Go Show

Go show

UP FRONT

David Edwards

SHOW JUDGING IS A GOOD WAY TO MAKE one friend for life and 14 instant enemies, and I was doing a bang-up job of it a few years back at the Santa Barbara Concours d’Elegance.

My major misdeed?

I was asking entrants to start their motorcycles, of all things.

The British class came down to three flawless restorations, a Vincent Black Shadow, a Norton 650SS and perhaps the tastiest Triumph TR6 I’d ever seen; an Ivory and Aztec Red beauty that positively glistened in the mid-morning sun. Next to it, presented under plexiglass like ancient artifacts were the original toolkit and owner’s manual.

After complimenting the owner and asking a few questions, I invited him to fire it up.

“Well, umm, the gas tank’s empty,” came the halting reply.

I told him we had fuel.

“The oil tank’s empty, too,” a little incensed now. “No one told me I’d have to start the bike.”

I pointed out the “at judge’s discretion” clause on the entry blanks and said we could probably round up a few quarts of 20w50.

“Look, I’ve been told that adding gas and oil will lower the value of my bike,” he huffed.

I informed the man he had an exquisite work of art but it wasn’t really a motorcycle, and awarded probably the most perfect machine on the showgrounds a third in class. Teedoff? Let’s just say he’s most likely not on the Cycle World subscription roles.

This is actually one of the dirty little secrets of the motorcycle concours world. In the five years I was heavily involved in showing bikes, only once was I asked to start an engine. This, to settle a tie in the 1940-57 class at the Ventura Show. My little Velocette GTP burst into life to the applause of the gathered throng, while the other candidate-a virginal Indian Chief-sat silent, its owner apparently afraid of the dread Blued Pipe Disease.

Pampering is hardly limited to metal parts. At a past Del Mar Concours, the owner of a pristine Triumph Tiger was asked to roll his bike to a location better suited for a magazine photo shoot. This he did, but only after laying down a succession of shop rags lest his original Dunlop Gold Seal K70s be sullied by even a solitary blade of God’s green grass. A little silly, this bike meant to be gunned down a gravel road or across a farmer’s field, being fussed after like a dowager queen.

This is not how it works at most automobile shows. Entries must start, idle and be able to move under their own power, lights and horns are checked, sometimes even windshield wipers are tested. Phil Koenen, a friend who runs Grand Touring, an Anaheim, California, car-restoration shop, actually had a Pebble Beach restoration go from first to third in class just because the car’s horn made a feeble little chirp then packed it in altogether. No sour grapes from Phil, though.

“I think cars and bikes should run as well as they look,” he says. “If it’s a true, 100-point vehicle, it should operate like one.”

That’s the idea behind the Cycle World Classic, give or take a few points.

Run as part of the Sonomafest vintage race weekend, the Classic was a rolling concours-meaning entrants had to complete a 50-mile loop before being judged. There are worse places to spend a few hours than bombing around the backroads of California’s wine country on a warm spring day, ending up trackside being serenaded by AHRMA racebikes. Entered machines had to be at least 25 years old, though we were pretty liberal in rulings about newer, “like-type” bikes.

Peter Egan, already escaped from chilly Wisconsin for a Road & Track assignment, joined Wendy Black and me on the judging panel. Corey Eastman, CWs marketing manager, helped with logistics and rode the route with us. Jerri Feola, events coordinator supreme, handled registration and the usual array of odds & ends. We even got one of the sales slicks in on the act-National Advertising Director Paul Labella behind the wheel of one of the support trucks.

Altogether, we put about 40 bikes on the road. The Northern California Norton and BSA clubs, always eager for a good ride, made up more than half of the entries. Only one major malfunction: A Douglas Dragonfly cuddled its opposed pistons to a standstill and completed the ride piggyback in a pickup. Best of Show went to a ’52 Vincent sidecar combo, vigorously ridden by owner Paul Zell with girlfriend Julie in the chair. Earlier this year, the bike also nabbed top honors at the San Mateo Cycle World Show (see “Vendetta Vincent,” page 84). The painstakingly beautiful Black Shadow was restored in Zell’s living room by the warm glow of a fireplace. As the job neared completion, friends implored him not to ride the bike, but instead keep it safe and sound as a mantelpiece. No chance of that, and even with a growing stash of show trophies, Zell maintains the Vincent’s home will always be out on the road, not in the concours corral.

“The real satisfaction for me is riding it down to the hardware store, coming out and having some 80-year-old guy compliment the bike, then tell me about his days aboard an old Excelsior Super X. That’s gratifying,” he says.

Thanks are in order to Sears Point Raceway for being genial hosts; to Triumph and Laverda for providing marshals’ bikes (Triumph America prez Mike Vaughan, who keeps a couple of old BSAs and an early Kawasaki in his garage, flew out from Georgia to take part in the Classic); to the AMA for sharing paddock space; and to Vintage Rebuilds’ Kenny Dreer, who trailered my just-finished, not-broken-in Norton SS880 all the way down from Oregon just so I’d have something neat to ride-I promise, Kenny, I never took it over 6000 rpm, honest....

Next year’s Cycle World Classic will take place in mid-April. If you’ve got a 1975 or older bike, consider yourself invited. Bring your own gas and oil. □