Bikernet Special Report: Sonny Gets Nuttier

 

For more than half a century, Sonny Nutter has been leaving his competition in the dust, on and off the track. In the process, “Sliden’ Sonny” bagged a ton of stories, and one of many focuses on racing at the famous Ascot Raceway located in Gardena, CA. “The place opened in ’57 but at first was called the L.A. Speedway. I started racing in ’63. Boy, we had fun every Friday night. While the guys were getting ready to race, the wives would go across the street to the 190 Club and hang out before they’d walk back across the street to see if their husbands were going to get killed that night. Also right across the street form Ascot was a graveyard and it’s got one of my heroes, the famous racer Don Hawley. Hell, it must have been torture for him lying there and listening to all those bikes, sprint cars and midgets racing around the track. I went to his big funeral, my first for a racer, and I remember the eulogy…Better to have lived than not lived at all. That’s what Don did and that’s what I hope I’m doing.”

 

 

 

 

 

Sonny’s successes got him a ride in 1965 on one of the Jack Hatley BSA 500 Gold Star racers. At the time he was working at Jack Baldwin’s Santa Monica shop, a famous hang-out for racers, and then getting some parts from the BSA factory, he put together his first own BSA. Says Sonny, “Jack O’Brien, National #24 and my hero for ever and ever, was my tuner at Ascot. It was a daytime TT race and the place was packed, millions of riders, millions of spectators. It was going to be a helluva good race for my first ride on my own bike. We’re warming up the bike and suddenly it drops a cylinder. We took it apart and found a broken rocker arm. So me in my leathers and another guy jump in a ’64 V-8 Ranchero and race back to Jack Baldwin’s shop and took a brand new bike apart on the showroom floor, go through the pieces, then hauled ass over 100 mph on the 405, back to Ascot and put my motor back together in time to race.” Then Sonny laughs, “Okay, we made it. I’m on the main event line, the bike revving fine, and we were off. Except when I popped the clutch, I looped it, completely flipping backwards. My foot got stuck in between the shock and the wheel spokes, and I couldn’t get it out. It was big scene, but finally I got back up and tore off, got to turn one and broke another rocker. I was done.”

 

 

Done for the day but not down by a long shot. The little blip had no lasting effect on Sonny’s meteoric rise. He went on to win three national ½ mile flat track championships at Ascot, even more wins in TT competition and also raced his way to the 1969 California Speedway Championship. In addition, Sonny was selected to captain the 1975 US speedway team that raced against the top Europeans back in the day.

 

 

 

Fast forward to 2016 and Sonny’s building his brand of Triumph Street Trackers in a 42×42 ft. aircraft hangar, Hangar 16, tucked away at the Santa Monica, CA airport. His neighbors don’t mind the high decibels rumbling out of the shop as they pilot a slew of private jets and helicopters, Harrison Ford also flying out of the facility. Sonny’s own clients are invited to “Get Nutterized” by piloting one of his high performance, lightweight, badass sounding Trumpets.

 

 

 

 

When asking about his two newest Triumphs, Sonny says, “As for Sharknado and the fin on its tailpiece, I think I had just watched a marathon of those “Sharknado” movies. I saw so many fins in one week that I went fin crazy. And I was also thinking about all the old race cars I remember having fins, like the Jaguar D-Type. I love that tail on that car. And there was the “Blond Special” with Sam Hanks in ’57 and in ’58 Jimmy Brian’s Offy car that won Indy also had a tail. I was thinking about it for years and decided to pull the trigger and did the fin thing.” The aluminum fabrication was fabricated by Elko Welding in Venice run by Bob and Mark, two brothers who went to high school with Sonny. “I take all my friends to the shop. It’s like stepping back into the 1950s.”

 

 

Checking over the other components, Sharknado’s front wheel is a Borrani and the rear looks to be an Akront, both 19-inchers and wearing Sonny’s preferred vintage Pirelli. “All the dirt trackers had 19’s,” says Sonny, whose own racing number, 19x, distinguishes his membership in the West Coast racing community. “I deliver all my bikes with that number plate but after that the owners can do whatever they want with them.”

 

 

Titled as a ’76, the Triumph is the oil-in-the-frame design first appearing in 1971. The Bonneville motor is a 750cc fed by a pair of Amal Concentric 930s and sparked by an ARD magneto. It’s a left-hand shift, 5-speed and wears special Works Performance shocks made up for Sonny. The forks were dropped about three inches and because of the full-size TR6 tank, instead of using his signature Schwinn bicycle handlebars, he went for standard size bars.

 

 

Braking upgrades include pieces that originally came out of Star Racing in Wichita, KS. The whole assembly is designed for quick removal and quick flip of the wheel after the original Howard Barnes design. The bike’s wheels, including the stainless spokes, were handled by Johnson &Wood (N. Hollywood, CA), Sonny’s regular wheel source. Serving as the headlamp for the Sharknado is an auxiliary driving light off a Harley dresser. For chroming, Sonny went to another of his regular resources, Décor located in Gardena, CA.

 

 

The paint job is a story unto itself. A friend dropped by one day with the tank and side covers, pieces he had squirrel away for some 25 years. The lacquer paint job bears the signature “Bad Bikes” whoever that might have been.

 

 

Switching attention to the “bad boy” Max Max Triumph, it’s based around a ’71 oil-in-the-frame and ’68 motor, a Bonneville 650, Sonny says, “I was watching a bunch of young guys walk past one of my chromed cruisers and saw them get all excited about these flat black and I thought, this sucks. So I built the black bike and I kinda of dig it.”

 

 

The powdercoating was applied by Crisol Metal Finishing (Gardena, CA), the paint sprayed by PacMan (Canoga Park, CA) while South Bay Auto Upholstery (Hermosa Beach, CA) stitched the seat. Like Sharknado, it rolls on traditional Pirelli tires and 19-inch wheels both ends. Says Sonny, “For 12 years at Ascot, we rode the Pirelli’s on both flat track and TT. I like the way they look, man, I’m just sick on them. Their kinda fat and round and seem to work okay.”

 

 

Helping to get those tires spinning is a magneto mounted in the primary case. “It’s really a bitchin’ thing made in England and I’ve very happy with it.” That goes for the pipes, TT types. “I started fooling with the short pieces I had, and turned outside, visualizing them as slash cuts, equal with the frame, kinda like a Cobra race car, whatever. These are inch and three-quarter tubing and people are just digging on them. This bike is a bar hopper, man, and to stop the hopping part, the brakes are Triumph, everything inside as pretty outside.”

 

 

Summing up his style of Triumph Street Trackers, Sonny, as always, says it straight and simple: “Why do people by them? Because they look bitchin’… and what fun to ride!”

 

 

Sonny’s buddy and fellow Triumph builder Chris Griffith takes a test ride on Sharknado.

 

 

First year, Bonneville will be kept au naturel.