The Heart of America Motorcycle Enthusiasts 21st Annual Vintage Motorcycle Rally at the National Airline History Museum in downtown Kansas City, Mo., is this Sunday, June 3. A spectacularly cool show, it’s held in the cavernous hold of one of the old airline hangars at Kansas City’s Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport.

Described in an early 1960s Federal Aviation Administration memo as “the most dangerous airport in the country” — it’s directly across the Missouri River from downtown Kansas City — the airport has been rally headquarters for four years, and it’s proved to be immensely popular.

And for good reason. The National Airline History Museum is no ordinary museum, housing five classic airliners, including a spectacular 1958 Lockheed Super Constellation, which the museum has fired up during previous rallies. Old airplanes and motorcycles seem to be a natural match, and listening to the “Super-Connie” roar is as cool as the first time you hear a Vincent Rapide bark out its distinctive twin-cylinder beat.

Extend the weekend by getting there Friday, June 1, for the First Friday vintage ride-in block party in the Crossroads district of downtown Kansas City. K.C. Brake Service is hosting a motorcycle ride-in from 5:30 p.m.-8 p.m. at 19th & McGee, right in the heart of the Crossroads. Food and refreshments -- including Boulevard Beer! -- will be provided. The Crossroads is just a stone’s throw from the Airline History Museum and downtown, and the ride-in will be a great opportunity to meet local riders and owners before the big rally on Sunday. Old bike or new, everyone's welcome to the Friday block party.

We’ll be at the rally as we have every year, along with thousands of other vintage bike fans who return for what’s become a seminal event on the classic bike calendar. Last year’s rally saw trophies awarded in 24 classes, and this year Motorcycle Classics will award the trophy for People’s Choice. Ducati is the featured marque, with special displays of classic and modern models of the iconic brand. See you there! – Richard Backus 

  
The late great Gary Nixon. 

Almost a year after he died, the personal racing collection of two-time AMA Grand National Champion and racing Hall of Famer Gary Nixon is going up for sale. Nixon, who amassed 19 AMA National victories and 150 Grand National finishes in his 22-year pro career, passed away Aug. 5, 2011, at the age of 70.

Maybe it's only me, but I'm struck by how long it’s taken for Nixon’s personal collection to head to auction. And what I’d really like to know is; how much of his collection has already been picked over? Only two of his earlier race bikes are being offered – a 1968 Triumph 250 and a 1967 Triumph Cub. In a career spanning 30-plus years, surely Nixon had hoarded some of his other bikes or facsimiles thereof? In fact, the only other bikes on offer are a 1986 Kawasaki 250 Ninja that Nixon is said to have raced in Mexico and a 2009 Kawasaki 250 Ninja, his personal street bike. And while I haven’t counted the total lots on offer, it looks surprisingly small given the breadth and depth of Nixon’s racing career.   

Whatever lies behind the state of his motorcycle collection, there should be big interest in the rest of the items on hand, including personal racing memorabilia, photographs, motorcycle parts, and several national trophies from the earlier part of his career including trophies from Sacramento in 1964 and Santa Fe in 1963 and 1965.

Auction company Good Old Boy Country Auction will hold the sale Saturday, June 16, 2012, starting at 9 a.m., at its facilities at 545 East Locust Lane, York, PA 17406. An auction preview is scheduled for Friday, June 15, from 1 p.m. – 5 p.m. More information on the auction can be found here.

Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch? Roaring into the summer show and riding season, Motorcycle Classics has rolled out three killer sweepstakes, including a full set of River Road riding gear and a free tour on vintage Italian motorcycles with RetroTours, a hotel room and free entry to the 8^th Annual Barber Vintage Festival, and the show-stopper of them all, a chance to win our BMW classic bike project in the Motorcycle Classics/Dairyland Cycle Race to Rebuild.

