BREAKING

Event Reports

Daytona Bike Week 2016

Article By: Chris Callen

Photo By: Chris Callen & Heather Callen

Originally Published In The June 2016 Issue Of Cycle Source Magazine

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For those of us that have joined the ranks of veterans of the whole motorcycle rally experience, sometimes the hustle and bustle of Main Street can get to be a bit much, downright irritating at times. There are several things that you could just as well do without, one of them is the guy that shows up to Bike Week for the first time with his list of must dos: 1. Ride down Main Street 2. Get a t-shirt from Boot Hill 3. Get good and drunk 4. Get a black eye from a real biker! This guy is easy to see right off the bat as he always travels with Rev Limiter guy….BLAHHHHHH Dat Dat Dat Dat Dat, and can frequently be heard giving their mutual cheer “Do It Again.” But I digress. The point is, that after decades of Daytona you have two choices that are: A. stop going to Daytona or B. find other things to do. We pick B. every couple of years and attend the annual Fun In The Sun Spring Opener just for the hell of it. This year that fun would start with events like Warren Lanes True Grit, which kicked ass, and a visit to the boys at the American Motordrome Wall Of Death who were set up at the swap meet out at Volusia County Fairgrounds. The Fairgrounds also had the “Burning Bike” which was a similar to the hippie’s Burning Man but instead it was a giant motorcycle made from Wood that was set to blaze the last Friday of Bike Week. The swap at Volusia was packed too.

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Unlike other Bike Weeks, where we would have housing somewhere on an event site, this time we opted to go to the end of the island down at Daytona Shores near Ponce Inlet and get a place on the beach. Nice digs and a great rate but the best part was that when we wanted to get away from the motorcycles for a bit it was secluded enough to do that. Tuesday came early and we started the day off at Harley- Davidson’s Wmen’s Ride For MDA. You can read about that near the end of this article. Just to do something different we headed out to Volusia Speedway Park for some amateur flat track racing. Lucky for us the city had canceled the original location for Roland Sands Super Hooligan Races and they had rescheduled under the hurry up offense. We got to see these cats at a nice small tight track. All the racers there that day were great but during the entire time you could hear an interesting noise coming from the upper track while the races were going on below. It sounded like a giant stock car was racing around up there so of course we went and stuck our noses in. It was in fact a Triumph on test and tunes runs and the sound of that bike shook the ground. We later found out that the builder was working with Triumph and is one of the premier race engine builders of that brand. It was a pleasure to just stand and watch this cat tear ass around that track.

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The next morning would be our only real event for this year’s Daytona, The Harley-Davidson Editor’s Choice Bike Show at the Broken Spoke. Sixteen National and International Magazine editors showed up to provide an award and a feature for their picks. In addition to the editors Harley-Davidson gave out awards in thirteen classes. The day saw nearly 100 bikes sign in for their shot at all the booty which included hand made trophies for the Harley awards by none other than Billy Lane. Thursday the world shuts down every bike week for the premier show of our culture, Choppertime at Willie’s Tropical. This year would be no slouch and by 10:30 Willie’s was elbow to elbow and nearly broke the record for bikes entered. Big Rick And The Troublemakers with special guest Jasmine Cain provided the tunes for the day and it was everything we came to Daytona for. It’s nice to see this man, who is a local and a hell of a good person, get so much love back for his show each year.

Choppertime 2016 Winners:

Best Twin Cam-Big Dave Canoj;

Best Metric-Andres Munoz;

Best Knucklehead-Tom Holter;

Best Shovelhead-Carsten Fritzen;

Best EVO-Alley Cat;

Best Creative Custom-Shortsters;

Best British-Jon Laurendeau;

Best Outhouse Chopper-Anthony Gallo;

Best Rat-Wes Connally;

Best Sportster-Mike Weedin;

Best Panhead-Bobby Cobelk;

Best Flathead- Doug Wothke;

The Horse’s Choice – Scott Key;

The Horse’s Choice-Neal Perkins;

People’s Choice – Jack Donkey;

People’s Choice – Jeff Fehley;

Kari’s Choice – Bob Seeger Jr;

Kari’s Choice -Stanley Hasting;

Roadside’s Choice – Brian Elliott;

Roadside’s Choice-Pat Isaacson ;

Willie’s Choice – Pam Garbig;

Willie’s Choice – Bad&G Customs;

Willie’s Choice – Lee Bones Doggett;

BD’s Customs Choice – Daniel Boone Banks;

Reverand Al’s Tropical Tattoo Choice – Warren

Lane and Pat Moroney;

Ladies Choice – Clinton Wallace;

Cycle Source Choice – Chris Wade;

Bling’s Choice – Eric Stein;

Chop Docs Choice – Jesse Srpan ;

Dave Perewitz Chocie – Ben Jordan

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Friday came and we started our day the right way, with a ride with friend. No, it wasn’t a scheduled ride or a ride for a purpose. I mean it was the Lucky Looser ride that Spacey from the Horse puts on, and it was just a good time where we got to ride along the beach in Flagler and eat seafood at the Snack Shack. Later that day we got the invitation of a lifetime, press passes to the Daytona Speedway. In all the years I’ve published Cycle Source I’ve only had these twice. It’s hard when you’re not a motorsports magazine to get access to America’s Biggest Race facility. The reason for the invite, Roland Sands and the Super Hooligans got a chance to run on the big track with the pros. A special Hooligans event was held and I gotta give it up to him, Roland earned his 1st place finish. They all put in a hell of an effort and kudos go out again to the Hooligans and Indian Motorcycles for bringing racing back into the mainstream. On top of the Hooligans we got to see the pros run and from the infield to boot. The smell of race gas still hangs in the back of my nose and it was a welcome change from the exhaust fumes of town. Saturday we ran around and did some business, visited some old friends at spots like Donnie’s Doughnut Shop on Seabreeze. If you’ve never hit this spot it is a fat kids dream but mostly we just said our good byes. Daytona 2016 came and went in a flash, it was over before it began and all we had were the memories and photos of that moment in history. And that my friends is exactly why you have to just take a break from time to time and take it all in.

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