I took my 8 y/o son with me to Vintage Days at Mid Ohio today. We travelled by cage, because I was concerned it was kind of a long ride for him on the bike, even though he was all stoked up to ride there. I hadn't been there in about ten years. A few observations: -Total freakin' chaos-bikes of all kinds everywhere!! -8 year olds have pretty amazing object recognition-he picked out the few 5th gen VFRs we saw at about the same time I did, sometimes sooner. He also recognizes 4th gen from pictures of my crashed '94. -We seem to be in need of a Honda 50 in the near future. He also was pretty drawn to the YSR50s we saw in the swap meet. -Amazing group of very diverse people and bikes. Everyone was incredibly well behaved and many people left leathers, helmets and gear unsecured next to their bikes all day. This despite the fact that people were settled in for the weekend partying hard, riding thru the infield with beers in hand, etc. -We saw Jay Leno's turbine powered crazy motorcycle thing. We missed the on-track demo, but saw it up close. It's about as long as a car, guarded by a posse of handlers. We discovered some pretty fun roads within about 10 miles of the track while trying to avoid traffic on the way back to the highway. Big elevation changes, off camber decreasing radius turns, etc. Wish we could go back tomorrow as well.
If you think it was great for the vintage days. Go next weekend for the super bike races. A gazillion bikes of every kind. Even some you never thought you'd see on the road again or never have seen at all. The greatest part is you can ride your bike and watch from just about any place around the track. Thunder Valley is one of my favorites (past turn 10) and before the carousel. Super clean restrooms, great food and lots of eye candy. Bring those young boys up right!
Had my rear seat cowl stolen off my VFR years ago while attending the superbike races there. Otherwise it's a wonderful place to watch races. There's shade in Thunder Valley!
