5th Annual Barber Vintage Festival
Oct. 9-11, 2009 in Leeds, Ala.
September/October 2009
By Motorcycle Classics staff
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Randy Brown’s lovely BMW R90/6 Café, one of our top picks at the 2007 Barber Vintage Festival.
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With some 600 classic motorcycles on display at any given time, including some of the rarest and oddest bikes you’ll ever cast your eyes on (10-foot-long, 700-pound 1925 Bohmerland, anyone?), the Barber museum in Leeds, Ala., is one of the top — if not the top — motorsports museums in the world.
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Established by George Barber and in its current 80,000-square-foot digs since 2003, the museum sits on the edge of the Barber Motorsports Park, a world-class 2.38-mile race track where you can catch everything from the annual Porsche 250 race to American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association (AHRMA) vintage motorcycle racing.
Sounds like a great place for a vintage party, no?
That’s exactly what the folks at Barber thought, too, when they established the Barber Vintage Festival in 2005. Now in its fifth iteration, the event has grown exponentially every year.
And for good reason — it’s a rockin’ event, with incredible bikes, a rapidly growing swap meet, a classic bike auction conducted by Bator International, and great vintage road and motocross racing, all within the 740-acre Barber complex.
We’ve been there since the beginning, and we’ll be there again this year, with a special show on Saturday, Oct. 10, celebrating the rabble-rousing café racer. Crafted from a unique mix of passion and the need for speed, the café racer has evolved from the bad-lad bike of choice for the mad Ton-Up Boys in England to represent the ultimate expression of individuality and style.
In a world where everything’s the same, a café racer is what you make it, nothing more, nothing less.
Expect an incredible display of delectable café racers, with prizes for Editor’s Choice/Best of Show and People’s Choice. Winners will take home a new set of Pirelli tires and a Nexx X60 retro-style helmet, and everyone has a chance to win the Motorcycle Classics/BikeBandit.com Project Café 1973 CB500, which we’ll give away at the show.
Space is limited, so sign up now (www.MotorcycleClassics.com/CafeBikeShow) as Dairyland Cycle Insurance and Motorcycle Classics present the Café Bike Show at the 5th Annual Barber Vintage Festival.