Jerry Branch And The Harley-Davidson Midget

[Hugh Janus]

The secret compact roadracer Harley-Davidson built to conquer Daytona that was lost to history. (The Don Emde Archive/)

For decades, Jerry Branch was known for his remarkable race-winning tuning related to cylinder heads, airflow, and engine building. Branch’s work was instrumental in steering Harley-Davidson to many racing victories starting in the 1960s, and his expertise and career extended into the burgeoning superbike era with work on Ducatis, Hondas, and more. He was an energetic and focused Tennessee native and World War II veteran whose legacy will live far beyond his death at the age of 94 in 2018. His company, Branch Flowmetrics, lives on as Branch & O’Keefe.

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Of all Branch’s remarkable stories told to me over our years of friendship, it was one he first relayed during a visit to his Southern California home in 2009 that was intriguingly different from the rest. It centered on a motorcycle that became known as the “Midget,” a complete roadracing prototype built for Harley-Davidson intended to conquer the Daytona 200.

LEFT: Harley-Davidson race chief Dick O’Brien (middle) at Willow Springs with two of his riders, Cal Rayborn on his immediate right and Fred Nix in the leathers to his left. Not long after this test, Rayborn would win the 1968 Daytona 200 on the new “slippery” No. 25 KRTT. The Midget is seen with fairing off, revealing the pannier-style, four-quart oil tank that Jerry Branch fabricated to make room for a lower seat location. (The Don Emde Archive/)

In the 1960s, the two biggest prizes to win in ­American motorcycle racing were the Daytona 200 and the AMA No. 1 plate, awarded to the previous year’s top scorer in the season-long Grand National Championship series, which combined roadracing and dirt-track races in those days.

In the 1967 season opener on the high banks of Daytona International Speedway, Harley-Davidson was beaten handily by Triumph. After 200 miles, not only did Harley lose the race, just four of its riders finished in the top 10, while the other six were on Triumphs. For a time, Triumph riders were running 1-2-3 until one of them crashed, moving Harley’s George Roeder up to third. Even so, Roeder finished a full lap behind the ­factory-built Triumphs of Oklahoma-born Gary Nixon, and runner-up Buddy Elmore.

This was new territory for Dick O’Brien, Harley-­Davidson’s head of racing, who was accustomed to having competitive machines on the track, especially in a race as important as the Daytona 200. He quickly got busy talking to trusted associates in the Harley racing community about how to increase the speed of his KRTT roadracers. One of O’Brien’s first calls was to Branch, who had established himself as a successful tuner in the Southern California racing scene starting in the 1950s. They both agreed things could be done to increase the horsepower of the bike’s 750cc flathead V-twin, but Branch, ever the innovator looking for an advantage, also suggested a bigger potential might exist with ­improved streamlining.

The hunkered-down Midget is remarkably more compact than the standard KRTT. (The Don Emde Archive/)

Fairings had been legal in AMA racing for only three years, and little was known about streamlining. Branch told O’Brien that his friend Dean Wixom had built a business making fairings for BMWs, and understood as much as anyone about how fairings and windscreens worked. Even better, Wixom was keen to get involved in a project to help Harleys go faster on the racetrack.

RELATED: Motorcycle Airflow Specialist Jerry Branch Was Driven By Curiosity

O’Brien understood that this fix would take time, so while his team raced on in 1967, he began a full makeover of his factory racing machines for 1968. He took his case to Harley-Davidson’s board of directors for additional budget to embark on an expensive research and test program in the wind tunnel at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, better known as Caltech.

Harley-Davidson racing director Dick O’Brien and Jerry Branch. (The Don Emde Archive/)

According to Branch, the new project set in motion some new thinking and improved the understanding of airflow characteristics needed for the KRs. “When O’Brien and I were in the wind tunnel, the engineers kept telling us that frontal area was everything,” Branch said. “Harley asked me to buy a bunch of fairings that the Europeans were using and see what it would take to fit them onto a Harley. I purchased them in my name rather than Harley so that no one knew what we were interested in.”

Detailed design analysis and consultation by Wixom and Caltech engineers resulted in bodywork changes reportedly worth 6 mph at top speed when they returned to Daytona. O’Brien authorized the expenditure for final molds to build the new fiberglass bodywork for the 1968 roadrace bikes. Further, Branch helped find a few more horsepower with new engine modifications that included reshaped ports with domed pistons and combustion chambers.