The first in our triumvirate of sweepstakes is the RetroTours Redneck Giro Sweepstakes, which includes a full set of leather riding gear – jacket, pants, gloves and boots – from River Road Motorcycle Gear. Riding vintage Italian motorcycles from Benelli, Ducati, Laverda, Moto Guzzi and Moto Morini, RetroTour’s exclusive three-day Redneck Giro explores West Virginia’s amazing mountain roads and back country. You’ll ride, eat, and ride some more in this utterly unique tour – and be comfortable doing it wearing new leather riding gear from River Road. You’ll be responsible for getting yourself to tour headquarters, but once you’re there, we’ll take care of the rest, including bikes, gas and lodging. It all happens September 7-9, 2012, so sign up now!

Next up is our Barber Vintage Festival Sweepstakes, a weekend for two at the 8th Annual Barber Vintage Festival. If you've never witnessed the spectacle that is the Barber Vintage Festival, you don't know what you're missing. The world's greatest motorcycle museum, great vintage motorcycle racing, an incredible old-bike swap meet, classic bikes shows from Motorcycle Classics and others, not to mention vintage aerial acrobatics and the annual Race of the Century for bikes 100 years old or older – Classic motorcycle meets just don't get any better than this. And this year, you've got a shot at taking it all in – for free.

The winners – it's a prize for two – will get a pair of passes to the 8th Annual Barber Vintage Festival Oct. 12-14, 2012, plus passes to the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum, two nights lodging and front row tickets to the classic bike auction. Getting there is your responsibility, but if you're our winner, once you're there you'll be pretty much taken care of for the entire weekend. Pretty sweet deal – and it could be yours!

Finally, there’s the big dog in our trio of sweepstakes, the Motorcycle Classics/Dairyland Cycle Race to Rebuild. Motorcycle Classics has teamed up with Dairyland Cycle to build a Custom BMW Café, and when we’re done, you could be riding it home if you’re name is chosen in the Motorcycle Classics/Dairyland Cycle Race to Rebuild Sweepstakes. Signing up is easy: Just go to Dairyland Cycle's Facebook page, like them, then click on Race to Rebuild to enter the Motorcycle Classics/Dairyland Cycle Race to Rebuild Sweepstakes.

This is much more than just a sweepstakes, because you get to have a voice as we undertake this months-long project. The first order of business was choosing our project bike, and we asked you to help by voting for one of four candidates; BMW’s long-legged R90/6, Harley-Davidson’s old-school Iron Head Sportster 1000, Honda’s iconic and revolutionary B750 Four, and the last of the “real” Triumphs, the classic T140 750 Bonneville. You chose the BMW, and we’re looking for our candidate bike right now. And as we move forward you can join in on the conversation and follow our progress online. Weigh in with your opinion on what we’re doing, and tell us what you’d like to see on our finished bike. How? Easy, just join the conversation anytime at Dairyland Cycle’s Facebook page, where we’ll regularly post our progress and let you know what’s up as our BMW Café takes shape. We’ll also post updates here, and of course we’ll feature highlights of the build in every issue of Motorcycle Classics. The best part comes when it’s done, because some lucky reader will ride our project bike home when we give it away!

Our sweepstakes will run through the year, so sign up now to cement your chance to ride our custom BMW home in the Motorcycle Classics/Dairyland Cycle Race to Rebuild!

 
Best of Show: Simon Graham's 1974 MV Agusta 750S.

Marty Dickerson’s Bonneville record-holding 1948 Vincent Rapide, aka “The Blue Bike.” Arturo and Giovanni Magni’s first-ever Brit-powered special, the Magni Rocket 3. Gene Brown’s 1-mile, completely original 1961 BSA Gold Star. Jim Bush’s Brutale 750-powered Magni-styled retro replica. These were just a few of the incredible machines that greeted motorcycle aficionados at the 2012 The Quail Motorcycle Gathering.

And what a gathering it was. Thanks to a perfect combination of fantastic motorcycles, clear-blue skies and the luxurious surroundings that are the Quail Lodge Golf Club in tony Carmel, Calif., the fourth annual The Quail Motorcycle Gathering was an unqualified success. Some 1,500 motorcycle enthusiasts took the opportunity to indulge themselves in their favorite passion, strolling around the lush Quail Lodge grounds while examining the 250 bikes on display.

