True Bench Racing Stories: Racing Against Larry Welch

In the beginning, when I first met Larry I thought, man what a wild guy. He was like a stick of dynamite walking around. Hell of a good bike rider, could really handle that double Triumph of Sonny Routts. He did some stuff later in his career with rocket bikes, wow, I never seen him run it in person, it was after I retired, but I seen him on film. Even had a parachute on his back, I heard the first time he use it, pulled him right off the back of the bike, which is what it was suppose to do.

Larry was always trying to find a way to get in my head, to beat me on the drag strip. I was well aware of this and always tried to stay one step ahead of him. One year at Indy while I was working on my bike getting ready for a qualifying run my wife warns me, “Welch and some of the guys are heading this way”. Just the fact that some of the guys were heading toward my pit area was strange, in those days I was known as NHRA’s baby boy and only had a few racer friends. I think it was because I was being paid by Harley Davidson (ten months a year) to race my fuel bike and NHRA had ask me to Exhibition at all the Nationals Events to show people that never seen a fuel bike what it was all about. I did that for five years for Harley and the NHRA, still making all the bike events, it was a lot of hard work, and they might have been the lucky ones and didn’t realize it. But it worked, that’s how we got Indy in the beginning. OK, enough about me.

I got up from working on my bike and stood waiting to see what was going to happen. It happened so fast I couldn’t stop him; he reached out, grabbed each side of my face and gave me a big, long, wet kiss on the mouth. “That’s because I’m putting you on the trailer at this race”, everybody laughed and walked away, and I just stood there looking like a fool. The kiss didn’t work!

Some time later, at an all Bike Event, he tried again. He waited till just before the races were to start. My wife and I were sitting on the tail gate of our tow truck. She said” look out, here comes Welch again”. This time there was a LOT of people with him, racers and spectators; I didn’t know what to expect, with Larry you never knew. As he approached I kind of stood back away from him, expecting another kiss; he said not to worry, no kiss today, but I do have a present for you, over in my pit area.

So, off we go over to his pit area, me, my wife and my teenage daughter, Patti. All this time were gathering more of a crowd. On the back fender of the double was a white box with a big red ribbon around it. Everyone else knew what was in the box; everyone was getting a big kick out of what was going on. He began his speech about how much trouble he went to last night to get this “present” for me. Larry picked up the box with the ribbon on it and there tape to the back fender was a black and white pet rat he bought the night before at the local pet store. Don’t forget, I was known as King Rat in those days, even though that was what I called my bike. Larry picked up a screw driver and said this is what’s going to happen to you today. He began stabbing this little rat eventually killing it. Now this really back fired on Larry, the crowd of people went dead silent and everyone just stood there. Finally, my teenage daughter said, “one thing about it Larry, that will be the best looking thing on this bike today and its dead”. Some one else put Larry on the trailer that day.

Larry wasn’t done. Everyone knew that I hated orange because I had once painted my frame Harley Davidson orange and the first race I fell down in the traps and orange was a big no around me after that. So Larry shows up to the races with new orange leathers and on the back of his helmet was this picture of a rat standing next to a tomb stone with RIP on it. Larry try to get in my head one way or another, he never succeeded.

Larry, you called many years ago to tell me you were sorry for all those things. At the time I put you off, not accepting what you were saying. If you read this I want you to know I’m sorry for that, you were a great rider and competitor and we had some great times in those days.

Granddaddy Joe Smith
Top Fuel Harley Racer

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