About This Series
This article is part of an ongoing monthly series on Dragbike.com featuring select chapters from Elmer Trett and the Gods of Thunder, the 2012 biography by Senior Editor Tom McCarthy. Released throughout 2026 to honor the 30th anniversary of Elmer Trett’s passing, this series chronicles the life, legacy, and impact of one of the most influential figures in motorcycle drag racing history. Each chapter explores Trett’s journey from humble beginnings to global Top Fuel dominance, while also preserving the deeper history of the sport and the pioneers who shaped it. New chapters are published monthly exclusively on Dragbike.com.

Before reading this article, read the previous article posts:

• Series Intro
• Book Intro
• Chapter 1 – Humble Beginnings
• Chapter 2 – The Origins of Mountain Magic
• Chapter 3 – The Teen Years
• Chapter 4 – North to Ohio
• Chapter 5 – Fuelish Intentions
• Chapter 6 – Class Dismissed
• Chapter 7 – Fateful Liasons
• Chapter 8 – A Terminal Lesson
• Chapter 9 – Single Solution
• Chapter 10 – Very Unpopular Decisions
• Chapter 11 – It’s Not What You Have in Life that Matters
• Chapter 12 – Historical Developments
• Chapter 15 – The Big One that Got Away
• Chapter 16 – Side Projects: The Beast from the East
• Chapter 18 – Five Second Fate

Chapter 19 – Along Came a Spider

Larry McBride saw more than he wanted to the day Elmer Trett died.  Larry was the next fuel bike in line, right behind Elmer, when he made his last pass down a drag strip.  Larry’s eyes were riveted to Elmer as he made that final pass.  When it happened, Larry stood up off his drag bike, took off his helmet, and handed it to his brother Steve.  “I’m not racing anymore, we’re not doing this.”  He folded his arms and watched helplessly as the emergency medical people moved to the lifeless body of his mentor, his friend of  sixteen years.  Larry’s burden was as heavy as his heart.  Larry and Elmer went way back as friends, as racers.

For Larry, in 1980, so many years before, Elmer was already a legend.  Elmer had conquered the world of Harley-Davidson Top Fuel racing in 1979.  When Larry got involved in drag bike racing it was Elmer he turned to for guidance and advice from day one, sixteen years earlier.  Elmer, the king of Top Fuel bike, the fastest and baddest drag racer ever to throw a leg over a drag bike, was everything Larry wanted to be as a drag racer.  It was Elmer that showed him the way.  Larry inherited Elmer’s legacy and he served it well.

Larry was born in Dothan, Alabama, on January 28, 1958, and grew up as a southern son.  When Larry was sixteen, he started working at a local motorcycle shop part-time to support his love of motorcycles.  After racing dirt bikes from 1974 to 1977, in 1978, Larry started teaming up with a racer named Squeaky Bell, who wanted Larry to drive for him.  By the 1979 season, Larry started getting noticed by the big boys who could see he was a fearless racer.  In 1980, Danny Johnson hired Larry to pilot his Top Fuel bike.

The NHRA U.S. Nationals that year was the event where he earned his nickname for life.  Johnson’s Top Fuel bike was a handful to keep on a straight course; the bike tended to wander all over the race track.  To compensate, Larry had to crawl left and right across the top of the bike as it rocketed down the track.  The race announcer, in describing Larry’s driving style,  said, “Larry looks like Spiderman out there, trying to keep that bike in the groove.” The name stuck:  Larry Spiderman McBride, the racer, was born at Indy during the 26^th running of the U.S. Nationals.  Sixteen years later, he wanted to quit.  But he couldn’t.  He felt he owed Elmer, and he was too much of a drag racer to back away from the challenge.

When Larry took on the challenge of being a Top Fuel motorcycle drag racer in 1980, like Elmer, he just couldn’t get enough.  Larry rode anything and everything that had nitromethane in it for the first six years.  It took him that long to raise enough capitol to buy all his own equipment and, in 1986, Larry purchased the former fuel bike once campaigned by the Vance & Hines team.  Whenever he had questions about the bike, Elmer always had answers.  Because they were such good friends, Elmer just had to play with him.  Like the time Larry asked for advice on what to name the motors he was beginning to accumulate.

Elmer always had names for his spare motors; for example, Wilbur was one of his favorites, as well as Roscoe.  So to bring Larry luck, he called Elmer one day and asked him, “What to you think would be a good name for me to stamp on my new spare motor?”

“How about Nero,” quipped Elmer with a wry smile.  “Nero was a Roman Emperor; the man had a lot of power. Does your spare motor make a lot of power?”

Larry replied, “Hell, I haven’t run it yet; how would I know?  It should make a lot of power; we built it.”

Elmer smiled again as he spoke into the phone, “Well, there ya go, stamp that onto the side of your motor.”  Larry believed Elmer was giving his new motor his blessings, but that’s not quite what Elmer had in mind.

