Inaugural Barber Vintage Festival
(Page 2 of 3)
March/April 2006
By Richard Backus
As well as it went, the event wasn’t without some teething problems. “There are a few areas we could improve on,” Slark admits. “We need more toilet facilities, and more variety in food vendors.” Fairly minor issues really, and both easy to address. Slark says an estimated 10,000 enthusiasts were on hand for the AHRMA races and Vintage Festival, and he’s convinced part of the draw is geographical. “It’s a unique event in the South, because for years everyone’s had to go north or down to Daytona. I can see in about three or four years this is going to be a bloody good event.”
RELATED CONTENT
Classics will shine at the International Motorcycle Shows in California...
Although most people in the mid-1980s thought vintage bikes were just old junk, there were a few en...
For the record, there is no stairway to heaven. You get there by taking Interstate 20 to exit 140, ...
Been promising yourself a trip to Alabama’s Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum but keep putting it o...
Vintage motorcycle racing returns to the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio, for the 18t...
Vintage wrenching
That’s what Jerry Liggett, team manager for Steel Breeze Racing, calls AHRMA’s Historic Cup Roadrace Series. “A lot of guys think they’ll get a vintage bike because it’s cheap, easy racing. And it’s the exact opposite of that. I don’t call it vintage racing, I call it vintage wrenching, because you’re wrenching about 100 hours for every one hour on the track.”
Liggett, owner of the ’72 Triumph triple that racing legend Gary Nixon rode to Formula Vintage victory at Barber, got into AHRMA’s racing series in 1992. But it was in 2004 that he scored big and got Nixon, back-to-back winner of the 1967 and 1968 AMA Grand National Championships, as his rider.
“I got a call from (Sandia Classic organizer) Craig Murray, and he said, ‘Hey, would you mind letting Gary ride your bike?’ I said ‘Gary who?’ and he said Gary Nixon! So we went to Sandia in 2004 with the bike and made arrangements.”
That first ride at Sandia set the stage for the next year, with Steel Breeze Racing and Nixon establishing a string of wins in 2005 that led to Nixon’s final win in the series. Their first taste of victory came at Willow Springs in April, where Nixon took first place both days, but Liggett carries stronger memories from their outing at Daytona the month before. “When he rode that bike, he looked like he should be on the cover of GQ. The leathers matched the paint job, and it was a total accident. It was perfect.”
When Nixon swung his leg over Liggett’s bike, it signaled his first competitive run back on the track since the Legend series of the ‘90s: Nixon won the series in ’95 and ’97. And make no mistake, it is competitive, with ex-champs like Jay Springsteen and rising contenders like Robert Hurst raising the ante and keeping the pressure on. “You can’t let the fact that it’s vintage take anything away it. It’s an AMA national race, and with the work involved and the speeds involved, the preparation is intense,” says Liggett. And why race with Steel Breeze? “He’s into it, he’s trying to make it good,” Nixon says of LIggett. “If it wasn’t for Jerry, I probably wouldn’t be doing this.”