Rayborn in 1968, en route to his first of two career Daytona 200 victories. Added horsepower from Jerry Branch and new Caltech-developed aerodynamics helped him win by a full lap. (The Don Emde Archive/)

But while O’Brien and Branch were inspired by what they had learned, they couldn’t let go of the statement made by the Caltech engineers about improvements from reducing frontal area. O’Brien asked Branch to keep working. And the bike that would be known as the Midget began to take shape.

Step one was to lower the motorcycle using smaller wheels. This would require smaller tires. Discussions with Goodyear about 16-inch rubber revealed that the tire manufacturer was willing to build them if the Motor Company would cover the $60,000 price (­nearly $400,000 today) for the molds. O’Brien was soon back in the boardroom in Milwaukee asking for more ­money—and he got it.

As Harley invested in its future success, the 1967 GNC series raged on. Triumph-mounted Gary Nixon waged a season-long battle with George Roeder that went down to the last race of the season. A second-place finish to Roeder’s fourth earned Nixon his first AMA No. 1 plate. This was a bitter pill for O’Brien and Harley-Davidson’s management to swallow, having won either Daytona or the Grand National Championship every year since 1952.

Dual Tillotson carburetors nestle in Branch’s custom oil tank on the Harley-Davidson 750cc flathead. (The Don Emde Archive/)

Ivan Wagar, then editor of Cycle World, wrote in 1970 for the foreword of Joe Scalzo’s book, Racer: The Story of Gary Nixon: “The greatest tribute ever paid to Gary Nixon came from Dick O’Brien, who disgustingly told me, ‘We have the best machines, spend the most money, try to get the very best riders, and that little redhead comes out and blows off all of us—with 15 less horsepower.’”

Shortly before the 1968 season opener at Daytona, Branch completed the assembly of the prototype motorcycle he built in his shop near Long Beach, California, now rolling on expensive 16-inch Goodyear tires and using all the tricks they had learned about aerodynamics. A five-day track test at Willow Springs Raceway north of Los Angeles was scheduled to determine how Branch’s one-off creation compared with the full-size model.

On hand were Harley’s new roadracing star, Cal ­Rayborn, plus Mert Lawwill, Roger Reiman, and Fred Nix, to try the new compact bike and also shake down one of the versions with the new “slippery” bodywork on a conventional frame and in soon-to-be-iconic ­orange, white, and black livery.

The crew at Willow Springs test the standard bike and Midget. Helping keep the latter small were 16-inch wheels with custom tires by Goodyear. The molds for the special rubber cost $60,000 in 1967, or nearly $400,000 today. (The Don Emde Archive/)

The seat on the small bike was about 12 inches lower, and at first sight, all agreed a fitting name for it was the Midget. Rayborn eventually lapped faster on the Midget than on the new conventional bike with full-size frame. However, when it came time to tell O’Brien which ­machine he wanted to ride at the upcoming Daytona 200, Rayborn chose the full-size model. Not surprising, since Rayborn, a close friend of mine until his ­untimely death in New Zealand in 1973, was 5-foot-10 and would have been too cramped to ride the Midget for 200 miles at ­Daytona, or even 100 miles at the other races.

As it turned out, Branch’s motor upgrade and what was learned in the Caltech wind tunnel about improved aerodynamics added 10 mph top speed to the conventional bike, and Rayborn lapped the field to win the 1968 Daytona 200. He ended up winning three of the four roadrace nationals that year, and came back and won Daytona again in 1969.

RELATED: How Dick Mann And BSA Won Daytona

Harley-Davidson’s race program was back on track, ending the need for the Midget to ever be put into competition. “The Midget was slightly ahead of its time, and that was its downfall,” reflected Branch in 2009. Even though Rayborn chose not to race it, Branch still felt satisfied by the fact that much was learned in the project that contributed to Harley’s success that year, and that Rayborn actually did go faster on it in the test than the machine he won races with. Branch kept the bike at his shop for about a year following the test, then Harley-­Davidson called it home, and it wasn’t seen again.

Don Emde won the Daytona 200 in 1972. Since retiring from racing, he has been involved in publishing motorcycle-­related magazines and history books, as well as serving as president of the Trailblazers organization for many years. He was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999.

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