Rolling the Concours
ROLLING THE CONCOURS
The CWRolling Concours returns. Who knew what great bikes lurked in the shadow of the Speedway?
PETERN EGAN
WLL, EDITOR MARK HOYER AND I WERE A FINE PAIR AT OUR own Rolling Concours at the Indy MotoGP this year, what with no vintage bikes to ride. Mark had planned to ship his 1958 Triumph out from California, but the magneto quit shortly before the trip. Now, there's a predictable disappointment, as cartoonists Pekar and Crumb would say. Mark also has his Velocette, but this was apart with crankcase alignment problems, as these bikes were built just before the English discovery of the micrometer. Or even the yardstick, apparently.
Meanwhile, the only vintage bike in my garage (other than a Bridgestone 50) was my 1980 Ducati 900SS, but my Buell Ulysses promised to be (and was) a lot more comfortable for blasting down that none-too-curvy route between Wisconsin and Indy. Also, I didn't have to waste a perfectly good desmo valve adjust on 700 miles of Interstate.
Harley-Davidson and Ducati to the rescue. They came up with a few loaners for our staff: 2012 Night Rod Specials and 10th Anniversary V-Rods from H-D, and Multistradas and Diavels from Ducati, which are admittedly new but somehow in the spirit of the thing. Don't ask me why; they just are. The whole idea with our Rolling Concours concept, of course, is that the motorcycles not only have to look good, but they have to run down the road for at least 40 miles. That way, you can be sure they really have things like connect ing rods inside those gleaming cases. And, as hoped, we had a fine batch of 31 classics-that-really-run turn up for the event. We all met on Friday morning-including CW contributor and guest judge Paul d'Orleans-under the shade of a tree on the infield of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
One great motorcycle after another pulled in and parked. "This is a nice mix of bikes," I remarked to one entrant, and he said, "We wanted to show you that Indianapolis has more than just cruisers running around. You might call this the quiet crowd." We fired up and headed off for our ride.
Indianapolis is not exactly in the heart of the Alps, but we did manage to find a route of shaded lanes, gentle curves and park roads out on the edge of the city. We stopped for a box lunch at a county park, then headed back to the Speedway-with no mechanical casualties that I saw.
Then, the tough part: judging. In the Classic I (1959 and older), our trophy went to Jon Whittington's 1947 Indian Chief, an emotional favorite with a nice mixture of ride-your-bike-everywhere pa tina and new paint where needed. It barely edged out Donald Beadle~s virtually perfect 1939 BSA B21. Steve Pinkston's immaculate 1968 BSA Spitfire won our Classic II class (mostly Brit-bikes from 1960-75), beating-partly by rarity-a host of Nortons and Triumphs about which little bad could be said.
Popular with the crowd (and us, too) was Dave Grunewald's blue-and-white 1980 Suzuki GS1000S Wes Cooley Replica, which won our Modern Classic class. I actually saw the original item win at Road America, before it was a replica. Another fun choice, winning the American Classic class on pure funk and rarity, was Chris Sickels' 175cc 1965 Harley Pacer, a reborn barn find that is his first and only motorcycle, still with barn dust on the front fender. He rides it everywhere.
My personal favorite of the show was a 1974 Honda CB350 Four, a perfect green-glowing gem that won pre-1975 Japanese Classic, restored and ridden by Mark Horine. Its sewing-machine idle and electrical whooping revs made me lonesome for my old 400E Street Special (café racers, bob-jobs, etc.) could hardly have been won by anything other than a 1974 Triumph Bonneville with two 750 engines so artfully joined together you could almost walk by it without notic ing. Looked good, ran great and sounded nice, and was ridden by Steve Pieratt (with his friend Mary Jean on the back) and owned by H.C. Morris.
Best of Show? A 1972 Kawasaki 500cc Mach III that radiated perfection. Maybe you have to have restored a Japanese bike to realize how difficult it is to get all the colors and tones of painted cases, anod ized carb parts and colored plastic intake plenums and covers to look correct and original, but when you see one done right, it's stunning. And this one-ridden by Bob King and owned and restored by Sergei Traycoff-gave off its own beams of celestial light.
Hoyer noted a slight sea change this year, compared with Concours past. He said we're seeing more great Japanese bikes restored now, in addition to the European and American classics. I agree, and think there's a younger group of own ers restoring the bikes they lusted after (or owned) when they were in high school, at a time when the Nortons, Triumphs, etc. were fading from the scene.
As one who made that transition myself, I enjoy seeing this new mix. Personally, I find a nice Mach III or CB350 Four every bit as interesting to ponder as a Vincent Black Shadow. And maybe a little more heartwarming. A concours should have everything and push every button, and this one did.
