suit time Library see in 1990 my dad actually purchased the entire contents of the Russ Weber collection out of tuner Ralph Burns Garage this included the entire fleet of rest Weber race bikes parts and you guessed photographs in the hundreds of photos from The Collection there were two shots of a pan head drag racer at Puckett's shop now these photos have never been seen But after taking a closer look the bike is identical to the machine that sits in front of us I mean virtually everything is the same as the bike sits today same engine same exhaust pipes Transmissions the oil tank same skinny little front end and narrow handlebars undoubtedly this is the same bike as in the photos I mean the only difference I see is the rear tire and the gas tank decals so after we conclusively decided that this was actually Big Bertha I started wondering what would the future of this machine be it's been decades since Lewis Puckett passed away and when he did he left the bike to his brother Bill who kept it hidden away all those years after multiple conversations with Lee Bill's Widow the family actually decided to donate the bike to Wheels Through Time Museum we could not be more excited been on build since I met him to get this thing out and short this is Saint Pete history this is Orlando Florida history and he would not bring it out of that back room and show it and everybody I tried to get involved even after he passed away I tried to get people involved to get it out and show it to people this is history it needs to be seen and it didn't happen until she got a hold of you and you made it happen this is where it belongs This Is It was supposed to be this way God I can't thank you enough for coming up and dropping this off I hope that you're here for the rest of the day it was uh my honor yeah we will be here all day awesome guys come check it out Big Bertha right here at Wheels Through Time

Channel: Wheels Through Time

Views: 353,152

Keywords: american motorcycle, motorcycle history, burnout, Wheels Through Time Motorcycle Museum, Maggie Valley, North Carolina, Blue Ridge Parkway, Riding on Motorcycles, Classic Motorcycles, American History, Dale Walksler, The Time Machine, Vintage Motorcycles, Whats in the barn, Velocity TV, Harley Davidson, Indian, Matt Walksler, Rare, Unique, Wheels Thru Time, American Restoration, Fast, Fire It Up, Classic, Dale's Channel, AMA

Id: HSpzmrM_K4I

Length: 10min 16sec (616 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 25 2023