Congratulations to Dave Rosenbery, our winner in the Motorcycle Classics/Barber Vintage Festival Sweepstakes! A long-time Motorcycle Classics reader and an avid vintage bike fan, Dave is getting ready to head from his Illinois home to Leeds, Ala., for his first visit to the incredible Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum and the 7^th Annual Barber Vintage Festival.

A mechanic and a life-long rider, Dave’s owned more than a few interesting motorcycles, including Yamaha RDs, a Cushman scooter and an MV Agusta 750S America! His current ride is a 2007 Triumph Tiger, a brand he’s particularly fond of having previously owned a 1967 500 and a 1967 Bonneville. And he’s more than a little thrilled to be heading to Barber, a place he’s wanted to visit but hasn’t been able to just yet. “I’m semi-retired but still working,” Dave tells us, “but I’ve never had the extra money to go down there.”

 
Barber Festival Sweepstakes winner Dave Rosenbery with his Triumph Tiger.

Well, now he is going to Barber, as the guest of the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum, who are providing him with tickets for the three-day festival, passes to the museum and its 900-plus collection of motorcycles, two front row tickets to Auctions America’s Barber Motorcycle Auction, three nights lodging, plus a pair of Barber Vintage Festival T-shirts and caps.

We’ll catch up with Dave at Barber, and let this be a lesson to you, because the next time we run a sweepstakes, it could be you heading down for a free weekend at the Barber Vintage Festival! See you at Barber! – Richard Backus 

Moto Guzzi will be the featured marque at the Motorcycle Classics Vintage Motorcycle Show at the 7th Annual Barber Vintage Festival, Saturday, Oct. 8, 2011, at the Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham, Ala. 

Join Motorcycle Classics and Moto Guzzi for a special celebration of Moto Guzzi’s 90th Anniversary at the 7th Annual Barber Vintage Festival. In addition to our regular bike show, there will be a special Guzzi class, with all winners chosen by a panel of celebrity judges including Barber’s own Brian Slark! Even if you don’t want to compete for a trophy, if you ride a Moto Guzzi you’re invited to park it at our tent – space permitting – mingle with the Guzzi faithful and check out the latest from Moto Guzzi, including, we hope, the new V7 Racer.

 
The U.S.-spec Moto Guzzi V7 Racer 

The Motorcycle Classics Vintage Motorcycle Show at the 7th Annual Barber Vintage Festival will be held in the Expo Area on the south side of the Barber track. The show begins at 10 a.m., Saturday, October 8, and the award ceremony starts at 3:00 p.m. Motorcycle Classics Vintage Motorcycle Show trophies will be awarded in the following categories:

Best Moto Guzzi (Featured Marque)
Best American – Best Restored & Best Rider
Best British – Best Restored & Best Rider
Best European – Best Restored & Best Rider
Best Japanese – Best Restored & Best Rider
Best Custom
Editors’ Choice
People’s Choice

We encourage participants to arrive early for set up. Registration opens at 8 a.m., Saturday, October 8, and the show begins at 10 a.m. Judging starts at 2:30 p.m., followed by our award ceremony beginning at 3:00 p.m. An entry fee of $25 is required at registration and includes a 1-year subscription to Motorcycle Classics and a Motorcycle Classics T-shirt. Additional bikes are only $5. Questions? Feel free to email us at editor@motorcycleclassics.com and put “Barber Festival” in the subject line.

And don’t forget all the other cool stuff going on during the Barber Vintage Festival, including the incredible Aeroshell Aerobatic Team, the annual Race of the Century for bikes 100 years and older, the Rhett Rotten Wall of Death motorcycle stunt show, the Glenn Bator/Auction America Barber Motorcycle Auction, Barber NCR Ducstock National Ducati Party organized by Ducati.net, and of course fantastic vintage motorcycle racing with the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association all day Saturday and Sunday. Did we mention that 1993 500cc Grand Prix Champion Kevin Schwantz will be racing, riding the Ken McIntosh Norton Manx?!

Plus, 2011 Daytona 200 winner Jason DiSalvo will be at Friday night’s Motorcycles by Moonlight Barber Museum fundraising dinner, along with former Cycle editor and AMA Superbike star Cook Neilson, former Ducati superstar Paul Smart and motorsports commentator Alain de Cadenet. It’s a weekend not to be missed, so don’t! See you there! – Richard Backus 

The Motorcycle Classics tent at the 2011 Bonneville Vintage GP at Miller Motorsports Park. Perfect weather brought great crowds.  

Miller Motorsports Park doesn’t release attendance numbers, but our seat of the pants assessment is that the 6^th Annual Bonneville Vintage GP was the best attended yet. Mid-80s temps and absolutely brilliant blue skies encouraged better local participation, aided further by the appearance of the Triumph Demo Truck, an enormous semi packed with the latest and greatest from Triumph. And the Motorcycle Classics tent was humming all day Saturday, with a killer selection of classic bikes at the Motorcycle Classics Vintage Motorcycle show.

Simply put, it was a great show. Competitors in the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Assoc. (AHRMA) series love the Miller track, a point well proven by the 360 entries in 33 categories for two days of racing at Miller, Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 3-4, 2011. Yours truly competed in his first-ever race, Sunday’s Battle of the CB160s Le Mans Start, after successfully completing the AHRMA race school on Friday, Sept. 2. Led by instructor Andrew Cowell, aspiring vintage racers were taken through an exhaustive day learning the basics of on-track riding and preparation. It was an unbelievably cool experience, which I’ll share in detail in a future issue of Motorcycle Classics. Suffice to say I’m now a convert to vintage racing, and I’ll be encouraging everyone I know to consider taking the AHRMA school and getting out on the track. It’s without question the most fun I’ve ever had without getting arrested; I’m still trying to wipe the smile off my face.

Special thanks to major sponsor Moto Guzzi for making our show happen, and to the sponsors shown below for their support in helping us spread the word to encourage vintage motorcycle fans everywhere to get involved and share their passion for classic motorcycles. -- Richard Backus 

 
Getting in my first laps at Miller aboard Michael Bateman's Honda CB160/175 hybrid. You don't need big horsepower to have fun, as CB160 racers across the country have learned.