When ever it is, and how ever it is that you get to main street at Daytona Bike Week, you’ll find more imaginative expressions of two and three wheeled motorcycles than you will anywhere else in the world.
It’s hard to pin point the exact reason. Each individual reason, in and of itself, would not be reason enough for the journey. And it is a journey. More than logging in miles of highway. Perhaps it’s a unique set of reasons. Reasons that only come together in this unique way for this unique journey that make it all worth while. If you asked any number of the 200,000 plus pilgrims who collected their reasons, you’d find that no two are exactly the same. What you would find, however, is one common integer – a pure love for the art, the sound, the energy and the freedom that defines the motorcycle. It is a journey of the soul.
Daytona Bike Week is a week like no other bike week. There have been numerous attempts to copy this phenomena, but they are all just that. Copies. Imitations. And the one thing they all lack, is what Daytona Bike Week founded – the heart and soul of the journey. The journey that defines the essence of the motorcycle. It is this very reason, that Daytona Bike Week continues to define to the world, what it means to live, breath, and sleep the pure essence of the freedom that can only be found on a motorcycle.
Christina snaps a candid shot looking down main street Daytona Beach, perched on the back of Rabbie’s green bug. It’s always fun to cruise downtown to take in the sights after two days of head to head battle on the high-banks of Daytona International Speedway.
For Team 3D Racing, the core reason is found at the track. For others, there are 200,000 other unique soulful reasons. For racers, Bike Week initiates the start of a new season. Like bears waking from a winters hibernation, Bike Week brings alive in us again, desires and emotions that get put to sleep in the last days of October when the final checkered flag flies and we must say goodbye to that part of our selves which defines our journey. Each year, while the program is the same, the journey is always different, always new.
250 Fast-man Tom Fournier and Rising Sun Cycles’s Steve Aspland keep a watchful eye on AHRMA multi-class National Champion, Robbie Nigl’s daughter at the National Championship Awards Dinner.
Classic warriors on the tarmac, and better friends in the pits, former Sportsman 750 National Champion #34 Tim Lyle and #600 Rabbie have enjoyed battling out fiercely classic duels in the Sportsman 750 series. Catching up with each other in Daytona is always a great time.
If you’re not racing, or talking about racing, you’re working on the bike that keeps you racing. Rabbie and Rich tend to changing the right front fork leg on Rabbies RS 125 for the big dance at Daytona.
Racing consumes the majority of 3D Racing’s connection to the soul of the motorcycle. But it’s only half of the story. The trip begins each year when Art Stapleton and Jay Osborne, of ACS Specialties Racing meet up with Bob, Christina, Papa Chief and Sandy, and sometimes when we are lucky Rich is there too. The collective paths converge at the opening round of the AHRMA National Historic Cup Roadracing Series. This race is just prior to Daytona, and serves as the warm-up shake-down race for all the competitors to make sure their winter modifications payed off.
#396 Jay Osborne and #76A Lew Woods unload the ACS Specialties Triumph 750 out of the trailer for the first of many events the team will campaign in the 2007 roadracing season.
Rabbie twists the throttle open and tosses the fire breathing rompin’ stompin’ ACS Specialties Triumph 750 hard-right through the International Horseshoe turn at Daytona International Speedway. Hearing the unique drone of the long-rod power through the infield makes all the late nights and weekends of work seem worthwhile to the team.
The team – the collective energies of Team ACS Specialties Racing and Team 3D Racing – will spend 10 days together, from 6 in the morning, until the day is complete. And like any real journey, you never know when the day will be complete. Sometimes the crew packs up at the end of the race day, wanders into an unknown town and discovers a restaurant to enjoy a meal, and everybody hits the pillows at a respectable hour. Other times, the journey is different. Sometimes broken engines are being worked on, parts are being jury rigged, riders are consuming advil and leathers are being duct taped back together from a get-off so that the motorcycle will have its day again on the track the next morning. Sometimes the night rolls directly into this morning.
Rabbie made an unscheduled low-side departure off the racing surface heading into turn one on the first lap of the Sportsman 750 race on Monday’s racing at Daytona. Arty begins the necessary tasks of heating the brake lever with a torch, so that the lever can be bent back into position ready for battle tomorrow.
Rich Barger’s 500cc Honda Supermono race bike fell prey to a tired clutch in the opening laps of the first practice session at Roebling Road. Rich would source a new clutch, and stretch the existing clutch springs in an effort to get through the weekend -- just one of the many unplanned events that can change your schedule at the track.
This year the journey found both brothers, Rich and Bob making the trip to the beach. This year the journey brought former AMA Hot Shoe and national number #76A Lewis Woods back to the saddle of Art Stapleton’s 750 dirt track program. This year the journey brought Sandy to the Daytona 200 Monument on the beach, to experience the memorial, see Rich and Bob’s name etched in this memorial and get to meet Dick Klamfoth – The only 4 time winner of the Daytona Beach Series Racing, who built this memorial. This year brought tears to Papa Chief when he watched both of his sons, Rich and Rab win the AHRMA GP125 races on the high banks of Daytona. This year also brought tears to Christina and Bob, when Christina learned her career would be taking off with F1 and taking her off to London.
#186 Dickie showcases the efforts of two impressive finishes, first and second, in two consecutive days of flying the high-banks of Daytona.
Same bike, same family, same results. #986 Rabbie posts a mirror image to big brother Dickie, also netting a first and second place finish in two consecutive days of racing at Daytona.
Perhaps the only person more happy than the 3D Racing brothers winning at Daytona was the other D in the fold, Papa Chief, who said he’s been coming to the beach for some 30 years now, working, wishing, hoping and waiting for this day to happen.Arty, Uncle Don, and Papa Chief sit at the ready to begin some 16oz. arm curls in celebration at the bar following the wins.
Christina found time to socialize and catch up with her track posse, enjoying some fun and conversation with Gary Maucher who races several classes in AHRMA vintage roadracing, including a 1936 Indian hand shifter!
Each year, Daytona Bike Week is a journey. And with the blink of an eye, 10 days of living, breathing, and sleeping motorcycles are gone, and we are left wanting more, but filled with memories that will remain with us forever, and remind us why Daytona Bike Week is what it is. A journey you could not possibly script.
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