Elmer Trett and the Gods of Thunder: Chapter 1 – Humble Beginnings
About This Series
This article is part of an ongoing monthly series on Dragbike.com featuring select chapters from Elmer Trett and the Gods of Thunder, the 2012 biography by Senior Editor Tom McCarthy. Released throughout 2026 to honor the 30th anniversary of Elmer Trett’s passing, this series chronicles the life, legacy, and impact of one of the most influential figures in motorcycle drag racing history. Each chapter explores Trett’s journey from humble beginnings to global Top Fuel dominance, while also preserving the deeper history of the sport and the pioneers who shaped it. New chapters are published monthly exclusively on Dragbike.com.
Before reading this article, read the previous article posts:
Chapter 1 – Humble Beginnings
The story of Elmer Trett begins during an important time in American history. On the day he was born, Sunday, March 14, 1943, the entire United States of America was deeply embroiled in a world of turmoil. World War II was at the height of its fighting on all fronts. In the Pacific Theater of war, during the battle of Guadalcanal, Japanese forces were being pursued by U.S. Naval and Marine forces with vigor. The Imperial Japanese military lost close to 70,000 men in that horrific battle, while American forces suffered close to 30,000 casualties with approximately 10,000 allied troops killed. Death in the Pacific was everywhere.
In the European Theater of war, the U.S. Army, with combined Allied Forces was battling the Axis armies in North Africa. During the battle of Tunisia, between February 14, 1943, and May 12 of the same year, U.S. Allied forces battled the Germans and the Italians over the Kasserine Pass. Combined, they suffered at least 40,000 casualties during this battle, but they inflicted over 300,000 losses on the enemy during the eight weeks of fighting. March was a busy month for the reaper in 1943. With death there comes life on this earth – nature demands balance.
On Sunday, March 14, 1943, a baby boy was born to Allie and Robert Lee Trett at the local Corbin Hospital. Elmer came into this world as the youngest of nine children to the Trett Family. The very day he was born, his four brothers and four sisters were waiting for him at home in the wooded area of their beloved Kentucky home just a few miles from the hospital. Of the nine children born by Allie Trett, Elmer was the only one born in the hospital.
It’s reasonable to assume that Allie’s doctor had ordered her, at age 42, to the hospital for close observation after having given birth to eight previous children. Strong as she was for a mountain woman, there was no point in taking chances with her final birth. For a woman to bear a child after four decades of life is no small undertaking, even in the modern age. In 1943, it was a serious event and there were many prayers uttered.
Allie was a hard working woman who loved God, her church, and most of all, her family. Hard work and a love of God was a way of life in rural Kentucky in 1943 for the Trett Family. It was the bedrock of their existence. A belief that God and hard work would provide all a man needs were the seeds of life that Elmer sprang from. There was great fortune in the Trett Household. It was the power of love, not the love of power, that shaped Elmer’s childhood.
Elmer’s father, Robert Lee Trett, was born October 6, 1899. When Elmer first came to his forty-three year old daddy’s eyes, Robert Lee could only smile at God’s latest blessing to the family when there had been so many. Elmer’s oldest sibling was Elizabeth who was born in 1920, then came his sister Leo born in 1922, followed by Albert in 1923 and brother Elbert in 1924.
After a brief spell, Elmer’s sister Vela was born in 1927, and then came brothers Omer in 1928, and Olen in 1933. The sister Elmer was to grow up much of his childhood years with was Lillian, who came into this world on October 6, 1937, followed six years later by Elmer. The blessings to the Trett Family were many and there was never a shortage of hard work, nor thanks for blessings.
With nine children born into the Trett Home and assorted nieces and nephews coming and going at all times, the home Elmer grew up in was comparable to a train station, with people in and out all the time.
The Louisville & Nashville railroad was the largest employer in Corbin, Kentucky, in the year 1900. Total population numbers for all of Corbin was close to 900 residents, with close to one hundred people being on the payroll at the L&N Railroad at the Cumberland Valley Division Headquarters in the downtown area of Corbin.
The actual town of Corbin was incorporated in 1895 and was originally known as Lynn Camp Creek during the 1800’s. The history of Corbin and its growth came from the L&N Railroad as did the Trett Family tree. Hard work and devotion to purpose brought the railroad, the soon to be city of Corbin and the Trett Family growth – every year.
