Tuesday, 17 Oct.2000

…I tried to get home a little earlier than usual, as we were heading for Nashville as soon as we could. Christian Ray, AKA "Dragbars", one of Miss Vicki’s VRCC buddies, invited us to spend the night at their house, then ride to Daytona with the Nashville VRCC gang.

It was dark when we arrived in Nashville, and we decided to eat before we got to Dragbars, house for the night. We called before we went into the restaurant to let them know we’d made it safely, and he told us he had steaks ready to fix when we got there. I guess my reputation preceded me cause I got talked into doing the steaks.

After a meal fit for a king, and little chitchat, we retired for the evening with a wake up / be ready to ride at 0600 sharp!

Wednesday, 18 Oct. 2000

We all know about the best-laid plans of mice and men, we didn’t hit the road till about 20 after, not too bad for a motorcycle gang. Riding this morning on the trip, Dragbars Christian, Larry, one of the gang from Nashville, Steve, AKA "PIBIT", another VRCC friend from Toronto, Miss Vicki and Myself. Larry and I were the only two who weren’t riding a Valkyrie.

I guess I can dispense with explaining everyone’s a friend, it would get very old.

The first thing on the agenda was a fuel stop to get everyone on an even keel, then a fast dash to Murphreesboro, TN to meet Mitch who wanted to go along, but couldn’t get away for the weekend. He loaned a gel pad to Larry to make the hours in the saddle more comfortable. Mitch road with us most the way to Atlanta, and had to turn around and head back. We were sorry he couldn’t make the rest of the trip.

In Atlanta we met a few more guys, Ron, Jim and Warren, ate lunch, and headed out again. Moving along a little faster than traffic for safety caused a little problem because 8 motorcycles traveling together tend to like to stay as a group. We found ourselves doing 85 to 90 mph to stay up with traffic, just like back home! Southward we went, moving smoothly until we stopped for gas and I complemented Ron on how well his trailer was pulling. Talk about a jinx, after that he couldn’t go faster than 65 mph with out the trailer whipping back and forth. We checked tongue weight, tire pressure, the whole nine yards without finding anything.

We (Ron and I) told the rest of the group to forge ahead and we’d meet them in Savannah. Ron stopped at a gas station, bought 6 cases of soda and said, "If tongue weight’s the issue, I’m gonna fix it!" I asked if he thought he might have gotten a little carried away, and he allowed as he may have, but by golly he was going to fix the tongue weight. We headed back onto the highway, and believe it or not, we got up to 75 mph before it started acting up again. Off we went again in search of air pressure. We added another 10 lbs to the tires and gained another 10 mph. We could now run down the highway at the same speed as traffic, i.e. 85 mph, so we were satisfied with our solution for now.

We rode south on I-95 until it split. Ron decided to ride on to Daytona, and I continued on to Savannah. I made a stop in a less desirable part of town and after a quick phone call to Vicki and a few questions to the gas station attendant I was on the way to the hotel. I met Lamont, the founder of the VRCC, who had ridden up from Daytona to accompany us on our inbound trip, and the rest of the gang. After dinner we called it an early night, as it had been a long day on the road, with another to follow the next day.

Thursday, 19 Oct. 2000

During the night, Dragbars "Main Squeeze" arrived on site with her "Ride" in the back of the truck. Lisa rides a "V-Star" and doesn’t feel comfortable at high speeds for long periods, and we knew that’s what it would take to stay on top of traffic. Bright and early we headed out again, now 9 bikes strong and a "Drag Truck" for all the parts that fell off. (yeah right) As it turned out, the only part that fell off was Warren’s jacket. He had laid it on his trailer between his cooler and trailer body and forgot it. As we were swooping around the entrance ramp it flew off. Vicki managed to miss running over it & Larry and I stopped to pick it up, then handed it off to Lisa. It took us about 15 minutes traveling at 105+ speeds to catch the main body of our group, but the formation reformed and we proceeded on into Daytona.

I guess it goes with out saying we all smiled a bit at all the Harleys in vans, trucks, and on trailers. It amazed me how many people seemed surprised that we would ride ‘all the way from Memphis!’

Somewhere along the way we stopped for gas and decided to catch a bite to eat. The closest joint was a Dairy Queen, which is not a diner of choice of the VRCC. I won’t say whose idea it was to eat there, but his bike was yellow with black flames.

