Going To Daytona

GOING TO DAYTONA

Motorcycling's own Mardi Gras for the chronically snowbound

PETER EGAN

JUST LAST JANUARY I VOWED THAT

this was the year I would finally

return to Daytona, after an absence

of 11 years. Naturally, it took a revolting incident to force the issue.

While walking out to the garage one cold morning here in Wisconsin, I noticed a bare spot on the ground where the wind had blown away the snow. And, lo, there on the ground were last autumn’s motorcycle tire tracks, still frozen into the driveway mud, hard as glass. I got down and examined the tread pattern. Metzeler Perfect. Ducati tracks. It was just like a plaster tread cast the police might use as evidence in a court of law.

But evidence of what?

Well, that spring had not yet arrived and that the motorcycles were still in the garage, right where I put them last November. The tracks led in, but they didn’t lead out. My garage had become a kind of climatological Roach Motel. Something had to be done.

So last week, I loaded my brandnew virgin 883 Sportster (ridden only the length of our driveway) up the ramp into my old blue Chevy van and headed for Daytona Speed Week in Florida, driving solo.

I suppose I could have been a tough guy and ridden the Sportster to Florida, but with no windshield, a fuel tank the size of a soap dish and a saddle condemned by the National Proctology Board, the 883 is not exactly the stuff of transcontinental dreams. Okay for running around Florida, however, and a good chance to break the bike in before proceeding with my many performance mods.

It seemed a shame to drive all the way to Daytona alone, with a big old empty van, but my wife Barbara works for a school system and can’t take time off during the winter. Also, three different friends who had planned to go were unable to make it. They all had too much work to do, which tends to be the rule among males of my age. After 40, an insidious type of senility prevents us from remembering why, exactly, we are working. It usually takes a medical scare to clear the mind, and I’ve already had mine. It wasn’t a very big one, but at least it gets me out of the house.

So join me now on the trip, which finds us driving relentlessly, eating dry-roasted peanuts, drinking coffee from a large Thermos and generally living life to the fullest, almost as if there’s no tomorrow.

My van’s humming, sometimespinging 250-cubic-inch Six propels us straight south through Illinois, a state so long you feel somehow wiser and a little more mature by the time you reach the other end. In southern Illinois, I see my first two motorcycles-Gold Wings-on the road, both leaning hard against a stiff west wind. Then it’s out of the prairie and across the Ohio River into Kentucky’s beautiful hills. Crossing into Tennessee at Clarksville I am suddenly forced off the Interstate by a sign that says “Acme Boot Factory Outlet.” You can never have too many pairs of boots.

While trying on a fine pair of Tony Lamas, I see a .couple of soldiers walk into the store and suddenly realize that Clarksville is right at the gates of Fort Campbell, where I went through Army Basic Training. Twenty-four years ago this week, in fact, starting on March 4, 1968.

A sudden memory here: Had I flunked my physical, I was going to ride my Honda CB160 to Daytona. Cursed with good health, I went to Asia instead. Ah well, the Honda 160 is gone, but I’m finally making the trip.

Driving a little faster than usual (the gates of Fort Campbell still give me a mild case of the creeps), I get to Nashville by early evening, check into a cheap motel where their vacuum cleaner is apparently broken (they pass the savings on to you) and realize I have time to catch the Grand Old Opry show out at Opryland. The Opry used to be in the famous old Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville, but now it’s out in a phony theme park northeast of town. The music is still very good, however, and I get to see two of the great elder statesmen of country music, Roy Acuff and Hank Snow.

Movin’ On, as Hank would say, I descend the next morning out of the tragic, beautiful hills around Chattanooga, cross the Tennessee River and climb out of the valley past Chickamauga Battlefield. There are new housing developments at the edge of the battlefield. Do the new homeowners look out at night and see ghosts? I’m afraid I would. Real estate is a funny business. Subdivisions and history never mix well.

The number of motorcycles begins picking up in Georgia. There were a few on trailers in Kentucky and Tennessee, but in Georgia there are more riders. Lots of them, all on Harleys. At a rest area north of Macon, there’s a sign that says something about a hospitality stop for Daytona bikers, so I pull in. The place is full of vans and trucks full of bikes, others on trailers, and many being ridden. Again, all Harleys. I drink some coffee at the shelter and talk to two guys from Wisconsin who towed as far as Chattanooga, then unloaded their FLH and FLSTC to ride

Bikes, bikes, bikes, tattoos seeing daylight for the first time in months, women in amazing swimwear: ”

the rest of the way. “Truckers on CB kept asking why we didn’t get and ride, so we finally did.”

It’s a warm, beautiful day for riding, and I wonder if I should have unloaded my own bike. Nah, too much camera equipment and junk to take with me. Besides, I still have two more pastrami sandwiches in the Coleman cooler and half a pan of Krispie Treats Barb gave me for the trip.

