Drag Illustrated Issue 161, October 2020 | Page 14

Special Section
TRAVIS DAVIS HAS BEEN AROUND MOTORCYCLES HIS WHOLE LIFE . HIS FATHER , JOHN , OWNED A MOTORCYCLE SHOP WHEN HE WAS GROWING UP , SO IT WAS NO SURPRISE TO DAVIS ’ FAMILY AND FRIENDS WHEN HE TOOK AN INTEREST IN RACING MOTORCYCLES . AT FIRST IT WAS MOTOCROSS , BUT LIKE MORE THAN A FEW MOTOCROSS RIDERS TURNED DRAG BIKE RACERS , DAVIS EVENTUALLY REALIZED RACING BIKES DOWN A SMOOTH , PAVED STRIP OF ASPHALT WAS A LOT SAFER . ¶ “ AFTER A FEW BROKEN BONES AND INJURIES [ IN MOTOCROSS ], YOU KINDA FIGURE THAT AIN ’ T THE ROUTE YOU NEED TO BE GOING ,” DAVIS LAUGHS . “ THAT ’ S WHEN I STARTED DRAG RACING . THE FIRST BIKE THAT I RODE WAS A LITTLE SMALL-TIRE BIKE THAT WOULD RUN 5.90S . I MADE SIX PASSES ON IT , THEN JUMPED ON A TURBO BIKE THAT WOULD RUN 4.20S . THAT WAS BACK IN ‘ 99 OR 2OOO .”
Davis raced in the AMA Pro Star series , an all-motorcycle organization , where he won the Funny Bike world championship in 2003 . He raced in the Funny Bike class for several years before purchasing a Pro Mod-style nitrous bike from his longtime friend and current competitor , Ashley Owens . He ran that bike in ADRL Pro Extreme Motorcycle before moving over to PDRA competition after the series launched in 2014 .
Davis still races a methanol-fueled turbo bike in addition to the race
gas-burning nitrous bike he fields in Drag 965 Pro Nitrous Motorcycle . He even won the XDA Pro Extreme world championship this season with the turbo bike , all while chasing his third PDRA title .
“ Luckily , this year some races got canceled that were on top of that deal so I would just go from one to the other and they never conflicted with each other this year ,” Davis says of running two different series . “ It ’ s a lot of time away from home , a lot of time away from work . Just keeping both of them prepared for
the next race is tough to do . It ’ s a lot of difference in the riding and the tuning side of it . The nitrous bikes run 175 mph and my turbo bike runs 185 mph in the eighth mile .”
After securing the XDA championship , the Douglas , Georgia-based rider returned his focus to the PDRA championship chase . He had a solid lead over perennial championship contender Chris Garner-Jones going into DragWars presented by Modern Racing at GALOT Motorsports Park in early October . The two riders ended up facing each other
in the first round of eliminations . Garner-Jones left two-thousandths of a second sooner than Davis , but Davis rode around him with a 4.069 at 175.09 to beat Garner-Jones ’ 4.084 at 171.49 , securing the title in the process .
“ Chris is a tough competitor and you have to bring your A game ,” Davis says . “ I put a pretty good tuneup in there that I thought would do what it had to . He matched me on the tree – actually was a couple numbers better than me . We got lucky and turned the win light on .”
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