Fathers Day

The leathers at an AHRMA event are gnarly. Rashed Vanson’s make for gritty, grizzled-looking racers. They’re worn from the waist down between races, the torso hanging off the back as though it was skin being shed. Under tents and out of pick-ups, old guys with aches and limps wrench and fuss over their iron. Conversations about push rods and ex-wives are yelled over the blat of vertical twins and the ping of two-strokes being revved…revved…REVVED!
My old man and I were standing in the hot pits at Grattan, wearing matching T-Shirts. Dorks…unless you know the story behind the T‘s. A silhouette of my Grandfather, my Dad’s Dad, emblazoned the front of the shirts. I had them made from an old black and white photo a while back, Grandpa straddling his Harley 45 in his coveralls and boots, hat cocked. Bad ass. We miss him, but he’s always with us. Our love of motorcycles is rooted in his war era affair with two-wheeled machines. Los Alamos weekends on his Indian 841. Circle tracks and saddle bags. I wasn’t even a little surprised to see that my Dad had chosen to wear the same shirt I had that morning. After all, it was Fathers Day.
We squinted and baked in the sun watching the Sound of Thunder class. Cheesy NASCAR name, wicked bikes. Doug Polen (Yes, that Doug Polen) was holding down 3rd place on a not-very-vintage Ducati something-98. 3rd place? A guy on a Buell 1125R was rippin’ it up at the front, taking it to the two Ducs behind him, one of them the SBK season-win-record-holder. Polen seemed content to sit back where he was until the final lap, when turned it loose, passed the bike ahead of him, and wheelied over the finish line just a few feet behind the winning Buell. Why’d he wait? I found him post race and asked.
“Did you let the Buell win?”
He blinked hard. The look on his face said it all. He was disgusted by the question.
“No, I’m not out here for that today” he said with a tolerant grin, straining not to punch me in the face. “I’m here for my 1-on-1 rider’s school working with Brian.” Brian Larrabure placed 2nd in the series championship last year and wants to lose the Gibbernau status. Having a 4 time world champion following your racing line, giving you the grasshopper speech will make you faster. Those interested can go to GoPolen.com.
Meeting Doug Polen was cool, but it wasn’t really the story I was looking for. I walked the pits wanting to meet the people that make AHRMA a living thing.
I walked to a tent where a lanky guy in thin shorts and a billed Laurence-of-Arabia-cap was crawling under an old Triumph twin. It didn’t look like rocket science, which was good, because Ken Rayna was only a nuclear engineer. Him and his wife, Patty Kay, were there from up-state New York racing their Triumphs. They were beautiful. Ken had a couple 650’s and Patty Kay was racing…uh…a Trophy 500?
I like vintage bikes but admittedly don’t know much about them. I can’t tell the difference between a Tiger and a Bonneville. Stop sneering. Points scare me. I started paying attention to motorcycles after the drum brake was already a relic. I think an F2 is vintage. I had it in my head that there’d be museum pieces at the track, babied and polished on the infield before their proud owners did half assed honorary parade laps between flags.
My bad.
There were old bikes, and some were definitely pretty, but some were decidedly not pretty. Old Japanese twins with rattle-can paint jobs and oil over-spray were ridden in anger. Frame up? How about off the frame, hack saw, hack job, duct taped, zip tied, slapped back together and filled with 3 quarts of Wal-Mart’s best. Now beat the ever living hell out of it chasing down that fancy hi-tech 4 cylinder from the 70’s.
Cool.
64 year old Eric Pritchard was racing for the first time since his get-off in Daytona.
“Gentle with that” he said in his English accent as I went to shake his hand. He had broken his wrist in March and was obviously still smarting.
“What keeps you doing this, man?” I asked.
“Well, it keeps you young and it keeps you poor” he smirked.
I have little doubt that the beautiful little Ducati 250 he races helps to keep him poor, but if I were a bettin’ man, I’d guess his half clothed, infield tanned, French wife, Ariane, has a hand in keeping Eric young. Together they own a bed and breakfast in Quebec. Eric has been riding bikes of every kind for 44 years. He doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
Robert Goodpaster was belly laughing under his tent with his family. A big man with a thick handlebar mustache, he was sitting in the shade next to his son, Wes. Their pair of hand built Norton’s looked the business.
“I used to run a couple different classes with these” he motioned toward the bikes. Then Wes started racing, so I sleeved the 750 down to a 650 and replaced the front, going back to a drum. Now we race together.” Robert races number 80 and son Wes races number x80.
“Who wins?”
“Last time out I won and we took 1st and 2nd” Robert said. Wes was smiling but didn’t add anything. It was time for them to line up in the hot pits.
It turns out AHRMA road racing isn’t so much a vintage bike show as it is people fulfilling dreams, living life, and chasing youth, metaphorically and literally.
On the way out, we watched number x80 slide around the outside of number 80 on the final turn. Tucked in and flying, this time, Wes had beaten his ‘ol man to the finish line. Happy Fathers Day.