Leanings

LEANINGS

Daytona park bench

Peter Egan

EVERY YEAR I SWEAR I'M NOT GOING back to Daytona. Too much traffic, too expensive, too few curves and hills in the surrounding countryside, etc. "Next year," I tell myself, "I'm just gonna haul my bike to the Southwest—maybe Arizona or New Mexico—and ride for a week; use the engine and brakes for something except crawling down Atlantic Avenue in a raft of overheating Harleys and sportbikes."

Then March comes around again, L after four or five months of Midwestern snow, and suddenly the word “Daytona” starts singing in your ear like the song of the Lorelei, which in legend caused so many sailors to bash their brains out on the rocks of the Rhine. In this case the song is equal parts surf lapping on white sand and palm branches rustling in the evening Gulfstream breeze, luring you South. When

you get there, of course, the dominant sound of Daytona is straight Harley pipes and the primal scream of a spring-break college student yelling a familiar obscenity in your hotel hallway at 3 a.m. because (a) lie’s locked himself out of his room and (b) his roommate is too drunk to get to the door. If you could paint this scene from an overhead perspective, you might title the work: “Two Drunks, Separated by Plywood.” But never mind all that; the sea and the warm breeze beckon. So

I did it again this year; loaded a couple of bikes into my huge new Ford van and headed south. Skittering around on our icy driveway, I managed to get my Ducati 900SS into the van without dropping it, and my friend Chris Beebe brought his BMW RIOOS. Made a first-night stop in Nashville so I could go to Gruhn’s guitar shop (in search of exactly the right walnut ES335 Gibson, which I did not find), another stop in Atlanta to see my brother Brian and eat superb barbecue and hear a little blues at Fat Matt’s. I

should mention that we also made a short side-trip into Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and actually found the very barracks where, 25 years ago, almost to the day, I began basic training in the Army. March 4th, 1969. The barracks were empty, but looked exactly the same-floors waxed and buffed, bunks in place. I

told Chris I would pay $100 to stay in my old bunk overnight, just so 1 could get up late in the morning, leave my bed unmade, climb into my van and drive away. The Army is missing a great economic opportunity here. Anyway,

we made it to Daytona early the next evening, checked into our hotel, immediately unloaded the bikes and took a ride down Atlantic Avenue. It was then I remembered why I keep coming back: To look at motorcycles. One

of the several drawbacks of the Midwestern winter is that you don’t get to see many motorcycles. Sure, you can visit your friends’ garages and look at their bikes, but usually you’ve already seen them. Many, many times. You can also go to motorcycle shops, but the pickings get mighty slim during the darkest months of winter. Snowblowers and snowmobiles edge out the shrinking handful of leftover motorcycles gathering dust at one end of the showroom. After a while, you simply become starved for a look at the shapes and colors of bikes beyond those in your own immediate universe. Hearing

them run would also be nice. Or seeing them move. In w'inter, the northern half of North America is essentially one vast motorcycle museum. A static display. So.

Once we were settled in Daytona, Chris and I discovered an ideal spot for the viewing of motorcycles in motion. It was a park bench, right outside our hotel on Atlantic Avenue. After riding back from the races, auctions or dinner every evening, we would fix ourselves a proper Daytona cocktail (Jack Daniel’s poured into a can of Coke), sit down on the bench and watch the bikes go by. Thousands

of them. Harleys,

of course, predominate in Daytona. An evening on the park bench makes you wonder if Milwaukee and York aren’t cranking out bikes on a wartime schedule, like the Liberty Ship and B-17 factories of WWíl. One

evening Chris said, “Okay, let’s count bikes for the next five minutes. I’ll count Harleys and you count all the others.” Our total was 128 Harleys and 3 1 Others. We

decided that BMWs were the second most numerous marque on the streets of Daytona, curiously overrepresented, relative to their total sales numbers. Old slash-2s, new R1 100s and all models in between. This, I suspect, is because BMW owners traditionally go places on their bikes, and Daytona is a place to go. The

third largest group of bikes, collectively, were Japanese sportbikes, Honda CBR600F2s being the most common single model. Strangely, there were not many Gold Wings in the Japanese mix. We saw more ST1100s, believe it or not, than Wings. Of

the British bikes, Norton Commandos seemed most numerous, followed by Triumphs of all years, mostly Bonnevilles. A smattering of BSAs and Vincents filled out the mix. All

good stuff, a feast for the ears and eyes. Then, suddenly, it was Sunday night and the week was over. We left our bench, loaded up the bikes and headed north. On

the way home, Chris and I both agreed we’d had enough of Daytona for a while and began the inevitable discussion of alternate trips for next year. Get out of the traffic and ride. After all, isn’t riding what it’s really all about? The

answer, we concluded after much discussion, is yes and no. Riding

is only half of what this sport is all about. The other half, for want of a better word, might be called “looking.” Daytona gives you some of each. And racing too. So,

I don’t know if either of us will return next year or not. That’s a question that can only be answered after several blizzards, a couple of ice storms and four or five dark months of staring at the same old motionless bikes. Check back in early March. □ 10