Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

FEATURE H LEY A ID O AR ·D V S N95TH ANNIVERSARY REUNION (Above left) Gearing up for rain out of Kansas City. Riders dealt with two days of everything from mist to deluge. (Left) The Davenport, Iowa , street party, Monday, June 8. (Above) H-D vice president of powertrain operations Ken Sutton shuttled his wife and 9-year-old son from Riverside, California, in this Tour Classic with sidecar. of a sky mi xed wi th the occasional billowy whi te cottonball cloud. I ran alo ng tha t Kansas two-lane, marveling at how the " plain" scenery of the Grea t Plains co u ld be so incred ibly eye- p leasing, interruptin g th ose th ou ghts on ly to wave at the occasio na l farmer on h is tractor , or chil d re n playin g in fro nt of their antique- looki ng farmhou ses. Whe n I finally reached Hays, I kn ew th a t I had made it. Whereas bef ore, I ra re ly saw another Harle y-Davidson, here they were everywhere you looked . It was awesome . Sports ters, ' baggers , Softails , hard tails. The "Wild On e" bikers on their chopjobs . Families in side- mm 8 . But firs t things first; I head ed straight to a pharmacy for so me alle rgy relief, and then checked in to the Best Western Vagabond Hotel. After tha t, I cruised d o wn to th e loca l s treet p a rty to see wha t wa s going on, spent an hour or so, and then return ed to my room to retire. Sometimes, Mo m , it's fu nn y ho w lucky I get. I was ou t cold when the firs t Harley cracked to life in the parking lot, acting as an alternative wake-u p call to the one that I had asked for. After cleaning up, I walked outside and watched as a guy was pu tting the finis hing tou ches on the spiff job of his bea utiful maroonbiege-a nd-black-Ieat her 95t h Anniversary Road King . As he fawned over the immacula te mach ine, I joki ngly offered to let him wo rk on mine whe n he was through. Next to his bike, 41ZF's dustcoated bl ack-an d-green pa int sch eme and bug-spl att ered wi ndscreen mad e it look like a heap. As it tu rns out, he later in troduced himself as Tom Haudricourt, "Corpo rate Spouse ." Tom is married to Trish Haudricourt, and Trish is Harl ey- Da vid son ' s direct or of meeti ng a n d travel services. As I cha tte d with Tom, who t old m e th at th is t r ip wa s t he coolest thing that he'd ever do ne, I realized that his was jus t one of the few 95th Anniversary specia ls resting in the par king lot. And then it dawned on me that I had actually found the heart of the ride, th e "core grou p" of Harley-David so n execu tives and VIPs. As everybody geared up for the ride, I noticed that the core group mem ber s were staging o n th e ot he r sid e of th e parking lot, next to a semi truck. So I figured I'd roll over ther e and check ' em ou t, and w ho do you suppose I found? The en tire Da v id son fa mil y, a s th ey we re making fina l preparations for the departure to Kansas City. I wanted to say hello to Will ie G. and his son, Bill. Remember, Mom , wh en I told you how I got to meet Willie and his wife, Nancy, and Bill durin g th e new-mod el in troduction in Milwaukee a year ago? That was a tru e car eer high light for me, but tha t was th en and this was now, and I was prepared to forma lly rein tr oduce myself. After all, Mom, they must meet th o u s ands of new people e ac h year. Th ere's no way to remember them all a nd , tru th be told , it ' s no t lik e Cycle News is th e type of Harl ey-Davidsononly publication that would make mine a "memorable'Iname to them an yw ay. So I walked u p , cleared my throa t and said, " Bil I,.I'm- " As Bill looked at me, a p leasa nt smile crossed his face. "Hey, Scott, how are you doing !?" he sa id w it h an en thu si asm th at rea lly shocked me. "It's good to see you. We heard that you were coming . I' m glad you mad e it okay." Mo m , if I was n't dumbfound ed alrea dy , I was when Bill tu rn ed to Willie G. and Na ncy and said so me th in g on the order of, "H ey, look who's here - it's Scott from CycleNews. He cau ght us." They bo th cam e over, smiles on their face