From wings to wheels: Falkner wins IHRA Ironman Trophy

• By ROB MALSOM

Jon H. Falkner is the owner of Sharpsville Auto Sales (formerly owned Arctic Ice Company) since 1972. But that just scratches the surface. There’s much more than meets the eye with the 72-year-old daredevil.

Falkner recently won the International Hot Rod Assn. (IHRA) Motorcycle Class at the Division 3 Finals at Keystone Raceway Park near Pittsburgh. Division 3 consists of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Michigan and Canada.
The beginning of his extreme story goes back to the 1960’s.
Falkner and a few of his friends started racing drag cars with Keith Purdie in the early ‘60s at Sunset Drag Strip on the Hermitage-Mercer border.
“Back then I always had some type of motorcycle and put many road miles on it,” recalled Falkner. “But I never raced them on the track.”
After a few years, Falkner started racing a boat with a 350 Chevrolet race motor that he purchased from well-known local racer Bill Quinn.
“That motor was bought, literally, in a bushel basket,” he said. “I bought it, rebuilt it and installed it in a 20-foot Larson Volero (boat).”
After years of making music with the band “Smooth Sailing,” Falkner found himself flying high-performance model aircraft and ended up placing 10th in the U.S. Nationals in “The Pattern Class” in 1983.
He decided to begin flying Ultralights in the late 1980’s, which eventually led him to start wing-walking, which he did for 13 years starting in 1990.
“I traveled all over the world and, fortunately, never fell off,” related Falkner. “It was kind of a small club. Five out of the 25 of us were not so lucky.”
A full-scale pilot’s license was next and a Varga Kachina low wing fighter-looking plane was bought and flown out of Falkner’s air field for many years around the east coast.
“I think my wife’s (Jeanne) fingerprints are still in the steel frame bars,” quipped Falkner. “During that time I borrowed a plane from a friend, and after a few aerobatics I found myself about six feet deep in the middle of Berlin Reservoir in Mahoning County. Not only did it hurt a bunch, but it was a little expensive.”
At the age of 60, Falkner’s wife wanted him to do something besides the Ultralight wing-walking that wasn’t quite so dangerous, so he built a motorcycle drag bike and had it painted by local racer Mick DiPreta. Health issues ground his drag racing to a stop, though, as Falkner suffered a stroke and paralysis seven years ago.
“I thought my racing days were over,” he admitted. “After quite a struggle at the gym for several months, I was able to get my entire right side working again and jumped back on the bike.”
Now you can find him at Thompson (Ohio) Raceway Park each week from early-April to mid-September. Thompson Raceway Park’s catchphrase is “Home of the Gassers,” and Falkner is in for quite a ride when he hops on his souped-up bike.
“The only way to explain riding the bike is it’s like getting rear-ended at a stop sign, and then a giant bungee chord is trying to pull the grips out of your hands all the way down the track,” he said. “Zero to 60 miles-per-hour on these bikes is somewhere just over one second.”
Now at age 72, Falkner captured the Division 3 title in Pittsburgh recently.
“I have to thank my friend and fellow racer Tom Ozinga,” said Falkner. “I was pleased after quite a few rounds to see my ‘win light’ on down the track and realized I had won the Motorcycle Class. For that I was rewarded with an Ironman Trophy and a big cardboard check for $600.
“It is quite an unlikely task from someone that’s not a ‘spring chicken’ anymore. I used to say when I was on the air-show circuit, ‘It’s a lot of fun when everything is going right.’”
Things went wrong on Sunday, Sept. 18. A tire broke loose and Falkner crashed his bike. He spent a few days in the hospital and is now recovering from his injuries at home. He is nursing five broken ribs, a broken collarbone, broken septula and suffered numerous cuts and abrasions.
Through all the excruciating pain he is in now, the daredevil still was in a cheery mood and had his typical sense of humor.
“I guess things didn’t go ‘just right,’” Falkner said. This ends years of fun, but I had already made my mind up to sell the bike. I just wanted to ride it one more time and it threw me off.
“The Ironman trophy is about as high up as you can get. Guys ride their whole life trying to get that trophy. But it’s time to sell the bike,” he concluded.

 

by
Steven Cole Smith

IHRA racer Jon H. Falkner, who recently won the IHRA Motorcycle Class at the Division 3 Finals at Keystone Raceway Park near Pittsburgh, was profiled over the weekend by writer Rob Malsom in the Sharon Herald newspaper in Pennsylvania.


In the inspiring story, Malsom wrote that Falkner and a few of his friends started racing drag cars in the 1960s at Sunset Drag Strip on the Hermitage-Mercer border. He then went on to be a musician, and eventually a private pilot and a "wing walker."
"I traveled all over the world and, fortunately, never fell off," said Falkner. "It was kind of a small club. Five out of the 25 of us were not so lucky."
He became a pilot and owned his own airplane, a Varga Kachina.
"I think my wife's (Jeanne) fingerprints are still in the steel frame bars," Falknew told writer Malsom. "During that time I borrowed a plane from a friend, and after a few aerobatics I found myself about six feet deep in the middle of Berlin Reservoir in Mahoning County. Not only did it hurt a bunch, but it was a little expensive."
At the age of 60, Falkner's wife wanted him to do something less dangerous, so he built a motorcycle drag bike. Health issues ground his drag racing to a stop, though, as Falkner suffered a stroke and paralysis seven years ago.
"I thought my racing days were over," he admitted. "After quite a struggle at the gym for several months, I was able to get my entire right side working again and jumped back on the bike."
Now 72, Falkner captured the Division 3 title in Pittsburgh recently. "It is quite an unlikely task from someone that's not a 'spring chicken' anymore. I used to say when I was on the air-show circuit, 'It's a lot of fun when everything is going right.'"