ince this issue featured an update on motorcycle drag racing, we thought it would be fun to look back a few years at the sport. In the early 1950s, drag racing was just getting itself organized and events were popping up all over Southern California. In the San Diego area, a track called Paradise Mesa Drag Strip was holding races for both cars and motorcycles on an old abandoned airfield.
     In addition to the flat track and roadracing activities that he is best known for, Floyd Emde (Don’s father and Editor Jen’s grandfather) built up a fire breathing, 74 cubic inch Harley Knucklehead dragster that he raced at Paradise Mesa.
     One of Floyd’s biggest drag race wins came in September of 1952 when he beat out the famous “Bean Bandits” four-wheel dragster at a meet put on by the San Diego Timing Association. Floyd finished the quarter mile at 116.50 miles an hour, a pretty fast run back in those days.
     A year later, National Hot Rod Association founder Wally Parks attended a SCTA meet at Paradise Mesa and was quoted in the local San Diego newspaper saying “it was one of the most efficiently run meets he had ever witnessed and he praised the technical inspections given each entrant before he was allowed to participate.”
     It’s hard to say what, if anything, Wally learned that day that he applied to the NHRA, but that organization has grown through the years to become the absolute leader in the drag racing sport.