Davenport 2003
From Steve Slocombe

This is the big one for the AMCA, and this year held the same weekend as the Harley centenary bash in Milwaukee, just a few hours drive away. The UK party flew out on Monday 24 August, spent a day visiting well known restorer Jim Long and the National Motorcycle Museum at Anamosa, and scouted out the Mississippi Show grounds Wednesday afternoon to find the Swedish party were there already. Next morning we were back with American pal Steve White from Washington state to help set up his stand and do some serious buying and a little selling. Weather was dry and around 30 Celsius for the show, so very pleasant compared with hotter and wetter previous years. At the Friday night vintage dirt track racing we cheered on the Boardtrackers and the Hand Shift classes, but the other races are becoming too professional for me and now discourage bikes ridden to the event. On Saturday afternoon I attended the first Presidents Meeting, with 25 of the 41 present and talking in a room with particularly poor acoustics. Subsequent E-mail correspondence has started finding out and exchanging best practice among our various Chapters, but I was shocked to learn that 11 Chapter Presidents do not yet have E-mail.

Bruce Palmer was at the show, having just ridden his 1905 Harley - the oldest running example - 490 miles from his Ohio home to Milwaukee. I also queued up to buy Herbert Wagner’s new book ‘At the Creation’ from the author. It seems from his research that the Harley-Davidson centenary can be celebrated in 2004 and even 2005, so now the crowds are out of the way the hard-core historians and rivet-counters can assemble in smaller numbers in Milwaukee next year.

At the Saturday banquet I was asked to say a few words, and invited all present to our first National Meet in Dessau next June 18-20. The AMCA president and other Board members said they would come, so let’s all turn up and make it a good event.

Sunday morning was judging again, and our Chapter provided three judges for the usual variety of carefully restored machines. My own 1942 XA picked up its Senior award, and we had time to talk to the owners after the awards ceremony about the details of their judging sheets. Then it was time to pack two 32kg/80 pound suitcases each, with Steve White taking the overspill home to crate up later. Another excellent Blackhawk Chapter production, and we hope to be back again next year.

(Photos: Bruce Palmer rode this 1905 Harley nearly 500 miles to Milwaukee.
Steve’s 1942 Harley XA received its Senior judging award at Davenport.)