Picture Motorcycle: BARBER MOTORSPORTS FESTIVAL 2011

A few of the ex-Factory Ducatis on display at DucStock

The 7th annual Barber Vintage Festival, just outside Birmingham Alabama, is fast becoming the premier vintage motorcycle event in the US. With attendance increasing by 30% each year as word spreads about this amazing weekend, there can be no doubt 'the Barber' will soon rise to the top of every vintage enthusiast's 'must do' list...and for the 60,000 visitors this year, it already has.

CB160 racing; massive grids!

It's taken me 7 years to fly to Birmingham, although the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum's incredible collection of 1300 motorcycles has been no secret. The museum itself will get its own post, but is of course an integral part of the appeal of the Vintage Festival...even though quite a few visitors (and racers) miss it entirely!

George Barber talking with writer Mick Duckworth

George Barber has spent over $70 Million of his own money developing the Barber Motorsports Park, which includes an excellent 2.38mile race track, the museum, plus extensive grounds and event facilities. This figure doesn't include the 1400 motorcycle and racing cars in the Museum collection itself, so clearly, Mr. Barber is about as Deep into Motorcycling as anyone on the planet. There are hundreds of extremely wealthy individuals who one-up each other for the largest yacht, biggest art collection, or name on a university library, but there is none other who has made such a massive gesture to motorcyclists everywhere. Hats off to the man.

Aerobatics display; 'strafing' Charlotte the giant Spider

A laundry list of the weekend's events would include a swap meet with 350 vendors (pre-booked since June), an auction, club displays (AMCA, Moto Guzzi m/c, etc) with attached bike shows, magazine booths (Motorcycle Classics, Café Racer) with their attached shows, a Wall of Death, a fire truck display, rows of commercial vendors, a Café Racer hill, an air show, AHRMA vintage racing, and this year, Ducstock. As the park covers 740 acres, a shuttle service runs continually between events and parking areas. The best way to get around, though, is on a motorcycle - no surprises there - and nobody cares if you park on the tidily mown grass.

Café Racer Hill was new this year, with the Ace Café, Café Racer magazine/tv, and Dime City Cycles combining forces in an isolated spot surrounded by trees, with an excellent track view. Besides the corral of tv-show builds, the 'Hogslayer' triple-engined Norton dragster sat, menacingly, a slumbering beast. As you'd expect, the hill was a magnet for the Café Custom crowd, and it was the only spot in the Park with live music! Which was daily interrupted by the aerobatic team buzzing just over tree level, laying a smoke screen down, looping overhead, and 'strafing' the giant spider sculpture ('Charlotte') with ground-implanted pyrotechnics.

Café Racer hill...

Ducati's 'club liaison' Vicki Smith launched 'Ducstock' in a previously closed part of the track, her own 'Ducati Valley', without factory involvement. Duc owners brought their bikes for display on the grass of course, with enough variety of models and ages to keep it interesting, but the big news was inside two tents; 24 of the 40 NCR Ducati racers built from the 80s and 90s - a collection unlikely to be repeated - plus a display of delicious exotica, including a pair of dohc GP twin-cylinders from the 1950s; just about the rarest Ducatis of all. Kudos to Vicki for pulling off a very cool event.

Racing F1 Ducatis at DucStock...

AHRMA racing was held over 3 days, and a walk through the open paddocks provided an easy tour of the state of American vintage racing. The good news; lots of women are grabbing the handlebars and taking to the track, especially in CB160/200GP classes, where the grids swell to over 50 bikes at times. Quite a few women become 'monkeys' on racing sidecars as well. The racing in various classes is extensive and lasts all day, although AHRMA has allowed replica G50s and Manxes to dominate the vintage classes, with only a single event for racers built before the late 1930s - the 'Century Race' for machines over 100 years old, which is frankly more of a waving tour than a competition. But, as the years roll on, the race will open to 1915 Harleys, and methinks the competition will become serious indeed. The scale of race participation (with four tiers of paddocks filled) and the quality of the facility rivals the Coupe Moto Legendes in Dijon, France, but European vintage racing has much greater depth and variety of machinery, veritable rolling museums with ex-Works and ultra-rare racing bikes stretching their legs alongside the ubiquitous Matchlesses and Nortons, which are not allowed to dominate the proceedings, number-wise, which keeps the event interesting for spectators. AHRMA's huge fight with Team Obsolete several years ago seems to have left their racing field lacking in diversity...where are the MV Agustas, the Benellis, the Moto Guzzis, the NSUs, the DKWs, the Rennsports? There are plenty of these in the US and abroad who would surely come to Barber to race, with a little encouragement. As it was, teams from Holland and New Zealand made their way to Alabama; with vintage racing at Daytona the following weekend, 'racing tourism' could become an industry.

Race Tourism; a large team from New Zealand/Australia swelled the paddock...

The Barber Vintage Festival costs $40 for a 3-day ticket, and hotels/car rentals in Birmingham are about as cheap as it gets. There is camping at the Park as well, although this fills up quickly, so planning and reservations are a good idea, if you're driving in. If you want to book a swap meet space, do it by May, or forget about it. I made the trip as a fly-in tourist on a week's notice, with no problems getting a hotel or getting around, and I found a couple of excellent restaurants in town. The weather this year was very mild, and the tree-filled countryside is lovely. See you in 2012.