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| Archives - Road Trips |
Road Trips : Barber Motorsports Park, Alabama - From RoadBike April 2005
Living History By Jessica Prokup You know you’re watching vintage racing when you see people ride off the track voluntarily, heading for the crash truck before their bike craps out. When the pits are filled with smoke and the smell of castor oil, and a 1971 BMW R75/6 rocker arm is a hot commodity. When a corner worker announces over his CB that a broken-down race bike is having a senior moment. When you’re watching 50-year-old motorcycles being ridden by 70-year-old racers, and neither man nor machine has slowed much over the years. Of all the events I’ve been to, I’ve never seen anything more amusing or more inspiring than the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association vintage races.
And Barber is an enthusiast’s venue. Built by its namesake George Barber, former owner of one of the South’s largest dairy companies, the park is designed to entertain and accommodate riders who come to race, spectate, or just relax.
But the true highlight of the park is the stunning museum, which sits just inside the main entrance. It houses what’s probably the largest collection of motorcycles on the planet, and is meant to preserve the history of our sport. A fitting backdrop for the AHRMA event, as many of the same bikes featured in the museum were also being raced on the track.
The only people conspicuously absent from the event were racers under age 30. What did that say for the continuity of the sport? I asked Jerry Settle, who organizesthe annual BMW Airheads race, whether he’s worried that not enough young people are involved in vintage racing. But he smiled and said, “They’ll all be doing this when they get old.” The Museum
I spent hours at the museum on Friday during the AHRMA racers’ practice sessions. My visit began with a special tour from Brian Slark, the museum parts manager/restorer. Brian has been with the Barber crew since 1994 and specializes in British bikes, having worked for a number of British marques. As we walked from machine to machine, he showed me details about the evolution of motorcycle technology that only sink in when you’re looking at the very bikes that made history.
The museum has race bikes, military bikes, sidecars, trikes, and off-road models, among other things. Barber has some of the rarest of the rare, including a 1910 Pierce Four (one of less than 15 in existence) and a 1996 Britten V1000 (number 7 of 10). The collection also includes new bikes, like the Honda Rune, that will be significant in years to come. Amazingly, nearly 99 percent of all the bikes can be run within an hour. While some models are bought restored, the Barber staff does full restorations in house, including motor work and finishing.
As I walked around with Brian, I heard a metallic hum reverberating in the background, like someone playing a didgeridoo. It was the sound of the vintage race bikes on the track resonating through the glass. Later, while I wandered among the bikes by myself, the everpresent hum created a ghostly soundtrack. I was among motorcycles that once were legendary racers, now silently on display. I stood in front of the bikes and listened to the sound of history speak for them. I don’t know much of the glory days of those old motorcycles, but I do feel their legacy. RB Master Mechanic One of the highlights of my weekend was meeting Derek “Nobby” Clark at the museum. An accomplished race tuner, Nobby is said to have worked with more world champions (12) than anyone else. The list includes Mike Hailwood, Kel Carruthers, Jim Redman, Giacomo Agostini, and Kenny Roberts. He worked on Italian GP bikes in the early ’60s, then switched to Hondas in 1962. He spent most of the rest of his career working with Japanese teams. Nobby has an extensive knowledge of race bikes and great stories about the men who rode them to victory. When I asked him how he views racing today, he said, “Twenty years ago, a rider depended on his mechanic to translate what he was looking for. He’d tell you, ‘The bike does this…’, and you went from there. But modern racing is in the computer age.” Maybe so, but we value mechanics like Nobby none the less. Swan Song
The bikes were rolled outside the museum restoration shop, where a small group of staffers had gathered to watch. It took some encouragement, but both machines came to life with a roar and a cloud of smoke. The noise was incredibly thrilling, especially the triple’s mechanical, irascible howl. It was the first time I’d ever heard a three-cylinder MV. And, unfortunately, probably the last.
SOURCES AHRMA Barber Motorsports Park Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum |
AHRMA is a national, nonprofit organization that offers national and regional road racing, motocross, dirt track, observed trials, and cross-country competition, with bikes ranging from 1920s to modern-production models. I attended the Pro-Flo/Progressive Suspension Historic Cup Roadracing Series at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama, one weekend last October. Watching racers crouched behind bullet fairings, I felt like I’d gone back in time. Walking through the pits revealed marques I’d never heard of and bikes I’d only ever seen in books. The racing was clearly competitive but good natured, and most people involved were longtime enthusiasts.
Throughout the park, planted around the racetrack and hidden in the woods, are strange metal sculptures you can’t help but scratch your head at. The track is surrounded by beautiful landscaping that offers prime views for spectators. The facilities are first rate, with great camping grounds, a catering facility, and a state-of-the-art monitoring system in the huge paddock building. And the 2.3-mile track is a sheer joy to ride, with 16 corners, two blind rises, and more than 80' of elevation changes.
In the same spirit, the AHRMA racers also seek to keep motorcycle history alive by maintaining and competing on classic bikes. Over the weekend, I met Robert Bryson of Laguna Beach, California, who rides a rare ’59 Zundapp he affectionately calls Killer. And Al Knapp of Algonac, Michigan, who at nearly 80 competes on a 1940 hand-shift Harley. And dirt-track legend Jay Springsteen of Lapeer, Michigan, who took the time to walk around the museum with me, telling stories in his mellow drawl.
How, and why, does one build the largest single collection of motorcycles in North America? A Porsche enthusiast and racer, George Barber began collecting classic sports cars in the late ’80s. But his passion for motorcycles soon led to a new goal: to preserve motorcycle history by collecting rare and significant bikes from around the world. The first Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum opened in March 1995 on Birmingham’s South Side, where it operated until late 2002. The museum was reopened at Barber Motorsports Park in September 2003.
The 142,000-square-foot museum has five open-air levels connected by a giant elevator and a spiraling walkway. The effect, when you enter, is spectacular. There are 480 bikes on display and a total of 900 in the collection, ranging from 1904 to current models with 16 countries and 143 marques represented. If you spent just one minute looking at each bike on display, it would take you eight hours to get through it all. 
Throughout the museum, old machines sit next to new ones, race bikes next to road bikes. Vintage cars are also scattered among the displays. The main reason for the four-wheelers, said Brian, is to help visitors place the motorcycles in their eras. Some ingenious displays, built from scratch by the staff, also provide a historical context for the bikes. And behind it all, visible through the enormous windows, is the racetrack. 
During my visit to the museum, I had a rare opportunity to watch the staff fire up two newly restored MV Agustas. Neither bike had been run in 30 years. One was a mid-’60s 500cc three-cylinder ridden by Giacomo Agostini. The other was a mid-’70s four-cylinder, one of the last MVs raced in the GPs, by Phil Read.