One rather humorous note, at least from our perspective. While heading south on I-95 approaching Daytona we came upon a group of Harleys, about 10 or so, motoring along about 70 mph in the left lane. Being concerned about safety, we smoothly moved into the right lane and proceed to pull even with them. You could tell they weren’t happy being passed by a bunch of "Rice Burners", but we didn’t let that deter our little group. Since our lead bike was pulling a trailer, Larry moved into the lead, pointed in front of the truck that was holding back the left lane, and pulled left in front of the truck. This gave us the ability to move into the left lane safely, and proceed down the road unimpeded. After this maneuver, that slow truck moved into the right lane, allowing the Harleys an open road to catch us. Somehow that didn’t work out, as we pulled away, leaving them to eat our dust. J

After arriving in Daytona we headed over to the VRCC booth first to see what was going on and set up the dinner ride. "The Booth" would be the center of our weekend, where the Valkyrie riders would meet, talk and generally have a good time.

We agreed to meet back at The Booth for the ride to dinner at 5:30 PM, and since we hadn’t checked into our hotel we went on a search mission. We got directions from Warren, who seemed to be the most familiar with the place. By the time we got to the hotel we only had time to dump our luggage and head back in for the ride to dinner. Again after dinner we called it an early night to prepare our selves for the next couple of days. Motor Cycle madness at its worst / best…I’ll bet!

Friday, 20 Oct. 2000

We got up early to dust off the bikes, and headed to the Bob Evans restaurant across from Daytona Speedway. I guess there was about a dozen of us along with a substantial number of other bikers. After breakfast things kind of fell apart due to traffic. We all left the restaurant intending to cross the street to visit the speedway, but the traffic was so thick and there were so many places to park, and things to see, it took about an hour to find everyone.

After lunch a sport bike race would be firing up on the track, so we killed some time looking at the new Wing, and the VTX, 1820 cc’s of bad boy machine. If I were going to buy a Twin V cruiser, that would be the one.

We watched most of the race until a little accident spilled some fluid onto the track and they had to hold until it was cleaned up. Most of us headed for "The Booth" to see what was up, by now it was around 1430 or so and we wanted to see what time to meet for dinner. At the booth it was fun to sit back and watch all the people come up and introduce themselves. The first line usually went something like this, "You must be Vicki?" I’d say at times there were anywhere from 15 to 50 people at the booth talking, comparing bikes and getting ideas for improvements from others. The fad while we were there was buying a new key for the bike and have a round, chrome knob glued to the key. That way when the keys in the ignition all you see is another piece of chrome.

After checking in at the booth, a small group headed out for a short tour of the area, checking out all the sights. I think I’d have to go several times to take it all in, or go for a whole week, much too much to be seen in just a couple of days.

After feeling like animals in a zoo while driving through the strip, we headed back to the booth for the dinner ride. The weather had been threatening rain all day, so we cancelled the 40-mile ride down the coast and ate at a local steak house.

After the meal, we headed back down town to revisit the zoo after dark. This time some of the roads were blocked, and we had to make a bunch of right hand turns followed by a quick U-turn. Somewhere during this we lost a bunch at the rear of the column, and Vicki was one of them. We (the main body of the group) found ourselves headed south on Beach Street when we came upon a "Drag Race Machine". It was a duel dynamometer where the bikes were tied down next to each other and the race was on. We watched several races, some of which were pretty amazing. A Twin V bike called a "Confederate" ran a pretty respectful run, doing a quarter mile in under 11 seconds. I had heard some Wings had run, but didn’t get any info on how they did, and No, I didn’t run mine. I would have… yea right… but my spark plugs have 58,000 miles on them and my K&N air filters due to be cleaned, so there wasn’t any point.

Then a couple of 130 hp "Harleys" hooked up, and neither of them could complete a quarter mile run. The sport bikes were cool, most of them running in the low 10’s or upper 9 seconds for the quarter mile, and topped our over 180-mph in the half mile run. Dragbars wanted to run his Super Charged Valkyrie, but by this time they were shutting down for the night. I excused my self to go find out what had happened to Vicki. The group suggested I find her before hitting the sack, not waiting for her to get back to the hotel on her own. As luck would have it, she and some friends were waiting for me poolside when I got to the hotel. I had the limes for margaritas which were removed from my bike before I could even park. Vicki’s getting pretty well known for her margaritas. I put my bike to bed and joined the party. Tomorrow Dragbars and Lamont would show the drag racing fans how it was done.

Saturday, 21 Oct. 2000

This morning we had breakfast at the Cracker Barrel next to our hotel, then to "The Booth". Now I gotta tell ya, we didn’t get up too early, so by the time we got to the booth things were really happening. The 10:00 ride had already headed out, about 5 minutes before we got there so we made a tour of all the vendors at this site, and just hung out for a while. Uncle Jack was supposed to show up around noon, so we hung loose till he and "Big Boy" made an appearance. It was good to see them, always nice to see folks from back home. Jack told us someone had asked him what the difference was between a Honda and a Harley. He told them you rode a Honda, you carried a Harley. To be honest, I have to admit I saw a couple of Hondas on trailers, but I’ll bet it wasn’t more than a dozen, but we had that many Harleys in trailers at the Hotel. After hearing how many Harleys were stolen in March, I can’t say I blame them. After Jack and Big Boy took off for home, a bunch of us went looking for the famous "Iron Horse Saloon". As I understand it you can ride your bike into parts of this bar. They also have burn out pits for those who find it fun to stand in one place and burn their back tire off. Yes, as hard to understand as that is, people will burn their tires off for the "fun" of it. The Saloon is north of Ormond Beach on Hwy. 1 a couple of miles, and must be quite a place because we couldn’t find a place to park within walking distance. We did a "fast" drive by and headed back to the now famous "Booth".