s, and greete d me wa rmly. Willi e sa id tha t he, too, was gla d to see me, and he we nt on to rela y how mu ch he ha d a p p reci a te d m y s tory on th e ' 98 mod els and on his New Product Development Ce nter, which is loca ted rig h t behind the Ca pital Drive Engine Plant in Milwaukee. "You focused on the best part," Willie G. told me with a smile and wink. And soon after, Bill introduced me to his wife, Kally, his sister, Karen, who m I had never met , and his brother , Mich ael, w ho I didn't even know existed. Sorry, Mike. Flattery and prid e? That' s an under s ta te m en t, a n d I s u p pose th at I w ill never aga in seek my 15 min ut es of fame. As far as I am concerned, being greeted in such a man ner b y m oto rcycl ing' s "first famil y" will suffice. By then it was time to get going, and I wa ited for th e execu tives to pull out bef o re lat ch in go n to th e bac k of th e group as we rumbled to 1-70East for the d ay' s first leg, to Salina . The sensations were far differen t from those I felt d uring my solo portions of the trip. Instead ' of just one, the re we re now hundred s of V-tw ins, filling the air wi th an enchanting song th at pl ayed th rou gh miles of exhaust tubing . It was a thund er th a t ,tr u ly s ti r r ed th e sou l. From that mome nt, I was con tent to forego the CD pla yer for the rest of the trip. And m y oid friend , solitu de, was a dista nt memory , replaced by senses of cama raderie and compa nionship, w hich came not only fro m a score of fellow riders , but a lso from th e fa ns a nd wellwishers th at had awoken ea rly in th e mornin g just to see us all off. The fa nfare was unbelievable. Will ie G. la te r told me that the en th usia sm offered by th e p eop le of Ha ys re a lly b lew h im away an d was a defi nite highl igh t of his own experience. Our mot orcade rolled along to Salina, . where we stop ped for fuel, thus giving me my first group experience wi th such a n undertakin g. A fello w jo urna list, who had go ne on one of th e Anniver.sary rides prior to this one, warned me abou t the gas stops, w hic h were mor e like cattle calls. Instead of the 1Q-minu te breaks I had been u sed to, each gro up pit sto p was an hour-lon g layover, as hundreds of riders descended upon the pumps lik e a s warm , threaten in g the v er y s a n ity o f the attend an ts, who p inged every time the next gu y came in to say, "Hey, can you clear pump number..." I quickly learned to play it just a littl e smarter and stop at the station jus t down the street. We rumbled ou t of Salrna and back onto the 1-70, me electing to jump just a bit ahead before d ropping back into the gro u p - right behind so me guy with a Barbie Doll strapped to the backr est of his Road King. As w e rumbled toward Topeka, our next stop being the Kansas Historical Mu seum, I noticed that I was pretty close to the front - I could actually see Karen Da vid s on as she skillfu lly gu id ed her 95t h An niversa ry Heritage Softail Springer - but I never really gave it a thou ght. We rolled into the m useum parking lot, only to be greeted by an othe r a r my of b ik es th at w a s d efinit ely go ing to add a fair amo u nt of thunder to our party when we left. As I clim bed off to shoot so me p ictures, I was met by this mou ntain of a man, who mot ion ed me aside and then politely expla ined to me that he wo uld a p p reci ate it if I dropped back away fro m th e fam ily a littl e, yo u kn ow , for se cu rity reasons. Well , th e guy turned ou t to be "Barbie Man " Scott Phillips, of Riversid e, Ca lifornia . Ph illi ps, in hi s early 40s, was hired on as person al security for Willie G. and Na ncy Davidson. Despite that awkward first meeting, we talked aga in later, and I found ou t that Scott was a pretty cool person. He told me how much he' d en joyed th e trip, how it was such a trem endou s honor for him to be rid in g w it h th e David sons, and how he wo uld n' t tra de this experience for anyt hing. Beli e v e m e, M om, by n o w I wa s already beginning to ge t tha t same picture.

• Cover