A night in Tifton at a motel with HBO (Doc Hollywood) and then I’m suddenly crossing the Suwannee River in Florida and the air smells like ange blossoms. There are real swamps, too, and Spanish moss. Across the Saint John’s River Bridge at Jacksonville and an hour later I’m pulling up at the Indigo Hilton Daytona, where Cycle World has served a bunch of rooms. Right across the street from the track.

My first move after checking into the room is to roll the Sportster down the ramp, put on my sunglasses and helmet and head for downtown Daytona and the beach. Traffic is unbelievable, and nearly gridlocked. My new bike is idling too high and worry about overheating. Down Volusia Ave., across the Intercoastal bridge and onto the beach at last-for a fee-and there I am, breaking-in my brand-new bike on the beach at Daytona, a baptism of saltwater on the tires. Nothing like having the chain flocked in fine white sand. It’ll make a nice, short-lived souvenir of the visit. The odometer says 9.3 miles.

Traffic is going nowhere on the beach, so I park the bike, sit down in the sand and watch the passing parade. Bikes, bikes, bikes, white arms and legs turning red in the sun, tattoos seeing daylight for the first time in months, women in amazing swimwear. When I was down here last, there were bikinis, but now we have string bikinis. Times have changed and even the roughest looking bikers no longer whistle or say rude things to the bikiniwearers. They just look permanently stunned, as if hit alongside the head with a fencepost. Finally struck

“Daytona reverberates with V-Twin flutter and bellow, masses of bikes surging forward from stoplights. ”

speechless by fashion, as it were.

Back at the hotel I find that no other Cycle World guys have arrived, so I go out for an evening ride around town.

A warm, tropical night. Daytona reverberates with V-Twin flutter and bellow, masses of bikes surging forward from stoplights, everyone looking at everyone else’s bikes, nodding and smiling. The unspoken sentiment is “This is good, hey?” No frozen tire tracks in this town, pal.

Monday morning it’s Vintage Day at the Speedway. Also, BMW is sponsoring a Battle of the Legends, all on identical RIOORs. Through the tunnel and into the paddock, where a large crowd is gathered around the BMW tent. DuHamel, Nixon, Mann, Emde, Springsteen, Roeder, Markel, Vesco, Reiman and Pridmore are looking at their bikes and signing autographs. The tent is like a super-dense concentration of nerve and talent, with enough gravity to bend light. Half my lifetime racing heroes in one spot.

There’s Gary Nixon, looking flinty and tough as ever, the guy who more or less defined what a hard-core Triumph rider was suppose to be when I was in high school. And Dick Mann. I ask Dick if he’s having a good time and he says he’s not that crazy about roadracing anymore, and has more fun with vintage motocross. “These days,

I prefer to fall off at about 24 miles per hour,” he says.

In the first of two BMW Legend races, there’s a terrific race at the > front between DuHamel, Springsteen, Reiman, Pridmore and Nixon. But on the last lap Nixon pulls, as he says, a “Dale Earnhardt” and goes in high and wide out of the last corner to outfox everyone for the win. He credits DuHamel-who finished second-for showing him the fast way around the track, and it is DuHamel who takes the second race to become overall winner. Springsteen finishes second in combined points, with Nixon third.

Meanwhile, there are no fewer than 504 vintage bikes warming up in the paddock and on the track for a day of racing, a new record for entries. Every level of vintage racer imaginable is represented, from the superbly prepared Team Obsolete bikes to nearly stock Honda CB450s. There are Metrallas, tank-shift Harleys, G50s, Gold Stars, big and small Ducatis, Triumph Daytonas and Bonnevilles, Commandos, and BSA and Triumph Triples.

It’s bike heaven for people who like full-metal motorcycles, as our friends at Classic Bike call them. The eyeballs and neck muscles get a workout. There’s also a huge crowd on hand to take it all in-17,000 racers and fans-all of them in the paddock and not a soul in the grandstands. This event, in fact, has become so large that AHRMA officials are talking

Daytona’s bikers make the average crowd of college football fans look like an invasion of Visigoths.”

about adding a second day of vintage racing next year.

There are too many good races to mention, but my favorite is the Formula Grand Prix Heavyweight class, where Yvon DuHamel wins (again), shrieking around the banking on the Team Obsolete BSA Rocket 3, finishing just ahead of Todd Henning’s Yamaha TR3 and CW European Correspondent Alan Cathcart’s Ducati 75OSS. It’s hard to imagine three more beautiful engine sounds in concert.

That night my friend Jeff Craig invites me for dinner at the legendary Gene’s Steak House with a group of friends and I finally get to meet Alan Cathcart, another personal hero, a journalist/racer whose Ducati books occupy their own niche on my bookshelf. We are also joined by another great Allan, of Girdler persuasion, and his charming new wife, Nancy, who has her own Sportster. Later, Allan and Nancy and I go cruising downtown after dinner, Allan riding his Harley XR racer with the headlight and mufflers re-installed after his vintage race.