 
Left to right: Giovanni Magni, Jerry Liggett and Brent Lenehan stand with their creation, the Magni Rocket 3, at its Quail unveiling. 

Personal favorites included: Simon Graham’s Best of Show-winning 1974 MV Agusta 750S, a bike he actually rides; a 1914 Feilbach Limited (one of only a handful in existence); Jim Bush’s Magni Classic Race Replica, a bike so perfect looking you had to look twice before you realized it’s not something MV – or Magni – ever built; and Jan Wenneberg’s faultless 1954 Nimbus, which for some reason he actually let me ride. Fabulous.

 
Jim Bush's Brutale-powered Magni Classic Race Replica. The inspiration is obvious, the execution fantastic. 

This was my first visit to the Quail, which launched in 2009 to fill the void left when a tanking economy forced Jared Zaugg to cancel his foundation-setting Legend of the Motorcycle event held in Half Moon Bay, Calif. Three years in the running, LOM arguably set the stage for the current flock of high-level motorcycle shows, and was instrumental in raising the profile of the vintage motorcycle scene. Frankly, had it not been for Zaugg and LOM, I doubt the Quail event would exist.

 
American 1st Place: Gene Brown on his 1947 Indian Chief. Gene also took first in European with his 1-mile 1961 BSA Gold Star. 

Fortunately, it does, and it’s rapidly becoming a must-attend on the vintage bike calendar. At $65 it’s not exactly cheap, but the lunch was absolutely fantastic and probably worth almost half the entry fee, and the espresso at the Ducati tent was perfectly brewed and served in real demitasse cups. Elegance has its place.

 
One of my favorites: Michal Wojtowicz's 1940 Zundapp KS600 is a rider; I saw him on it later pulling into Alice's Restaurant on Skyline Drive. 

And of course the bikes were killer. While there were a few that seemed out of place, like a somewhat ratty caféd CB750, a CB350 Four with aftermarket 4-into-1 pipes and some specials that, well, just didn’t seem very special, the overall quality of entrants was excellent. The 2013 event will be scheduled soon and should fall in the same time frame, which would be May 4. Whenever it is, don’t miss it. It’s fabulous.

 
Jan Wenneberg let me ride his perfect 1954 Nimbus. I think my smile says it all. 

 
1946 MV Agusta 98cc Velocita, MV's first race bike. 

Wanna buy an MV Agusta? How about 71 at once? Mecum Auctions has lined up what must be the single largest collection of MV Agustas in the world, and all 71 bikes – dating from 1946 to 2007 – are to be sold as a single lot at Mecum’s Monterey Auction August 16-18, 2012.

Among the 71 MVs amassed by collector Gary Kohs is a rare 98cc 1946 “Velocita” or Sport. Based on MV’s first production motorcycle, the 1946 MV 98, the Sport was the very first racing machine produced by Count Dominico Agusta and his brothers in their small factory in Cascina Costa, Italy.

The depth and breadth of the collection is nothing short of amazing, including both memorable (like the 750S America) and largely unknown examples of the marque, such as a 1956 48cc Ciclomotore. Typically, you’d expect a collection this large to be broken up into individual lots; it’s got to be easier to find a single buyer for a single 1975 MV 750S America than for a 750S plus 70 other MVs. That doesn’t seem to worry Mecum, however, who think the collection will be a huge draw. “Gary Kohs spent so much time and effort – and passion – putting this together, it made sense to keep them together as a group,” Mecum’s Sam Murtaugh told me recently. Murtaugh says the collection is generating a lot of interest in Italy, where some would like to see it go. “Some people think they need to come back ‘home’ – maybe to the MV museum. I think they’re lobbying to get them,” Murtaugh adds.

 
1975 MV Agusta 750S America will be sold as part of the collection. 

If you’re interested in previewing the collection, don’t miss the 4^th Annual The Quail Motorcycle Gathering on May 5, where 32 of Kohs’ MVs will be on display. It is to dream …