Top Fuel Motorcycle: School of Hard Knocks
Story by Senior Editor Tom McCarthy, with Micah Fenwick.
Photos and video courtesy of The White Mountain Top Fuel Motorcycle Team, except where noted.
Top Fuel motorcycle racer Micah Fenwick, of Maine, has been racing in the class for eleven years. He’s no stranger to parts breakage. Top Fuel bikes and metal mayhem go together like sunshine and darkness: If you get one, the other is on the way.
On September 6th, 2025, Micah got a new lesson in the school of hard knocks that is Top Fuel racing, when his drive chain suddenly broke after just ten passes on it. The chain snapped like a guitar string flailing briefly like a savage weapon of destruction, removing or destroying over seven feet of 4130, Chrome Molly chassis, once crafted by Race Visions Reborn.
Not only did the wilding chain remove or destroy segments of the rear section of the bike and wheelie bars, it tore through four feet of fibreglass bodywork like it was papier-mache. The chain was a Top Fuel bike rated 630 chain, not the new triple plate used by many newer Top Fuel bikes.
Micah fully realizes he could have lost his right leg, entirely torn from his body.
Ironically, Micah’s bike was already in the process of being modified for the newer, more rugged Top Fuel chain, but the new rear wheel & spindle assembly was still in the machine shop as a work in progress. But the chain failure was not the root cause of the incident; it was the by-product of a transmission failure, according to Micah’s post-race analysis.
“I’ve had enough of these B&J 2-speed problems and the sprag issues. That’s never happening to me again,” he stated in a post-race interview.
The entire episode unfolded as follows, as explained by Micah, “We arrived in Michigan, in early September for a few days of testing at US 131 Motorsports Park, the local track to John Alwine and the ATF crew. We literally had been testing for three days and were on our final run, when the bike’s transmission suddenly ceased rotation.”
Before the bike’s transmission locked up, the team was producing its best numbers to date. The White Mountain Top Fuel Motorcycle Team, based in Belmont, Maine, arrived several days early to review the bike with its original builder, John Alwine, the creator of the ATF-1 Alwine Top Fuel motor, first edition.
A handful of test runs at 131, US Motorsports Park, produced two successive runs of 3.88, 1/8th mile, and a 3.90 @ 201 MPH. There is no question that this bike was running five-second quarter-mile runs in the first half. Even with a short let off just before the 1000’ it clocked in at 5.05, it’s best elapsed time ever.
Then, about the 7th test pass, everything changed in an instant. It was evening, shortly after 9PM, CST, and it was likely the last pass after three days of testing and adjustments with gradual improvements.
Micah was in the right lane and launched normally off the green light. He passed the tree and the 60-foot clock with a 1.036, 60’ time, then about 200 feet down track, traveling at a speed a bit north of 160 MPH, all hell broke loose.
When the transmission sprag slipped, the roller bearings tried to bunch up, causing the bearing race to go out of round, and the transmission shaft briefly stopped rotating. This snapped the drive chain, instantly tearing links off while ripping out the cross-link pins. Most of the chain pieces were recovered by track personnel.
Once the chain was free of drive duties, it began to act as a chainsaw. It removed several feet of 4130 Chrome Molly aircraft-grade tubing from the frame. It then sawed off close to four feet of rear fiberglass bodywork and assaulted the wheelie bars.
This abrupt disruption of the drive line threw the bike off its initial course, causing it to quickly drift into the wall. Somewhere during the melee and violence, Micah bailed off the bike to avoid hitting the wall, fortunately, in the direction of the centreline of the race track..
The US 131 Motorsports Park track emergency services were on the crash scene in very short order. The ambulance services, per usual, were already spun up and ready to go, as they often are, when the Pros are running. Micah was understandably shaken by the whole experience, but he was fully awake and aware of all that transpired.
During the post-incident inspection, it was critically important that Micah was able to recover the broken components and do the teardown of the bike, especially the two-speed B&J transmission, following the crash. By taking everything apart himself and examining every component, he realized what happened and why.
He was quick to share his findings with John Alwine and Tony Lang, tapping into their decades of experience in dealing with this kind of Top Fuel motorcycle carnage.
Micah came to the conclusion, “I’ll never rerun this two-speed in this bike. It’s coming out and I’m going direct drive. It’s not a new concept, I have every confidence that between John and I and the people we know, we can figure this out.”
On Monday, September 29th, just three weeks after the incident, Micah left home with the bare, stripped-down chassis and was headed back to Michigan. John Alwine will make the repairs and modifications to the bike.
Micah fully expects to be up and running in 2026, to begin testing his new configuration. He’s eager to return to Top Fuel motorcycle action after the hard knocks and lessons learned during the 2025 season.
Micah and his White Mountain Top Fuel Motorcycle Team would like to thank: John/Chris/Barb and Dave Alwine for their continued support and help, Rob Wendl, and from Starracer belt, who have really helped out over the years. Rick’s Motorsport Electric, Sam Hurwitz from Old Time Garage, McKinney Well Co, Spectro Oil’s, Bob Malloy and Bonifante clutch plates, Liska Racing, Fast By Gast, Ed Kelly, Richie Coury, Symond’s Machine, also a shout out to US 131 Motorsport Park for having such a top-notch facility.
We also thank New England Dragway, Larry McBride, and Pingel for their contributions to our sport over the years, as well as Dragbike.com and Tom McCarthy for his decades of photography and write-ups. Last but not least, Thanks to all of my crew members, Ronny, Gordon, Big Ron, Scotty, Vince, Cody, Chris, and my family who do so much for me each and every time I go out.
 | Until Next time… – Tom McCarthy |