The scene on Broadway and Main Street must be seen to be believed. Thousands of Harleys parked cheekby-Hog-jowl, packs of bikes cruising, throngs of motorcyclists walking, watching, talking and looking in any of dozens of leather and accessory shops. The Speedway may be sportand vintage-bike country, but downtown Daytona is Sturgis South, an annual celebration of the Harley Cult, with all of its lighter and darker sides. Mostly lighter, these days.

I joke to Allan and Nancy that I had no idea I was merely one of so many identically dressed nonconformists. If we were true rebels, I suggest, we would walk down Broadway wearing T-shirts that say QUIT BASHING JAPAN AND GET TO WORK. That, of course, would take courage, which is somewhat harder to acquire than a black T-shirt.

Downtown Daytona, though, is mostly just a lot of people having a good time; the crowd is lively, but polite and good-natured. People who bump into you say “excuse me.” There’s no pushing or shoving, and even in the crowded Boot Hill Saloon there’s no falling down, throwing up, picking fights or otherwise ruining the good vibes. Daytona’s bikers make the average crowd of college football fans look like an invasion of Visigoths.

The cops, too, are helpful and friendly. They do a good job of handling the traffic, and everyone appreciates it. This ain’t the Sixties anymore, thank God. No riot helmets or overturned cars. No one even thinks of it.

On Tuesday morning, I climb on the Sportster and ride south on 1-95, down to Deerfield Beach to see my dad. The 883, of course, runs out of gas on the interstate. It goes on reserve at 74 miles, and 20 miles sans petrol stations pass by before it runs out at 94 miles.

I coast into a rest area, where a guy with a Gold Wing is nice enough to let me siphon some gas, provided I can find a hose, which I do. A motorist has an old piece of radiator hose in his trunk. It’s too large to actually siphon, so I gulp and spit about a quart of gas into an old plastic container. Great flavor. It gets me six miles down the road to the next gas station. This is the first time I have ever run out of fuel with a motorcycle, in 28 years of riding. Curse this silly peanut tank. My 3.5gallon FXE tank is still unpainted, on the workbench at home.

After a nice three-day visit with my dad, I ride back to Daytona just as a 24-hour toad-strangler rainstorm breaks loose. My motel unit becomes a drying room for motorcycle gear.

Saturday afternoon, with the sun reappearing, I ride to the bike auction at the Armory, downtown. It’s a giant gymnasium-sized building, packed with bikes, mostly British. Lots of BSAs. When the bidding starts, I wish I’d brought money. Sale prices are reasonable-easily in line with what you’d expect in the local newspaper classifieds-and bikes with inflated reserve prices are pulled off the stand, unsold. Lots of sub-$2000 British iron, very reasonable early Honda 305s and 160s ($500 to $2000) and a beautiful preunit Bonneville that is bid to only about $4300 on a $5500 reserve. I’m sure that owner spent more than that restoring it.

Still, it’s good to see reality set in. Except for the most exotic bikes (a Vincent Black Shadow goes for $27,000) we’re back to the labor-oflove concept, rather than the overheated speculation of the Eighties.

In the dense Daytona traffic (who let all these cars in here, anyway?) it takes me an hour to get back to my motel room. This is one area where things have not improved; traffic is much heavier than it was 11 years ago. Riding in town has become something of a chore most hours of the day.

Sunday, of course, is the 200. Now there are people in the grandstands. It’s not full, but a good crowd. And they get treated to one of the great duels for first place in Daytona history. The big race is covered elsewhere in this issue, but I’ll just mention that Doug Polen’s Fast By Ferracci Ducati led most of the race, shadowed by Scott Russell’s Team Muzzy Kawasaki in a cliflhanger that lasts until the final lap. Russell pulls out a last-ditch pass and wins, and suddenly it’s all over.

Fold-your-tent time. Back to the frozen north.

And it is frozen. Cold rain blasts Chattanooga by the time I get there, then snow and high winds strike in Kentucky-1 itéraily as I pass Fort Campbell. Interstate 57 through Illinois is like the Valley of Death, with overturned cars and jackknifed trucks all over the place. Just north of Centralia, I pass two full-dress Harleys in near-blinding snow. Both riders look grim and frozen solid, motionless as plastic figures snapped into place on model motorcycles, molded forever into a seated, arms-out position. I am sure it will take blow-torches to get their hands off those grips.

I look into the rearview mirror and see my clean, dry Sportster rocking gently against its tie-downs. I flick the heater fan up one more notch, pour a little more steaming coffee out of my Thermos and think to myself that, in March at least, a Chevy van makes an awfully good full-dress fairing for a dead-stock Harley 883. □