By
How could I not go to the 18th annual Corsa Motoclassica/AHRMA race at Willow Springs? The track where I cut my teeth (and rashed up many body parts, both plastic and flesh) is just a quick hop over the San Gabriel Mountains from LA—a perfect 2.5-hour FJR1300 blast over Angeles Crest, left on Angeles Forest and up I-14. Chris Redpath of MotoGP Werks was going to bring out his Spondon-frame SRX-6 just like the one I used to “race” (mine minus the Spondon frame, about 20 horsepower and competent mechanic). In the end, Redpath was too busy to get it together, but plenty of other people from all across the country did find time to drag themselves out to the Mojave.
For me, Willow Springs will always be a place of religious significance; God spoke to me many more times here than He ever did in St. Catherine’s. Once I ran into a guy’s back wheel on my SRX and did 80-mph cartwheels down the track; another time I rode the same bike off Turn 8 into the desert and bailed. One time I high-sided off a GSX-R750 at the exit of Turn 2, and once I came within an eyelash of wearing a brand-new $27K RC45 Honda for a hat exiting Turn 3… I may have blocked out some other incidents. I remember watching Miguel Duhamel go airborne off the lip of Turn 3 on an RC45 at an AMA National. I remember Curtis Adams wadding our project R1 into a pretzel, also in Turn 8, the fastest turn on “The Fastest Road in the West.”
Most of these are in museums, but Fred Mork’s ’67 KRTT won 500 GP Saturday (and don’t forget both 500 GPs at the following weekend’s AHRMA event at Sonoma).
Then they built California Speedway, Buttonwillow and Chuckwalla Valley Raceway, all of which sapped a bit of Willow’s vitality. Then the economy imploded, and Willow Springs faded into the background, which is a shame, really, because I’ve never been to another 2.5-mile track where you can drive up to the Budweiser Balcony and see practically the whole track while nursing a cold one in the desert sun. Which is precisely what I was doing during Saturday’s Triumph Thruxton Challenge this year: Heath Cofran and Mike Blankenship, both SoCal guys, were involved in an epic race-long battle, which Cofran won by what appeared to be about a bike length, as seen through my 300mm lens from half-a-mile away.
That was only one of 10 combined races AHRMA ran that day, which makes things even more action-packed: The Thruxtons shared the track with Battle of the Twins Formula 2, Vintage Heavyweight Superbikes and Formula and Sportsman 750s; 31 bikes on track made the field equal in size to that of this year’s Daytona 200.
And that’s the beauty of AHRMA. If you’ve got a bike and always wanted to race, AHRMA probably has a class for it. Handshift? Of course. Vintage sidecar? Naturally. Scott Flying Squirrel? Mix it up with Fred Mork and his ’38 Norton in the Pre-1940 class or maybe 500 GP? Or just mix it up in the pits with the eclectic bunch of people that motorcycles attract. Yoshi Kosaka’s Corsa Motoclassica never fails to bring out a variety of motorcycles you didn’t know existed. And there’s something about the Mojave’s hot, dry air that restores things. There’s a reason why they mothball airplanes out here to preserve them. Seems like it works with motorcycles and people too, almost all of whom seem to have learned over the years the most important preservation lesson of all: how to not fall off. I only saw one minor low-side all day. When will my 2000 R1 be eligible for Vintage Superbike?
AHRMA’s (American Historical Racing Motorcycle Association) next stop is Road America, Wisconsin, June 8 and 9.
Joe Weir drove down from Portland to win the Heavyweight Superbike on his Katana on Saturday.
CB350s are said to make great vintage racers. Andrew Mauk from Milwaukee rode this one to second place in Sportsman 500 behind Ari Henning on Saturday, then won on Sunday.
CB160 is highly competitive. Top speeds approach 80 mph, gradually.
Thruxtons and Ducatis mingle on the first lap of the combined Thruxton Challenge/Sound of Thunder race. AHRMA has a class for pretty much anything with two (or three) wheels and an engine, and everybody plays nice most of the time.
Check out the full photo gallery:
