VOL. 54 ISSUE 41 OCTOBER 17, 2017 P101
This year's American Historic Racing
Motorcycle Association Barber Vintage
Festival—the 13th in its history—was cut
one day short after Hurricane Nate made
his presence felt late Saturday night,
which kept spectator numbers down (with
no official numbers yet confirmed by
AHRMA) across the proceeding three
days of on-track action. Yet that didn't
stop the contingent of more than 1000
racers putting on a show for those in
attendance, with the event marking
somewhat of a changing of the guard for
classic racing.
In a segment of the sport started
around Manx Nortons and AJS 7Rs,
there's been a shift towards more mod-
ern machinery as the demographic gets
younger and riders in their 40s go racing
on bikes they watched in their teens. That
means '90s superbikes, Yamaha TZ250
and Honda RS250 GP bikes, floods of
SV650s and more than a few air-cooled
Ducati race bikes.
The main focus of attention now ap-
pears to be Formula Pro Thunder for
twin-cylinder racers, an event that com-
manded an $18,000 purse with $8000 of
This was half
the grid for
the Sound of
Thunder 2
race. Half.