Decades ago, when Elmer drove a dump truck for a living, a dog that got too close to Elmer’s big wheels was inadvertently run over by Elmer who just could not stop in time.  The dog simply got too close to Elmer’s power.  Now that Larry was building spare engines and had his own Top Fuel bike, Larry was getting closer to Elmer’s power as well.  This made Elmer remember the lesson of Nero the dog.  Spiderman’s spare engine, Nero, brought many smiles to the Trett pit area whenever they saw it.  Coincidentally, it was an engine plagued with problems that did not last long in Larry’s parts inventory.

Elmer didn’t do that to Larry because he thought poorly of him.  On the contrary, he did it because he loved him like a son.  So much so in fact Elmer even let Larry take his personal Top Fuel bike for a pass one day after a race at Piedmont Dragway, in Julian, North Carolina.

Elmer and Larry raced a lot for fun and profit during their sixteen years together.  At one event, in the early nineteen nineties, Elmer walked into Larry’s trailer and asked him straight up, “Hey do you wanna ride my motorcycle?”

Larry said without hesitation, “Well, heck yeah.  When can I take it for a lap?”

“Right after today’s event, how about that?” Elmer replied.

“Fine with me,” said Larry in return.  He assumed Elmer was pulling a fast one on him as usual.  Later after the race day was over, Elmer returned to Larry’s pit area with a grin on his face.

As Elmer walked into Larry’s trailer a second time, he was surprised and a bit disturbed to see Larry sitting there relaxing, drinking a beer.  “Hey,” Elmer spoke tersely to Larry, “I thought you said you wanted to drive my motorcycle?  What the hell are you doing sitting there drinking beer if you think your gonna drive MY Top Fuel Bike?”  With that, Elmer stepped over to Larry, took the beer from his hand, drank it down in one big gulp, and promptly crushed the can into a potato-chip-sized clump on Larry’s table.  Then he announced, “Are you gonna ride my bike or not?  Jackie and Gina have it all prepared and we’re just waiting on you.  Are we gonna do this or not?”

Stunned, Larry rose up from the table and said, “Let’s go, I’m ready.”  With that, they stepped out the trailer door and headed for the drag strip.  Larry’s relationship with Elmer was more than friendship: it was personal.

So when he watched his friend die, he took it deeply to heart.

Less than a week after Elmer’s fatal accident, Larry took his place as a pallbearer and helped carry Elmer to his final resting place in Demorest, Georgia, just a piece down the road from Elmer’s shop.  As Elmer lay in repose in his casket, Larry knelt beside his fallen mentor and made Elmer a solemn promise: not to let the class of Top Fuel bike die with Elmer’s passing.  Larry promised Elmer that, for all time, he’d do everything in his power to keep the class of Top Fuel bike alive and well.

As of the writing of this book in 2012, some sixteen years later, Spiderman never faltered from that promise.  During a career that has spanned over thirty-two years of Top Fuel motorcycle drag racing, Larry did his mentor proud, not only keeping the class of  Top Fuel bike alive and well, but becoming the quickest motorcycle drag racer on the planet in the process.

Larry forged ahead in his career, supported largely by his brother Stevie, to over a dozen Top Fuel championship titles and more importantly, Larry became the first into the fives: and he took Elmer with him on the ride.

After Elmer’s passing, for every race that Larry entered, on every pass, Larry continues to wear an Elmer Trett t-shirt under his racing leathers.  So, as Larry refers to it, “Elmer is with me on every run.  He taught me what I know, I just carry on.”  Larry takes great comfort and pride in knowing that Elmer was there with him when he broke the five second barrier in 1999.

On October 31, 1999, during the NHRA’s Matco Tools Super Nationals, Larry was present making exhibition runs to the delight of the fans who are thrilled by the sights and sounds of the most powerful motorcycles on planet earth.  On that Halloween night, Larry did not trick, but instead brought a treat to the thousands of race fans present at Houston’s Raceway Park; he broke the five second elapsed time barrier for Top Fuel motorcycles.

During an exhibition pass, Larry laid down his hottest lap ever that stopped the timing clocks at exactly 5.993 seconds when he crossed the finish line at a jaw dropping 243.68 mph.  At that point in time, Larry became the fastest and quickest motorcycle in the world.  After the run, when the NHRA interviewed Larry, live in front of the fans, Larry took the microphone and announced, “I just want you all to know, I dedicate this run to Elmer Trett, in his memory.  Without Elmer, we would not be where we are today.  Just remember, he made this possible.”

Larry’s dedication to his friend never faltered for a moment.  His promise to Elmer was made the day he laid Elmer to rest, and from that day forward, Larry took Elmer with him every pass for the remainder of his career.  As of the completion of this manuscript on February 27, 2012, Spiderman remains the man to beat in Top Fuel bike.  After all, who taught him?

The Next Installment of Elmer Trett and the Gods of Thunder will be released on October 15, 2026 on Dragbike.com

For those interested in owning a printed copy of the original book, please contact Tom McCarthy. Limited copies are available. E-mail Tom on Facebook

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