Donnie Smith FX 300 - John Roehl's Show On Saturday Race On Sunday

Few people get to have one custom bike built by one of the most revered custom motorcycle shops, let alone two. John Roehl is in the enviable position of having his brother, Rob, as the lead fabricator at Donnie Smith's Custom Cycles. This has lead to him getting a couple of bikes built. He loved the first one. It was a classic Donnie Smith bike, low-slung with complementary lines. As soon as he saw a bike that Donnie built, which he describes as a yellow dropseat blower bike, he knew he had to have something similar. John loved the dropseat look, the huge rear tire, and the fact that it looked fast when it wasn't even moving. John and his brother started to talk about how this bike was going to be different, but still keep to the long, low, sleek profile that continues to make DSCC a leader in the industry. There were going to be a couple of changes from the original yellow bike-one was giving it a single downtube, and the other was incorporating an S&S 145ci motor.

John races anything that he can ride or drive. This bike was going to be that same way, with one exception-it was going to have to look stunning as well. John put his trust in his brother Rob to make sure the frame was done properly. Rob turned to his Norwegian friend, Frank Pedersen of McWorx, in Olathe, Kansas. Frank has been building drag racing frames forever, and Rob knew that he could recreate the original frame he had done with just a few tweaks. When the frame came back, Rob started on the fabrication work that needed to be done, as well as getting parts in for the build. Rob worked on the tank so that it maintained the sleek, low profile of the bike, but still provided plenty of room for fuel for longer trips. They built in a battery box as well as the oil bag so they became a part of the bike. It was very obvious that Rob was taking great pride in this build for his brother, and he pulled out all the stops. Rob also fabricated the rear fender to hug the contour of the monster 300 tire, as well as a front fender and a torque plate between the engine and Baker RSD six-speed transmission.

The bike started to look like a drag racing bike the more it came together, but it also had the look of a show-stopping custom. After the fabrication and mock-up was done, they sent it all out for paint. The paint was going to be simple and had to incorporate the 145; why have a 145 if no one knows, right? The frame and sheetmetal came back and looked killer. The final assembly put the finishing touches on and also accented all the hard detailed work that was invested in the bike. All the sheetmetal and the frame were molded prior to paint, so there were no unsightly seams or places that didn't flow. The Hawg Halters 2-over stock frontend went on without a hitch. The 5-degree trees combined with the 42-degree rake in the neck and 5 inches of stretch really helped hug the bike to the ground. Rob turned to Performance Machine for many of the parts because of the way their components flowed with the lines on the bike. PM hand and foot controls slid on, as well as PM Trinity Wheels with matching sprocket and inboard right side rotors and calipers.

The bike was finally put together and it looked great. Smooth, flowing lines, subtle paint job, and a monster motor-what else could John want? He knew it was fast, but just how fast was it over, say, the quarter mile? John knew that taking it up to max speed wasn't going to be anything he would ever do on the road, considering it is a rigid, but he did want to see how it would do on the track. He tried his hand at drag racing before, but never had a bike with so much horsepower that it was hard not to smoke the tire. They backed the tire pressure all the way down to 18 PSI so it gripped and didn't just smoke all the way through the gears. When he ran it down the track, he clocked a best time of 10.70. Not bad, considering it could have been at a bike show the day before and won first prize in the custom class.