Corbin, Kentucky, was ideally located geographically at this point in American history to become a hub for the exploding railroad industry. The Louisville & Nashville Railroad invested heavily into its Corbin location to promote growth of the railway. By 1893, a new roundhouse and blacksmith shop were completed so the location could both service and repair rail cars. This called for an expansion of the work force as well as an investment in the community.
Soon the rail terminal at Corbin contained two planning mills, a saw mill, a brick yard, and two dozen stores selling everything from groceries to dry goods. There was also lodging for the many railroad workers on whose backs’ this town and great nation were built. While work days were long, the pay was there to attract all kinds of men from all over the USA.
Growth came quickly to Corbin, so did the problems that come with such growth. Long, hot, sweaty hours of working on the railroad brought pay to the labor force that needed to unwind at night. Taverns soon sprang up as thirsty, rowdy, loud men tumbled in to quench their thirst following another long day. As soon as alcohol was poured into the melting pot of Corbin’s population, the results were predictable. Exponential growth brought exponential trouble to Corbin.
Central Hotel in downtown Corbin was once known on the street as “The Ape Yard.” Notorious locations in and around Corbin sprang up like “Brick Bat Hill” and life in “Scuffle Town” was not for the faint of heart. By 1916, unless you knew how to use your fists as well as your wits, it was best not to go downtown in Corbin at night.
Seventeen year old Robert Lee had no problem gaining his employment at L&N around this time, he fit right in. As a teenager, Robert Lee was a strong, young man born and raised in the mountains of Appalachia who was no stranger to hard work. When he began working for L&N Railroad is not exactly known, but what is known, during the summer of 1919, the twenty year old Robert Lee married Allie Blankenship who soon bore him their first child in 1920, Elizabeth Trett.
The Trett Family parcel of land was about six miles from the center of Corbin. Close enough to get to town without too much difficulty, but far away enough from the troubles of the city. That was no place to raise a proper family. Robert Lee was a smart man who believed in God and knew well the dangers of city life infested with liquor. He worked there to earn his pay, but he most assuredly didn’t want to live inside the city itself.
Robert Lee chose to live away from the city because “God & Country” were not just words to him; they were a way of life. He so loved God he became a Baptist Minister in Corbin. Allie was also a woman devoted to church, who believed in Pentecostal followings that complimented the values and beliefs of her husband. Their love of the bible set the standards for the Trett Family. There were strict rules in the household that all were to adhere to.
Number one was a belief in the Bible. It was read every day to replenish the spirit. God’s word was law in the Trett Home, but Robert Lee had rules too. There was no liquor allowed in the home, nor were drinkers who imbibed. At this point in time in America, when a man’s home was his castle, Robert Lee laid down the law with total authority. To violate his demands was to invite wrath; there was discipline in the home or there was hell to pay.
Such devotion to discipline and a love of God set the path for the Trett Family children. As they came into the world, they all came to know there was love, there was God. Hard work and devotion brought you what you sought in life. This was the world Elmer grew up in.
One warm summer day, a first cousin of the Trett Family, J.C. Adkins, called for a visit. He rode from Louisville, Kentucky, about one hundred and fifty miles to the Trett Family home on his motorcycle. Elmer’s older sister, Lillian, recalled the event rather well because her little four and a half year old brother made quite the fuss the moment cousin J.C. arrived.
As the motorcycle rumbled up to the home, Elmer ran out the front door and exclaimed while pointing with his finger, “What’s that?”
His sister dutifully followed the feisty little man out the front door and proclaimed to her brother, “That’s a motorcycle.”
His response was immediate. “Can I ride it?”
“NO!” She exclaimed curtly, “That’s not yours, but if you ask nice, he may take you for a short ride.”
He blurted out to his cousin, “Can we go for a ride?”
Cousin J.C grinned and Lillian proclaimed, “You can take him down to the corner by the fence and back, but no further.” J.C nodded and Elmer eagerly hopped onto the bike for his first motorcycle ride when he was barely out of diapers.
Two things always stood out in the life Elmer chose for himself; one was his sense of adventure. Venturing off to see what’s next was a way of life for Elmer all his days. The second thing that helped bring the young Elmer to prominence in his life was his never ending curiosity about things that interested him. ‘What’s that’ were not words always spoken out loud by Elmer, but they were never far from his lips. Sometimes the very concept brought Elmer progression in life, sometimes trouble.
Progress from curiosity started when he blurted out, “What’s that,” to his older sister while she was doing her homework one day. Lillian had just signed her name to the heading of her school work when Elmer decided it was time to play twenty questions.
