Road Captain USA

I don’t know if any of you have seen this place on TV but I had seen it one too many times on the box. I decided it was time to see it in person. On the grounds of the Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, Alabama is the Barber Vintage Motorcycle Museum. The collection of 1200 vintage and modern motorcycles (600 on display at any given time) will blow your eyeballs out of your two wheel lov’n skull. They range in make and model from 1903 to present time. The museum is also home to the world’s largest collection of Lotus cars. The motorsports park covers 740 acres and has a 2.38 mile world class race track. When I entered this shrine to motor madness history a smile was instantly pasted on my face. For the next three and a half hours I practiced the art of Motorcycle Photography for your benefit. I didn’t realize time flew by so quickly as I was engrossed in the incredable display of mechanized history. We were advised to take the elevator to the 5th floor and work our way down and we did. The elevator is large enough to move cars up and down the musuem. The sides are glass. There is a Indy style race car on top of the elevator car. The elevator shaft is lined at the corners with 4 towers of motorcycles on display going from the basement up past the 5th floor.

The whole backside of the museum is windowed overlooking the racetrack and letting lots of good light into the museum. Good for taking pictures! Further inside the museum there are spot lights that I couldn’t figure out how to compensate correctly for so those pictures have a yellow glow to them. There is a 360 degree tower that goes up 4 floors with motorcycles displayed like stems coming out from a Christmas Tree. There are motorcyles from every era and every country. There are motorcycles from every facet of the sport. There are also classic cars and racing cars. There are Whizzers hanging from the ceiling on wires like a mobile.

Concrete spiraling walkways take you from one floor to another. The spaciousness of the museum and size of the collection is amazing! In one large corner of the museum there is a board track racing display, a recreation of the original 1903 Harley-Davidson shop along with a green Ford Model T. Apparently it orginally did come in different colors. The board track display not only had Indians and Harleys… there was a Crocker!

The Daytona display was cool as was the vinatge race bike collection. Did you know Michael Jordan put together an AMA race team in 2004 and the race team is still competing?

I would have to say the vintage military motorcycles might be the best part of the collection. As a Harley-Davidson enthusiast I payed homage to two of my favorites: the XR750 dirt tracker and the 1970 Super Glide (the original factory custom from Willie G). Can you say “I am not worthy.”

I got up and took some interesting detail shots such as the tanks on a Reading Standard from our neck of the woods and a BSA. Definitely had to get up close to some vintage Indians!

My favorite model wasn’t on two wheels or four and I got to take her home with me. Kicking and screaming of course.

The basement level wasn’t open so we had to take pictures from above. I wish we could have gone down there!

We definitely enjoyed the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum and it was worth the two extra days of travel and two overnight stays at motels in order to see this mecca of motor mania.

I took a ton of pictures and we haven’t even downloaded the pictures from Diana’s camera yet. Click here to see all my pics.

“Tomorrow, today’s bikes will be history, these already are…”

Tags: Trips & Places To Go // 8 Comments »