Old Bikes and a Good Time

Spent the day Saturday July 25th at Vintage Motorcycle Days at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Had a pretty good time, except the weather kept things a bit on the interesting side. I had been hearing what a great event this is, I needed to pick up some parts for a XS650 project I have in the pipeline, so I figured what better time than now to take in this gathering.

BSA was the featured marque this year, but the weather had the owners scrambling to protect their prize possession's. By the time we made it to the show bike area, there were but a few bike left on display for us to take in. There were a couple more pristine examples in the AMA's Historical tent, but not many. I was bummed about missing most of the vintage BSA's but what are you going to do. We still had a damn fine time in the GIGANTIC swap meet area, and watching a few brave souls flog their vintage hardware around the road course in so shitty wet conditions. Only a couple of riders threw their bikes down the road while we were checking out the action. Most were taking it pretty easy, but a couple of hero's were beating the daylights out of their bikes.

I didn't want to be saddled down with dragging my DSLR and all it's paraphernalia all over, so I had to settle with using Mrs. Gymi's Canon point and shoot. Which is not too bad in most situations, but really sucks a taking pictures of high speed action. So I have to send most of the racing pics to the recycle bin. I did manage to squeeze off a couple of half way decent racing shots. Here a few shots from the bikes in the swap meet area, concours and race track. A '40 BSA before the owner could get it out of the rain.
A super clean '72 H2 that had me pining for my old H2, he was asking 7,800.00 for it so I wasn't pining that much. A beautiful Ariel Square four before it ran for shelter. Another sweet BSA 650 that didn't find shelter in time. A sweet but wet Firebird.
A wild ass vintage Honda Chopper in the swap meet area. A super clean bobber with a Harley KR motor. A sweet Macthless 500. A nice example of a sporty cafe' bike. A pretty clean Suzuki Re5 rotary bike, I saw a cleaner example, but did't get a shot of it. A few brave souls, the guy flat tracking it was absolutly flying around the track on his Kz750. He would fly down the back strait and do a tank slapper braking for the corner every lap. Until he tossed it away on the last lap. He was exciting to watch to say the least. All in all we had a damn fine time and plan on returning next year on our bikes (if they are done by then, they should be, but you never know) Hope to see Ya'll there next year.

Till Next Time.........................