Larry Lawrence | May 9, 2021
Cycle News Archives
COLUMN
This Cycle News Archives Column is reprinted from the May 6, 2009 issue. CN has hundreds of past Archives columns in our files, too many destined to be archives themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, in the future, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones coming down the road -Editor.
Leo and His Turnip Eater
He wore plain two-piece black leathers, with the back half numbered with shoe polish, and his low-cut, tan, leather construction boots exposed his white gym socks, but regardless of his distinctive “look,” Leo Payne was a national drag-racing legend. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Payne set numerous records on his highly modified Harley-Davidson Sportsters. His custom-built machine, dubbed “Turnip Eater,” was also the first non-streamliner to go more than 200 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1969. Payne was a master at building special carburetors to run a nitromethane/gas combination and his designs helped S&S Cycle launch a successful line of racing carburetors.
Leo Payne’s Harley-Davidson “Turnip Eater.”
Payne was born in St. Louis on March 10, 1931. He was raised in Flora, Illinois, and attended Boys Town in the 1940s. He bought his first motorcycle when he was 19, but the Korean War cut short his new hobby. After the war, Payne moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and went to work part time for a Harley-Davidson dealership. It was there that he began to modify his bikes and quickly earned a reputation as having one of the fastest Sportsters in the Midwest.
Payne began racing and winning local drag-racing events, which helped spread his reputation. He was one of the first motorcycle drag racers to use the burnout method of warming his rear tire and these tire-smoke-filled pre-race rituals often psyched-out his opponents.
Payne became known for his lightning-quick reaction times. He claimed the quick reactions came from his job at Quaker Oats, where he would sharpen his sense of timing by pitting his reactions against the start-stop lights of box-filling machines.
As a mechanic, Payne was especially skillful at modifying carburetors for drag racing. He helped support his racing by rebuilding carburetors for hundreds of Sportster owners and this ultimately attracted the attention of popular aftermarket performance company S&S Cycle. George Smith, of S&S, contacted Payne about helping his company build a performance carburetor and the Payne-designed S&S carb would become a big seller for the company, further cementing Payne’s status as a leading builder.
Payne had a habit of naming his racing bikes—Quarter Horse, Drag Sport and the most popular of them all, the Turnip Eater. The name of the bike, which started life as a 1957 Harley-Davidson Sportster, was said to be a reference to the American-made machine eating up British-made brands on the drag strip (Turnip being a pejorative term Harley riders had for Triumphs). His bikes had the engraving of “In God We Trust” on the clutch covers, but no one knew for sure if it was a show of religious faith or a humorous statement on what it was like to race one of his intimidating fuel-burning racers.
Payne’s Turnip Eater set several records, including hitting a top speed of over 201 mph, en route to an average of 196.512 in 1969.
Television personality and fellow Motorcycle Hall of Famer Dave Despain was an early fan of Payne’s.
“Some of my earliest racing memories are of Leo,” Despain recalled. “When I was in high school, we went every Saturday night to the drag strip in Kahoka, Missouri, which always ran a bike class. Leo was the big gun, riding his famous ‘Turnip Eater.’ When Leo went 200 at Bonneville, Harley made a poster of the accomplishment. We had that framed and hanging in the living room of the flophouse where I lived with a bunch of other deadbeat Sportster riders.”
From Iowa to California, Payne won numerous titles and set countless records in the often informally sanctioned motorcycle drag races of the 1960s. He was noted for his consistency on the drag strip where his runs rarely varied by more than a few hundredths of a second. He won with single-engine bikes during an era when dual- and even triple-engine dragsters came into vogue. One of Payne’s secrets was shaving a great deal of weight off his Sportster-based dragsters. He eliminated all unneeded parts and removed enough metal to get the heavy Harleys down to just over 300 pounds.
Fellow drag racer Joe Smith was a big fan of Payne’s who got the chance to race and eventually beat Payne in a match race at Irwindale Raceway. Smith remembered seeing Payne and his legendary bike for the first time.
“His Sportster really sounded powerful,” Smith said. “You could tell he was running 100 percent [nitromethane], probably with two percent PO. Leo was the first fuel bike racer that used all the instruments to test the air. He’d walked around with an air-density gauge hanging from his belt… He really knew what he was doing.”
Payne was featured in a number of motorcycle magazines in the late 1960s and early 1970s. One feature, written by Cook Neilson for Cycle magazine in 1969, gave an account of Payne’s successful run at the Bonneville Salt Flats that year. It was in 1969 that Payne’s Turnip Eater set several records, including hitting a top speed of over 201 mph, en route to an average of 196.512. His trap speed of 201 made Payne the first rider in history to push a non-streamliner to over 200 mph. His bike was towed up to 70 mph before he fired it up to begin the run and to save weight, he used a single-speed transmission, which meant he had to slip the clutch up to about 110 mph. That year he broke the existing class record by a margin of 43 mph. In 1970 Leo pushed the Turnip Eater to a new record of 202.379 mph.
Payne continued to be involved in racing through the 1980s, helping many young riders get their start in drag racing. Payne died from cancer on September 18, 1991. He will always be remembered for squeezing more horsepower and speed out of a Harley-Davidson Sportster than anyone ever thought possible.
Things came full circle for the old Turnip Eater. Mike Wilson, the dealer who sold Payne the humble little ’57 Sportster that would go on to many great victories, acquired the bike 34 years after he first sold it. As a tribute to his longtime friend, Wilson restored the bike and donated it to the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum where it can be seen today. CN
