THE STORY BEHIND THE NAME GT THUNDER

By: Lazarus Sommers of GT Thunder

 

Many times a year I am asked where the name G T Thunder comes from.

A few Years ago – seems like only yesterday, somewhere around 1988. Several of us guys would go riding on 3 wheelers every weekend for hours.

One Sunday we were done riding for the day and decided to hook our 3 wheelers back to back to see which one could pull the best. I had a Yamaha 225DX, Orris Troyer my brother in law had a 200X, and David Miller a long time friend had a Yamaha 225DR.

I alway had an interest in any type of motorsports but really preferred tractor pulling. Mary Ann (wife) came home from work the next week with a flyer for the Strausburg Cornfest. On the flyer was listed an ATV pull. Now what better way to see whose 3 wheeler was best then a good old tractor pull. A few phone calls, lots of welding and bar bell weights and off we go to the pull.

Seems we had no idea what we were doing but how do you tell a guy something like that??

They had this weird rule that we needed to wear helmets. Non of us had helmets. We borrowed my brother in laws helmets – turquoise – open face helmets from his Gold Wing Riding.

Orris hooks to the sled with his 200X and pulls it maybe 20 feet. David hooks to the sled with has DR – now the DR had reverse and low range – he put it in low range and pulled it a little ways before he spun out. I hook to the sled – no low range – shaft drive – guess what – sled wont even move. On second try they all felt bad for me and grabbed ahold of the sled and helped me get it started down the track – as soon as they let go – it stops. I went maybe 10 feet.

Thats it – Orris and David were done – no more pulling for them.

Now me – I am to dumb to quit – I was hooked. Hours of wrenching and much smaller tires – 16 inch chevron tread – and I am back the next week with stars in my eyes on how I am going to win. This time I pulled about 20 feet. Several more changes and events finished off the season with no luck.

Start watching the papers for a better 3 wheeler – found a 1982 250R. I decided to ride it a few weekends in the fall of 1988 before I tore it down for the winter build. I spent hours cleaning the spark plug – but when it ran – ye ha – what a hoot.

I had this habit of loading my three wheeler backward on my pick up so I could just drive it off. Worked just fine with the 225DX – a 3 foot drop is no big deal – shoot – we jump higher then that. Well this 250R air cooled 2 stroke – didn’t work so well – first time – went to drive it off and it bogged – nose dived and I almost crashed. Second time – this thing will be tamed by me!! – rev it up – hit the power band (didn’t know what that was at the time) and away we go – of course it took off full power out of the back of the truck – I didn’t follow at quite the same pace – fell straight down onto my back side and severely bruised my tail bone. Now that is some pain right there!! I did go riding the rest of the day with the guys – just had to stand up – could not sit down. Funny thing is – I could not sit down for several months. 5 years later it still hurt to sit down.
All winter long I spent building this 3 wheeler – sent the cylinder out to Eric Gore for porting. Tried to send it to Duncan but he would not port that old a cylinder. Spent hours on the phone and at the library learning as much as I could about this engine and 2 strokes. Kept hearing about this thing called power band.

I went to work one day (Mathews Ford) and asked Dave Shaffrath (dirt bike guy) what a power band was and where it was located. Dave patiently tried to explain that it was not a physical thing but it had something to do with the pipe on a 2 stroke.

Another time this evil thing called a power band bit me. Did I mention I spent a lot of time cleaning the plug?? Well – one day I could not get it started. Oh yes – by now I had my own helmet – we went to Fisher Big Wheel in Millersburg and I bought a black open face helmet that I used for about 8 years. Anyways – one evening my bike wouldn’t start again and a had my brother tow me down the road. Well – when every thing is right – the engine will start!! And it did start – when everything was right – which just happened to be at full throttle with my clutch hand firmly gripping the left grip – why should it be on the clutch – we just pulled it for 5 minutes with not even a hint of firing. So it did start – wide open – straight at the back of my brothers 3 wheeler – swerve to the right – miss my brother – run too the end of the strap about 10 feet in front of my brother – hard left went the 3 wheeler but I went straight. Evil powerband!!

