The Best Is Yet To Come
Viking Chapter National Meet
Farmington, Minnesota, June, 2006
By Sean O'Neil

The theme for the Viking Chapter 2006 National meet was, "Moto Italia" which celebrates the contributions from Italy of their motorcycles and attitude. On display were bikes from Moto Guzzi, Parilla, Vespa, Ducati and Moto Morini mixed in with a fabulous collection of bikes from all around the world.

We went all-out to decorate the main building and give it a festive and professional look. Almost every square inch of wall space was covered in vintage motorcycle posters with international flags hung from the rafters. In addition to the great decorations, we had a lounge area for visitors to hang out on comfy couches, read magazines and chat. The lounge recreated the feel of "Betty's Bikes and Buns" - a popular biker cafÈ in Minneapolis. This wonderful addition to the meet was a big hit as it gave us a space to enjoy perhaps the most important aspect of a meet - catching up with old friends and making new ones.

We had a great turnout again this year with lots of visitors and AMCA members from all over the midwest. The Badger Heritage Chapter, from Wisconsin, was very well represented at both the bike judging and field games. Having another close-by chapter so well represented added a touch of rivalry to the field games and really spiced things up! The Badgers rode in on some nicely-restored Chiefs and Knuckles with a few Harley '45s joining the fray. This resulted in a composition of competitors not usually seen at field games with the foot clutches outnumbering the rest. Of course, this makes for an exciting show to watch and with the added dimension of the interstate rivalry, the field games this year really drew a crowd. We had the full complement of traditional games: slow race, ride the plank, tire toss, slalom and, of course, everyone's favorite, "bite the wiener." Rather than having a clear-cut winner from the start, the games stayed competitive and really exciting with the lead switching between players over and over. In the end, we added up all the points from all of the games to declare Larry Riedel ('48 Hummer) the winner of the hand-clutch category and crowned Philip Mast ('47 Chief) the king of the foot clutch. Hopefully, next year our friends from the Badger Heritage Chapter can come back for a rematch!

Is this the slow race or the enduro?

In keeping with the "Moto Italia" theme, our banquet hall was richly decorated to look like an Italian garden as we dined on Italian pasta and "gelato." Our guest speaker was Peter Nowacki from the United States Postal Service. Peter spoke about the, now-famous, antique motorcycle stamps and the fascinating history of mail delivery by motorcycle in the midwest. Did you know that the USPS used motorcycles for long distance mail delivery between farming communities in the early '20s and '30s? He displayed a foam board poster of the stamps and entertained the crowd with the details behind each bike (see The Antique Motorcycle Summer 2006).

The t-shirt design was another experiment with a brand new look: a large silk-screen picture of classic racing bikes on the front and the beautiful "Moto Italia" logo on the sleeve. The black color and outstanding design appealed to the general motorcycle public as well as AMCA members and the shirts flew off the shelves. People have been asking for a black t-shirt for years, but as we put on the shirts and headed out into the hot June sunshine, some of us had second thoughts about how practical they are!

On Saturday, as everyone saddled up for the road run, the weather started to turn nasty as huge, black, storm clouds massed on the horizon. As we waited to see if the storm would pass us by, the local police came out to warn us that a severe storm warning had been issued for the area. Knowing from previous experiences just how rough the storms can be at Farmington, everyone scrambled to break camp and get ready for the storm. Sure enough, a massive rain storm hit us just as the vendors packed up their wares. As usual with summer storms, it soon passed, but so had the available time for holding the road run and we had to cancel one of the most popular events of our meet. To save our bikes from the storm, we had rolled anything that wasn't protected into the main building. At one point we looked around and saw visions of the perfect garage. Every possible inch of the building was crammed with awesome bikes of all makes and models. What a wonderful sight!

The display hall never looked this good! A gorgeous display of bikes and vintage decorations.

We had an impressive 34 bikes judged this year, so many that we could barely fit them all into our judging room. We also had a remarkable turnout for judges with 17 AMCA members helping out with this very demanding and rewarding job. It's very pleasing to see a surge in interest and participation in judging.

Tech sessions are a great way to learn from the experts so we hosted two tech sessions this year. Dick Snyder, owner of Dick's Porting gave an excellent presentation on valve trains. Jeff, owner of Redline Cycle of Minneapolis, illuminated the dark secrets of ignition maintenance and service. Many Viking Chapter members have had their bikes wrenched-on by Jeff and it was great to get a little of his arcane knowledge.

Mixed in with the successful changes and improvements, the Viking Chapter's experiment with a motorcycle auction didn't do as well. Our club partnered with a local motorcycle auctioneer in an experiment with a new type of event. If the auction proved to be successful, we could integrate it into our meet in future years. The auctioneer would benefit from the traffic at our event while we kept the gate fees. Although both the parts and memorabilia auction on Friday and the motorcycle auction on Saturday were well attended, not a lot of items met their reserve.

The 2006 Viking Chapter National meet at Farmington, Minnesota, was a fun mixture of our old favorite events mixed in with some exciting new improvements. With more visitors, more judged bikes, more tech sessions and more vendors; it would be easy to say that 2006 was simply bigger than previous years. However, with the new banquet menu, the new "coffee lounge" and the sharp-looking decorations, the 2006 meet was bigger and better.

Next year will be even bigger and better. The Viking Chapter 2007 national meet, held on June 15 - 17, will be held in a new location at the Minnesota State Fair Grounds in St. Paul, where we will be able to have improved vending, camping, field games and a 100-bike display. Keep track of this exciting new development at our web site, vikingmc.org

Let's make sure the entire wiener is fully coated.


"Whatever it takes to be a winner," says Johnny Daney!


Ride the plank: splinter removal.


Ring toss: multitasking and balance.

© 2007 AMCA