The History of the Buell Brothers
As told by Tom “Santa Claus” Anderson
When I was about 10 years old, listening to my little AM radio, I heard KAAY out of Little Rock, Arkansas. They were interviewing Mickey Thompson about racing on the World Famous Bonneville Salt Flats. He talked about racing a car and going as fast as he could. It stuck in my mind from that night on.
I grew up, and went into the US Navy in 1969. They sent me to school in Jacksonville, Florida, so I want to Bike Week and fell in love with Harley Davidson Motorcycles.
When I got out of Navy school, my orders sent me to Lemoore, California. When I got those orders I called my Dad and told him to borrow $3500 in my name from the bank, so as soon as I got to California, I could buy a Harley. I bought a 1952 Pan Head. To me, it was beautiful… fast.
Then I met my great friends, Pete (HD) Davis, Terry (Motorcycle) Michaels, Lynn (Farmer) Lord and Dean (Bog) Boger. We all had Harley’s and lived in a house everyone called “The Animal Farm”. It was aptly named. We played hard and rode our bikes all over the United States. But Bonneville was still on my mind.
In 1995 Harley bought out Eric Buell, the name sake of Buell Motorcycles. Finally – a Harley that was pretty fast and aerodynamic. Now my mind was racing – a bike that we could race at Bonneville. So I bought a new 1995 S-2 Thunderbolt.
We did a few things to it and went to Bonneville. I called HD, Motorcycle, Farmer, Roger Roeszler, Joe Taylor, Lanny Koch and Terry Spears. We need a team name – and Roger said, “How about Buell Brothers?” (Named after The Blues Brothers – so now you understand the hat and sunglasses on our logo.)
We had a ball, rode the race bike back and forth from Wendover to the flats. We raced hard and drank a lot of Old Style. We also set records every year for years.
A lot of the old timers took a shine to us because we raced hard all day long. They were Wink Eller, Jon Minono, Fritz Kott, Ed Mabry, Denis Manning, Scott Guthrie, Tom Elrod – just to name a few. We caught the passion from them and from them we learned that you also have to give back to this place – this Bonneville.
From racing we learned about The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. It is all about racing, helping your friends and competing. Now it’s 2003 and Denis Manning and I are talking about a meet for motorcycles only – I told him we’d come and race. So he got together with AMA & Bub’s Speed Trials began. The first few years were small, but the passion is there to go fast. We were still racing hard and playing hard too.
We now race three bikes: the Buell Brothers and now a female races the Buell Sisters. Last year Erica Cobb set a record. The Fat Book Flyer made out of parts from Drag Specialties Fat Book. Last year we raced three bikes and set three records. We still race hard and play hard.
This year will be the 4th year we’ll award the Buell Brother’s and Buell Sister’s Enthusiast Award. We award the team that races hard, has fun and displays the passion to race at Bonneville. Past recipients are the Vincent Team, Zman race team and JimBo Fischer. So if you want to win $1000 cash plus a ONE of a kind trophy, show us your passion and desire on the Salt Flats.
We have a big family and we love them all. The land speed race is on the salt – stop by and say hi, have some Burnett Dairy Cheese and some Old Style.
The Buell Brothers Crew
The Buell Sisters Crew
The Fat Book Flyer Crew
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Santa Claus