Cycledrag.com Photo www.cycledrag.comRiding and racing a Top Fuel Motorcycle has been a constant in Larry McBride’s life for over 30 years.

McBride, who is known by the nickname “Spiderman” has become a legend in the sport, winning 12 championships since he started racing professionally in 1977.

McBride’s passion for the sport inspired he and his brother, Steve, 57, to spend the last four-plus years building a state-of-the-art Top Fuel motorcycle.

Cycledrag.com Photo www.cycledrag.comRiding and racing a Top Fuel Motorcycle has been a constant in Larry McBride’s life for over 30 years.

McBride, who is known by the nickname “Spiderman” has become a legend in the sport, winning 12 championships since he started racing professionally in 1977.

McBride’s passion for the sport inspired he and his brother, Steve, 57, to spend the last four-plus years building a state-of-the-art Top Fuel motorcycle.

“We just wanted to do one more,” Larry, 56, said. “This is going to be the last one we build for ourselves. Everything is custom made on it. Steve is a tool and die maker by trade and we’ve made every part on this bike. Steve and I have worked together all of our lives, and I have been racing Top Fuel motorcycles basically all of my life, and he has been my crew chief.”

In addition to all his world championships, Larry has the fastest time in Top Fuel Motorcycle history at 5.74 seconds in the final round of the season-ending AMA Dragbike National Finals in Valdosta, Ga., in November of 2008.

Larry believes the 1,200 horsepower motorcycle they recently completed has the ability to crush that 5.74 E.T.

“We are looking for 5.60s,” Larry said. “We’ve run a bunch of 5.70s with my other bike. In fact, last November we went 5.76. We’re hoping this will be the fastest bike we have ever built. It has the latest and greatest state-of-the-art electronic stuff now, which makes it really nice. We use all Dave Leahey’s stuff from Electromotion. Just from the timing control and fuel system control we will have now should make it a little better.”

Larry added the custom-made motorcycle also is longer.

“It has a 105-inch wheel base,” Larry said. “If you go from the tip of the front wheel to the tip of the wheelie bar it is 18-feet, 9 inches.”   

Although the new marquee motorcycle is complete, Larry isn’t ready to make his debut on it just yet.

“We have not tested it,” Larry said. “We just finished it and we just cranked it up a couple of weeks ago. Last weekend we had a race at Virginia Motorsports Park and we just took and put it on display. What we will do is rent the track and test it. It has a complete motor in it right now, but we’re building the other spare motors. We have four more to build, and they will be done in the next couple of weeks. I’m probably going to take it (the new motorcycle) out in the fall at Virginia Motorsports Park when it cools off some. We want to get just the right conditions, instead of just going out there and not giving the thing a chance on a hot track. It’s way overdue for me to run this new bike and I’m excited to run it.”

Larry has operated the Cycle Specialist shop out of Newport News, Va., since 1980.

“As long as I can do this safely (race), I will continue to do it,” Larry said. “It’s a lot of fun. We also have a lot of new safety features on this new bike.”

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