Happy Halloween

Went to the Halloweeen Bonfire the other night. It was a costume thing and the theme was "Cowboys and Indians". One guy came as Bob Marley. Go figure.

Pumpkin

Beauty and the Beast. Or, vice-versa. The parking spot behind the pumpkin colored skateboard Gremlin X is occupied by a 2003 model Maserati Gransport GT styled V8 at a Halloween bonfire this week-end. Life imitates art. And vice-versa.

Boris Karloff's daughter said on NPR that nobody ever came trick-or-treating at their house. Nobody.

Matchless G50

KH H-D

Another piece from the assembled collection on the floor at the Barber Museum last week-end.

It's sad that the Harley-Davidsom Motor Company used to build truly beautiful and functional motorbikes, instead of the trite egotistical junk that they regurgitate now-a-days. This is just such an example, a mid fifties KH model, a real motorcycle. A very stylish and rideable machine. Flame on any-one?

More to come.....

Do Not Adjust Your Set

Never has there been a piece of machinery that speaks as though alive like this one does to me. I almost can't talk when I'm around it.

I was lucky enough to see it race at Road Atlanta several years ago, with Nick Ienatsch up, and have been to visit with it several times since. At Road A. we spent many many hours in the pits with it and it's handlers, and Ienatsch was kind enough to try and explain to us what it was like to ride a truly thoroughbred one-off motorcycle.

This is Britten VR1000 Number Seven and it currently resides in the collection at the Barber Motorsports Museum . It is in a place of honor, in that it is the last machine of the 750 or so that are on display. To see it you must walk the most distance, and every step is worth it

More to come of the Britten and the Barber Museum.....

Sir John Surtees

Sorry for the fuzzy, out of focus nature of the first picture of Sir John Surtees. He was striding towards the MV Augusta with some purpose and I was somewhere I didn't really belong anyways. Again.

He took several laps of the Barber Motorsports track Sunday morning on the 500cc MV machine that had been raced by Agostini, if my info was correct. The MV sounded glorious and he hopped on it like it was an old friend and then gave her the berries.

Sam's GB500

Ah, Smilin' Sam. Shown here with his 1st Place In Show award at the FSSNOC (Four-Stroke Singles National Owners Club) gathering last month in Murray Kentucky.

This is the 2nd time he and his Honda GB500 have taken top honors at a FSSNOC event in the past few years. The first time I thought we were gonna' have to hose him down at a car wash he was so excited. He was stopping strangers and asking them if they'd like to see his trophy. That kind of statement can be taken any of several ways by a total stranger.....

Congratulations Sam! When is it my turn to ride it?

Super-Motard in Nash-Vegas

Hey, don't get me wrong, the Super-Motard races at the fair-grounds this past Saturday were definitely worth checking out, except for all the aforementioned freestyle WWF style crap. Like I said, the AMA is a danger unto themselves. You don't have to look any further than the fiasco that was the final Superbike race of the season at Mid-Ohio a few weeks ago for evidence of that......

Anyways. The Graves Yamaha's pretty much dominated the evening and you could tell they had motor over the Honda's in both the 250cc Lites and the headlining 450 Super-Moto class.

The 250cc 14-lap race was definitely the barn-burner of the evening with Brandon Currie running a close second but dropping his Yamaha on lap four to fall back from the leaders about ten seconds and into 5th place. After that it was all the Brandon Currie show as he steadied himself and smoothed it all out to run down all the guys in front of him, finally passing the Honda of Cassidy Anderson with about fifty feet to go, in the last hairpin turn before the final two jumps. It was nasty, but it was a clean pass and on the cool-down lap the 2 protaganists shook hands and slammed each other on the back. Who says sportsmanship is dead. Damn, what a race! Our whole crew was hollering like school kids.

In the Super-Motard division Honda mounted Jeff Ward maintained his lead on the Championship with Doug Henry only able to gain a point during the evening's 2 moto format.

Mark Burkhart, Henry's Yamaha teammate won moto 1, while Ward was 2nd and Henry was 4th. In moto 2 Burkhart looked set to repeat as he headed out to a commanding lead only to have his Yamaha fail him. Then it was Henry's turn to lead but Wardy was on a charge and looked like he was going to make a last gasp run at Henry, only to toss his Honda in the last turn hairpin. Ward's teammate Chris Fillmore snuck through to grab 2nd place while Ward pushed his stalled machine up and over the final jump to claim the 3rd podium position.

The pic is of Chris Fillmore's Honda on the victory rostrom. It's as trick as trick can be, the ultimate urban assault vehicle.

Schtoopid Schitt for Ocktobre

Since it's October-fest season I kind of liked the term Schtoopid. Has a kind of eastern-bloc ring to it.

Here's number one. Dani Pedrosa, for skittling Repsol Honda team-mate Nicky Hayden into the gravel-trap during the pentultimate Grand Prix of the season, and reducing Nicky's 12 point lead over rival Valantino Rossi to an eight point deficit. Dani, you Freaking moron, you NEVER, EVER crash out your own team-mate, especially when he's on the verge of winning the MotoGP World Championship. They teach you that shit in 50cc mini-moto-cross racing when you're seven years old....of course you're still five-foot nothing and weigh one-hundred-two pounds, so y'all may not have gotten to that lesson yet. Idiot.

Next up, the AMA (American Motorcyclist Association) for cancelling the LCQ (Last Chance Qualifier) heat races at the Music City Motorplex during the Super-Motard Championship races here in Nashville on Saturday night, announced on the public address system due to so-called "time constraints". Then, over the course of the next hour, we were subjected to a Burn-out Contest, Extreme Moto-Cross Freestyle, really really bad Extreme Stunt-Street riding (really bad), and an ATV racing Demo. So, the AMA are freaking moron's number two.....which is kind of a surprise, 'cause they''re usually the number 1 morons with a bullet. But, Go Dani!

Goofy Schitt number three is HERE . I mean, like, Yo dawg, I'm sure your greiving bros and bitches will all be down with this schizzling tribute to your throw-down thug gangster biker status, for schure. I mean, after all, it's all about who you really are......or were, and the freedom of the open road. Yeah, the freedom of the open road, with you in your casket strapped to some sidecar on an H-D.....schweett.

Drink up Schriners.

Kidney Pool

Oh my God.

I finally got a chance to check out the new kidney pool in Franklin on Monday afternoon and I can tell you in all honesty that I don't have anything for that big a piece of terrain. Lordy, what a pool, and what a great job the contractors did on it. The shallow end is seven feet, and the big end is eleven feet, with no roll-in's for us pussies. Who-whoo!

This is my new bud J.P. who is a snowboarder at heart, and was a street skater in his teens. He came to the grand opening of the new Franklin park and saw the Team Geritol guys bombing the new Kidney and thought that was cool. But he lives across the street from this beast in Franklin and has decided at age thirty-three that he is now a transition skater. And so he learned to drop in and has progressed in the last couple of months to the point that he is ready to grind some coping.

Rock on.

Mr. Soundman

For all you musicians out there ( and musician wanna-be's like myself) please listen to THIS . Seriously funny, and totally true! It may take a few minutes to download if you have dial-up like me, but well worth the wait. Go wash some dishes or start a load of clothes in the washer and it'll be ready when you're done.....

Thanks to Officer Kelly for the link.