“What’s that,” he proclaimed as she deftly applied her signature to her latest homework assignment.
She responded with, “That’s my name. That’s how you spell my name, L.I.L.L.I.A.N.”
Elmer watched and listened with great intentness, then announced the next question, “What does my name look like? How do you spell my name?” Lillian answered by showing and printing Elmer’s name for him. Elmer had to give it a go at the same time.
Elmer put a piece of paper next to Lillian’s paper and he copied her hand movements. For every stroke of pencil she moved, so, too, did the student, but with a twist she attempted to correct. Elmer placed the paper close to hers and, to get the best view, he set it so his paper and his left hand was closest to hers.
After the first attempt, she corrected him and tried to place the writing stick in his right hand. “No do it this way,” she told him.
He tried but it just wasn’t natural for him. He went lefty again and said, “This works better for me,” and he cocked the paper a certain way with the paper almost at a right angle to him, but it worked. His name now came to paper for the first time. These early beginnings were the blueprint for Elmer throughout his life.
Elmer learned from an early age to try to do things right, but he had to do it his way or it just didn’t work for him. His effort to do things right, but do them his way, was like a duck taking to water. This belief almost got him killed long before his first motorcycle ride.
It started with a hot summer day, a family cat, and an unlocked back door.
Motherhood is the toughest job in the world. Allie was a wonder woman to have endured all she did in raising the Trett Brood. With nine children, multiple cousins and nephews coming and going daily, it was impossible for Allie to keep track of all people at all times every minute of every day. Yet try as she may, one escaped on her one day causing a panic.
While working in the kitchen one hot, Kentucky summer afternoon, Allie asked her daughter, “Lillian where’s Elmer at?”
The nine year old young lady dutifully replied to her mommy, “I’ll go see. He was play’n last time I looked.” It was quiet in the house at that moment and quiet is sometimes a warning sign of trouble.
At age three, Elmer was a fireball of energy, always into something. From the time he woke up till the time he went to bed at night, Elmer was always busy doing something. There were two things in life Elmer Trett was never very good at: sitting still or doing nothing. So when the house was quiet, questions like, “where is Mr. Curious” and “what was he into now?” frequently came to mind.
On this day, when the house was way too quiet, Lillian went looking upstairs then back downstairs searching for and calling, “Elmer!” She began to get a bad feeling and a knot started to form in her stomach. He always answered when she called him, but not this time. She asked herself, “Where can he be?” She headed for the back yard at a quick pace, her heart starting to race as she hollered “ELMER!” No reply was heard, but the hot summer breeze blew her hair and she started to panic.
The chickens were in the yard, the cows were fine, but it was quiet outside, completely quiet. The boys were gone, her sisters were gone, everyone was gone. Little Elmer was GONE! Full panic hit her in the stomach like a knotted up fist and she flew back into the house, her face red as a beet. “Mommy, I can’t find Elmer anywhere!”
Allie got steely cold as her mother’s instincts took over. She ordered her daughter into action. “Head for the swimm’n hole NOW! He may have wandered off!”
One facet of the diamond known as motherhood is “instinct”. This ‘mommy instinct’ has saved many a child from certain death, as it did this day. Allie did not panic. She went into ‘mommy mode’ and moved with great speed out the unlocked back door of the house into the back yard.
She shouted to Lillian, “You take one path and I’ll take the other. Head for Teach Rock, if you find him, let me know right away!” The ladies went down hill at a good clip into the thick woods, headed for their favorite swimming hole, hoping to catch Elmer before something unspeakable happened.
Teach Rock was where many of the Trett Family and friends learned to swim for the first time. There was a river nearby the house just a few hundred yards into the heavy woods that fed Laurel Lake. At a big bend in the river, there was a huge rock that sat somewhat on the shore but was mostly out into the river. It was high, so it formed a natural slide for adventurous swimmers. However, once someone came off this rock, they were in deep water with a river current that had no mercy. Entering the water off Teach Rock was strictly a sink or swim proposition. The fast approaching Trett ladies knew and feared this as they ran through the woods headed for a rock they dreaded would teach them a fatal lesson they did not want to learn. Not this day, not any day, and not to little Elmer.