This evening we decided to have seafood at a place on the beach called Shells. We pulled in and I hurried in to get our name on the list. We had 20 people with us this night, and while we waited for a table, we sat out side on the deck and watched the parade of bikes go by. One three wheeler was made from a Volkswagen Van rear end and a Boat front end. It must have been about an18 footer and came complete with an outboard motor. Even the running lights worked.

I’ve got to admit I didn’t get to see much of the women walking around showing all they had, but I did catch a couple dressed, well maybe dressed isn’t the correct word, lets try attired in a thong bikini and chaps. Real cheek chillers. One girl had a tattoo on each cheek but Vicki wouldn’t let me get close enough to see what they were. Go figure! At one of the bars they had girls in bikini’s cleaning your bike if you wanted, we chose to let it go for later.

Anyway after eating we headed for the drag machine again so our boys could show how it was done. While we waited a Buell, which is a Harley sport bike, went up against a real sport bike, and did so poorly he gave up about a third of the way on the final run. The person running the machine said the day before someone had brought another Buell he had bought on E-Bay for $3800.00. I see why he let it go!

Bike after bike came and went nothing much new until they brought a $39,000, nitrous injected super bike made of Harley after market parts. Now lets give the bike its due, it looked great and ran well for what it was, however the big let down was his nitrous bottle must have been empty cause when he hit the button nothing happened. He still topped out at 128 mph, so there’s no telling how he would have done if the nitro had worked.

Then came "The Machines". Dragbars on the left, Lamont on the right. The bikes were strapped in, staged, the christmas tree counted down, and then the earth shook. As the lights progressed showing both bikes heading down the track, fire was blasting out of Dragbars exhaust as he shifted gears. When all was said and done, both bikes blew away competition in the quarter mile, and the only thing that beat them was the sport bike in the half-mile. Dragbars topped out at 153 mph and Lamont at 144. No doubt the Rice Burners were riding proud that night! I think Dragbars turned a quarter mile in 9.8 seconds.

As we were heading for the hotel Lamont and Dragbars were planning to tune on their rides and head back to the machine on Sunday at noon.

Sunday, 22 Oct. 2000

We took our time getting up on Sunday, ate the continental breakfast offered at the hotel, and headed for "The Booth". A crowd had gathered watching Dragbars and Lamont tune on their rides. Also Lamont was installing trigger wheels at a feverish pace.

The drag machine was supposed to open at High Noon. We got a late start from the booth, so we got there around 12:30. A crowd had already gathered. Strangely, we didn’t see any stock Harleys run, I wonder why. Anyway, after what seemed like forever our Boys entered the arena. Dragbars had a great run; Lamont had a hard time due to some other modifications to his bike that effected the Dyna-tech ignition. As I recall, Dragbars improved both his time in the quarter mile, and top end in the half.

Vicki and I had to leave for home, but when we were getting ready to leave Lamont was reinstalling the stock ignition system for another run. I guess this makes it official, the Black Valkyries are the fastest.

Vicki and I headed out about 14:30 and made tracks north coming to a rest in Albany, Georgia.

Monday, 23 Oct. 2000

We hit the road early and it was a little cooler than we thought so we quickly pulled over to allow Miss Vicki to put on another jacket. Somewhere between Albany and the Alabama border is where Vicki ran the police blockade. We were motoring along enjoying the view when a truck passed us blinking his headlights. We just figured they were blinking to alert us to Vicki’s modulating headlight. This happens a lot, I guess they figure flashing their lights at us will communicate that hers is doing it too? Anyway, we rounded the bend in the road and came upon a passel of Police standing in the road with several cars and trucks sitting off to the side. Now most people would stop when an officer extends his hand, but not Miss Vicki, She thinks their just saying "How Do", so she just keeps going. About the time she passes the third Officer, they get the hint she’s not stopping so they holler…Whoa! I was just about to tell her to stop on the radio when she pulled over. Now how he knew she would understand "horse trainer talk" I’m not sure, but it did work and they proceeded to check our drivers license endorsements and sent us on our way.

We blew across Alabama and into Mississippi in short order and made it back to Tennessee in time to have dinner at Don Pablos.

We had a great time, and I guess this is the last of our planned rides this year, the rest of the year will be spent closer to home.