Beauty, History and Speed at Bonneville

© Ken Bingenheimer / RumBum.com

The hot new thing was conspicuously lacking at Miller Motorsports Park this weekend, as the state-of-the-art racing venue was given over to motorcycles that may be older than you. This was the Bonneville Vintage GP and Concours, organized by the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association (AHRMA). More than 600 entrants were on hand, the largest ever for the event.

Joining with the AHRMA to present a broader spectacle was the Sidecar Racers Association - West. Formula 1, Formula 2, and vintage sidecar racing added variety and "wow!" to the show.

Additionally, a vintage motorcycle Concours d'Elegance on Saturday presented beautifully restored two-wheelers of four, five, even six decades ago for the admiration of the crowd.

The Cheapest Racing Around

The Honda CB-160 may seem an unlikely motorcycle to base a racing class around but twenty-some years ago that was just the point. Tim Fowler and two cohorts decided they wanted to make it possible for people to race without spending a ton of money. Honda cranked out a huge number of CB-160s from 1965 to 1968 and they were available inexpensively or free.

The outgrowth of that is the starting race both days at the GP, the Battle of the CB-160s, with Le Mans start. The racers line up along the track, near the starting line, with their bikes lined up on the other side of the track. At the starting signal they run to their machines, bump start them, and race off.

"This is some of the cheapest racing around, ever," says Stephen Gillen, of Avondale, AZ, who rides in this class. "You can pick up a bike for $50 or even free. Most of them are 'barn fresh' (stored for years neglected and untended). Mine was plucked from a field, it was rusted out, and it had water in the engine. If a bike is pristine, the owner is not going to convert it to racing. These bikes all had a hard life before they came here."

The flip side to that is that the bikes are easy to work on, even for someone lacking mechanical expertise.

"They're very simple, durable, and bullet-proof," Gillen notes. "We ride them hard and put them away wet, over and over and over."

A High-Speed Ballet

Another highlight of the weekend is sidecar racing. These rigs, as they're called, started out as a motorcycle with a sidecar bolted on the side to carry a passenger. While there are still some racers in vintage sidecar rigs, the more modern rigs are a world apart.

Running on three wide, slick tires, with aerodynamic body work, sitting low to the ground, the modern rigs scream around the track with the passenger hanging their body off in the curves to keep the left wheel on the ground.

Wade Boyd and Christine Blunck ride as a team and both are in the points lead to take top honors this year. Riders and passengers score points separately, so if they don't race each race together the two may not have identical scores.

Their rig is a Formula 2 sidecar, which in the U.S. means that it has the engine in the middle, whereas Formula 1 rigs are longer and have the engine up front. In Europe the definitions are different.

Boyd has been motorcycle racing for 35 years and has run numerous times in the Isle of Man TT. He signed up for three races one year but got there and found he had been ruled out of two.

"I told my girlfriend to find me a sidecar," he says, and she did. Though he had never ridden a sidecar, the driver needed a passenger and agreed to take him. For four years Boyd was a hitchhiker, showing up without a ride but getting on a rig that needed a passenger. Then he decided he'd rather drive.

Blunck has been riding passenger since her first race at Willow Springs in 1999. She tells of one incident racing at the Isle of Man where she was "spit off" the rig when her driver clipped a curb.

"I flipped and came to a stop standing on my feet in the front yard of some gentleman. I said hello and introduced myself."

Sidecar racing is not particularly dangerous, even in mishaps, says Rick Murray, outgoing president of the SRA-West, because "If you do something wrong you just spin out, you don't fall over." By Murray's recollection, there have been only three sidecar racing fatalities in the U.S. since the 1960s.

Boyd's term for sidecar racing is "high-speed ballet." During the race, the passenger is frequently moving between three positions, left, right, and center (neutral). If the passenger hangs off to the left on a left turn it helps keep the left tire on the pavement and improves traction.  It also means the rig will sweep around the curve. Sometimes the driver wants to cut the corner straighter in order to pick up speed, and in that case the passenger won't hang off and will "allow the chair to float," which means that the left wheel rises off the ground.

With all that moving around, a good passenger's movements will be smooth. That's where the ballet comes in. The driver can feel the passenger's location and movements. If the passenger clunks around from position to position, it will affect how the bike handles and will not allow the driver to handle the rig most efficiently.

The driver and passenger work as a team. They will pre-ride the track during practice and then discuss in detail how they will approach each curve.

"You try to go out there with a plan," says Boyd, "but I feel her, the ESP is strong."

The sidecar community is very competitive but very supportive of each other. That means that between races they commonly help each other with problems on the rigs.

"We want you out there and I want to pass you fair and square," says Boyd.

Why do people get into sidecar racing?

"Where else do you get to take a buddy for a ride?" says Boyd.

Murray concurs. "Quite often you have two friends or relatives who want to race together. We have many husband-wife teams, father-son, sister-sister. There's a fairly high percentage of women in the sport."

It's a less expensive form of racing because you split the costs two ways. Also, unlike with motorcycles, one set of tires lasts a sidecar for one to two years.

"For $4,000 to $5,000 you have something to have fun with," says Murray.

d'Elegance of Older Bikes

"Look at this Moto Guzzi. This is the first bike I ever loved. And the $2,500 it cost at the time might as well have been $250,000." Beautifully preserved or restored old motorcycles will elicit that sort of comment. They did at Saturday's Concours d'Elegance.

The bikes on display ranged from a 1939 Triumph T80 that was described as "shipped from Indonesia, very rusty," to an absolutely gorgeous 1974 Ducati 750 Sport. In between were a 1952 James Comet that was fresh from time trials at the Bonneville salt flats, where it set a world speed record in its class day earlier, an "all original" 1971 Cotton 175 Tryles, and a lot more.

"That BMW over there is exactly like one an old buddy of mine rode. I shot a picture of it in case I see him again."

Although there were too many to list them all, here's an abbreviated list.

1953 Triumph Speed Triple

1958 Maico Typhoon

1968 Bultaco M49 Shelpat

1963 Parilla Tourister 250 High Cam

1973 Moto Guzzi El Dorado

1955 Velocette Venom

1963 Triumph Scrambles Cub

As you can see, there was a little something for everyone at Bonneville as beauty, history, and speed stood side by side, and danced.