Lillian ran as fast as her legs could carry her down the path to Teach Rock. She got her first glimmer of hope when she saw one of the family’s cats perched on a log in the shade. Suddenly, a thought shot into her consciousness; he must have followed the cat down here, he’s gotta be close, oh no…
As she came upon big Teach Rock she called out loud but firm, “Elmer, where are you?” Her heart jumped when she heard his reply, “Sissy, catch me. I’m ready to go.”
She froze in her tracks and stood perfectly still as the hair on the back of her neck started to stand up. She knew where he was, up on the big rock, but she couldn’t see him up there. One wrong move by anyone right now and this would be a disastrous day.
With a calm voice she replied to her little brother; she didn’t want to cause him to make a fatal move. “Elmer, I can’t catch you.”
He replied, “Why not?”
She called up to him in a normal voice, “Because I’m not in the water Elmer, I’m behind you on the path. Don’t slide into the water Elmer or you’ll drown.”
“What’s ‘drown,’ Sissy? Why can’t you catch me?” called out the little tyke.
“Elmer, you don’t know how to swim yet and I’m not swimming in the river now. If you slide into the water now, the river will take you away and we’ll never see you again. Please climb down the rock this instant – Mommy wants to see you!”
Elmer knew not to disobey Mommy and Sissy was right below. He turned off the big rock and carefully climbed down because Sissy said so, and Momma wanted to see him. Lillian’s heart rate began to return to normal as Elmer climbed down into sight.
Just then, Allie came into view from taking the longer path through the woods. She was out of breath, but relieved to see Elmer in his little t-shirt and shorts looking a bit sheepish standing beside Lillian, who was red in the face.
Allie grabbed Elmer by the chest while lifting him up briskly, and embraced him with a big bear hug. She then held him at arms length and scolded him sternly as she vented her hidden panic. “Elmer Trett, don’t you ever scare us like that again! Do you hear me? You about scared us to death and you could a’ drowned out there! That river will take you away and we’ll never, ever, see you again! I’ve told you a hundred times, you don’t ever walk off alone, not ever! You disobeyed me Elmer, that’s gonna cost you!” The look of anger twisted her face as she spit out the following words, “Lillian, get me a switch, NOW!”
Lillian didn’t like what she heard Momma say, but she knew it was coming. There really wasn’t anything she could do about it. Her mother was angry like she had never seen her before. She was shaking; almost seething with anger. This was no time to cross Momma. Now Lillian was scared once again. She broke off a close by green branch from a short Hickory tree. In 1943, discipline to children often came from either a leather belt or the Hickory switch. To add to the discomfort, kids were sometimes forced to fetch the disciplinary device they would soon face themselves. Fear is a powerful lesson not soon forgotten.
Allie spoke sternly, giving orders to her daughter, “You give it to him all the way home you hear me? All the way up the path to the house. I want him to remember this day all his life, and he will never, ever wander off without telling us again!” That’s when true grit came to young Lillian Trett for the first time.
“Mommy, when I found him, and I told him to come down off that rock, he did what he was told. He’s a good boy Mommy. He just made a mistake. Can’t we just take him home?” Lillian herself was moved to tears. She was scared for her little bother, scared they almost lost him for good and scared to upset her mother or the switch would be hers next, but she had to speak out.
Her mother paused and folded her arms across her chest scowling at her children for what seemed like an eternity. She was still a little out of breath as she spoke, “Don’t you two ever scare me like this again you hear me! Do you?” The kids rushed her as she held her arms open to her kids and she pulled them both close to her bosom as only a mother can. They all cried nervous tears of relief that this moment had passed, but for Allie, she knew this was only the beginning.
Allie feared for her kids as many mothers do, but mostly she feared for the safety of Elmer. His adventurous ways and ‘dare the devil’ antics earned him the nickname Hot Shot from his brothers very early on in life. Elmer was called this because he loved to show off and craved the attention it brought him. When he learned to ride a bicycle, the moment was soon followed by riding with no hands on the bars. He also liked to go really fast then suddenly stomp on the rear brake and skid sideways to a stop. Hot Shot was a thrill seeker long before he could spell the words.
There were nine children in the Trett home but Elmer was the one to watch right from the start. Allie had her work cut out for her and she knew it. There was something different when it came to Elmer. She had a bad feeling for his safety that instinctively told her he was in danger; she was right.
The Next Installment of Elmer Trett and the Gods of Thunder will be released on February 15, 2026, on Dragbike.com
| For those interested in owning a printed copy of the original book, please contact Tom McCarthy. Limited copies are available. |
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