1935 Harley Davidson VLD

Hi, my name Tim Burns, from Cottage Grove, Oregon & will be again riding my 1935 Harley-Davidson 74″ VLD on the 2022 Cross Country Chase in hope of redeeming my failure on the same bike in the last chase where I melted a piston on the first day.

I have been riding Harleys since buying my first motorcycle at 18, a 1969 sportster, in 1985. It blew up after a couple months & I bought a 84” stroker 62 pan-shovel. I bought my first antique Harley, a 1937 knucklehead, in 1989, then a 38UL that I restored in 1992, then a 16F, a 13 9-E, & a few others.                 I slowed down riding for a few years while I built & raced a blown alcohol 1940 Willys coupe. That was a blast, but a huge expense, so I sold the racing operation & spent the next 10 years rock crawling a jeep Cherokee that I built up. At the same time I was aggressively buying & remodeling rental properties 538 miles from where I lived in San Jose, California  in my spare time so I could retire from a job I hated, but stuck with for 32-1/2 years (commercial HVAC contracting) & get back to what I love doing, riding, buying, selling, & working on antique Harleys. I have had over 90 over the years & currently have around 4 dozen, all but 12 being pre war, ranging from 1910 to 1960, with one lone 1960 mustang & one 1912 Excelsior.

I want to thank my numerous friends involved with the Chase, the Cannonball, & antique motorcycles for giving me the encouragement to enter this event, as well as putting up with my endless questions & sharing their information & stories. I am forever in your debt.