Found a book from Gordon Jennings at the library about 2 strokes – it explained how this evil power band worked. Of course you can read a book and become an expert!! This I know!! Of course you all know it too – look at all the experts there are on the internet today.

Decided to build my own pipe for it. My dad was in the trucking business and all he had at the time was a stick welder – and I had never heard of gas welding. So – my first pipe was a 6 inch exhaust pipe from a semi – and all the tapers were made by cutting notches in the long way – 4 foot long on the front notches – bending the angled pieces together and welding them together with a stick welder. This pipe ended up being so loud that the announcer would ask the people to hold there kids ears shut when I pulled. There was many other buys running motorcycle engines with no silencers but this contraption was much louder. And yes – I did have a Loud pipes save lives sticker on my puller that year – thank you very much for asking.

Funny thing is this contraption did win a championship in 1989.

With all the guys running motorcycle engines – and with the fact that I was just newly in love with 2 strokes – I started looking around.

I bought a 1985 LT250R for the front part of the chassis.

Back in 1982 I bought a GT380 Suzuki Street bike – it was a 2 stroke but the pipes were not really tuned pipes but it did run very well when you revved it up. So based on maximum CC rules for the classes I went on the hunt for a GT550 Suzuki thinking I could build an awesome puller with 2 of those engines in one quad. One of the ones I bought just had the stock pipes on it and was a fun ride – but I did find another one in Barberton with a set of tuned pipes on it. Now that got my attention!! I asked if I could take it for a ride – of course by now I was an expert on power bands – so I just did the normal guy thing and revved it up till it hit the pipe – and holy cow that thing was fast. When I got back to the owner – he was not very happy with me – not at all – he mentioned that he would never rev that bike that high. He really felt I was abusing his bike. He was really not happy??!!!! Well I assured him that it was the correct way to ride a 2 stroke and that I would be up the next week with the money and buy it. When I came back to get it – he did let me know that he had ridden it and revved it up that high just once. He said he would honer the sale but he would not have sold it had he known it ran that well.
So – I cut off the front of the LT250R – built the rear part of the chassis – installed 2 engines – built 6 pipes – hey I had a mig welder by now for welding the pipes – and I used cones. Put a set of 32” CEPEK pulling tires on it and took it to one pull just to shake it out on one engine.

Not sure what happened but people were running and pointing, the flag man was trying to flag me down – the motor kept trying to bog down – so I would clutch it to get it back on the pipe – I finally looked back to see what every ones problem was – the sled was on top of my tires with the sled shoe about 6 inches behind my back – only thing that kept me from getting beat by the sled was the chain length was short enough that it could not come further forward.

In tractor pulling it is customary to name your puller – with 2 GT550 motors in it and no silencers – It got the name G T Thunder.

One of the guys I worked with was a bit of an Artist – Gary Miller – now owner of Radical designs – drew a comic sketch of my quad with flame shooting out the bottom and a crude sketch of the word G T Thunder – that is the lightning bolt logo we use today yet.

I took that drawing to Troyer Signs and had some stickers made like the logo.

I then took the drawing to an embroidery shop and had 2 sweat shirts printed up with the full drawing – I have one of those on display in my shop today.

The following year I was doing a bunch of 2 stroke testing on the 1982 250R and had the engine apart many times as I tested many head designs and compression ratios. I was on the phone with a supplier ordering more pistons and I new I was using more pistons then many dealers – so why shouldn’t I get dealer price. I gave them my name and they quickly informed me that they cant give individuals dealer price.

I looked out the window and saw the G T Thunder puller sitting in the drive way. I called back and said who I was from G T Thunder and wanted to place an order.

The next week I got my first venders license under the name G T Thunder.

Oh yes – I did put a Troy Lee sticker kit on that helmet – couple of the stickers were feathers if I remember right. So when you mention Troy Lee – there are a few of us that have a whole different image in our mind about them.

Da da dats all folks.
LS