Melissa Surber
Of course the media wants to talk to Surber.
Why wouldn’t they? She’s attractive and talented and in a sport that is starving for young and
marketable personalities, she is very much the
future of drag racing. Surber’s story is a good
one and it needs to be told, just don’t expect her
to share it without a bit of coaxing.
“Yes, doing interviews is probably the most
nerve-wracking part of racing,” Surber admits.
“Gainesville was a big race for us and I couldn’t
believe the [FOX Sports] crew wanted to interview me. Thankfully, I got through it. I’m sure I
looked nervous but I did my best. The problem
is that I’m just not an outgoing person. Growing
up, my siblings are much older so I was sort of
raised like an only child. I remember times we’d
go to a restaurant and my parents had to order
for me because I was too shy to
talk to the waiter or waitress.
“I am making progress,
though,” she says. “A couple
weeks ago I had a local radio
station here [at her home
in Northern California] do
a phone interview with me
and we talked for an hour.
The hardest thing right now
is if someone asks questions
about the bike and I don’t
know the answer. Then, I feel
a little silly.”
L
W
ith all due respect to
those who drive Funny Cars,
Pro Mods, small tire Outlaw
cars or anything else that
requires equal amounts of
skill and fearlessness, there
are few things in drag racing more difficult
than riding a Pro Stock Motorcycle. Besides the
inherent danger of running nearly 200 MPH
with no seatbelts and no roll cage, the rider
must be precise and eliminate any unnecessary
movements. Every single motion must be calculated and
precise. Miss a shift by 100
RPM and you’ll lose two- or
three-hundredths. Forget to
tuck in your elbows or get
your helmet below the windscreen? There goes another
three- or four-hundredths.
Make enough tiny errors and
before you know it, you’re at
the bottom of the qualifying
sheet and packing up the trailer on Saturday night. It isn’t
always obvious watching from
the grandstands, but pay close
attention to every rider’s body
language and you can spot the
good ones.
At about 5’1” and maybe 115
pounds, Surber is just about
the perfect size to be a great
rider, but size alone won’t do
it. A rider still has to have the
upper body strength to wrestle
a 500-pound bike when it decides not to cooperate. Three-time world champ Angelle Sampey
didn’t start winning races until she got serious
about fitness training and Surber is well aware
that she needs to do likewise.
During her initial licensing runs Surber performed better than even she had expected. She
paid attention to all the advice her father provided,
and even managed to get herself out of a tough
situation when her front brakes locked up at the
end of a run.
“On the first few runs the bike felt really fast,
but after a while it started to slow down,” says
Surber. “On one run, I was testing in Sonoma
and I’m still not exactly sure what happened but
the front brake locked up. I had it sideways for
a long time. I burned a lot of tread off the front
tire but I never went down. I was thinking clearly
enough to pull the dead-man switch and I finally
got off the brakes and sat up and everything was
fine after that. I was prepared for the worst. I was
ready to hop off to make sure the bike didn’t land
on top of me, but nothing bad happened. That’s
pretty much when I realized that I could do this.”
“I’ve never
found
anything
else that I’m
good at and
nothing else
I enjoy this
much. I want
to be out here
for a while.”
ike many kids
who grow up in
a racing family, Surber’s first
trip down the
drag strip came
behind the wheel of a Jr. Dragster, but she didn’t spend a lot
of time racing on four wheels.
By the time she turned 16, her
dad had convinced her to trade a firesuit for a set
of leathers and she began racing motorcycles. Her
first bike was a single-cylinder Buell Blast – a
perfect entry-level machine.
“They used to have this class for Jr. Drag Bikes,
and I was going to start there but they got rid of
the class so we built a Jr. Dragster,” Surber recalls.
“I had fun in the Junior and sort of wanted to stick
with cars but by the time I was 16, my dad was
like, ‘Okay, it’s time for you to get on a bike.’ I tried
it a few times and I learned that I actually liked
riding the bike. My Buell Blast had wheelie bars
and it was pretty easy to ride. Then, we moved
up to a no-bar bike, and that was hard because
you can’t launch them at full throttle. You had to
learn how to ease the clutch out.”
About the time she turned 19, Surber got a
surprise when dad told her she was going to ride
his S&S-powered Buell Pro Stock Bike. James
had seen enough to believe that Melissa was up
to the challenge, although she wasn’t nearly as
convinced.
“I remember we were headed to the races with
my Blast and dad just said, ‘You know, you might
96 | D r a g
as well get some practice on the big bike.’ I was
stunned. I was used to going about 120 and now
I was going to ride this bike that could go almost
200. I wasn’t really scared of it; I just wanted to
make sure I was ready.”
I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
Surber made just enough runs to qualify for
her NHRA competition license before heading
for Denver last summer to make her official debut.
She didn’t qualify, but a week later at her home
track in Sonoma, she announced her arrival with
a 6.97, quick enough to qualify for the all-six-second field. On race day, Surber tattooed five-time
champ Andrew Hines on the starting line and ran
another 6.97, but it wasn’t enough to hold off the
Harley rider’s 6.85. For someone who had ne ver
been quicker than 7.50, it was a true eye-opener.
Issue 111