VMDays-2004

[PeoriaMac]

Folks,
The AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days will be held this year at -again-the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington Ohio.
Featured Marque this year will be BMW.
I've been to the VMD three times in the last four years, and its just a hoot...(not a Honda trademark) complete with demo rides,
what's probably the largest all brands swap meet in the country, vintage roadracing, motocross, flat track and trials. Also dealers, Seminars, rides, Old bike Auction, and the ever-popular "Wall of Death".

Schedule on the website www.midohio.com is from last year.

Mac

You never know what you'll find there.....

[PeoriaMac]

Forgot the dates -- July 16-17-18, 2004

[The_Veg]

I haven't checked this myself but somebody on another forum I use said that was during the Spokane Rally. Hmmm, Lexington is 3/5 as far from Dallas as Spokane, and I probably won't have much time off I get a job by then...

[PeoriaMac]

Yeg, let me say the VMD is a lot of fun. Nope, doesn't have all the neat BMW-related dealers the MOA rally has...but there are a lot of things to see and do...

Mac

[The_Veg]

And if I do have time to go I could probably swing by Dayton along the way. Went to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson when I was eight and I've been meaning to go back ever since, especially as I understand that they've added some stuff to the collection since then.

[PeoriaMac]

I may be wrong on this, but it seems to me several years ago....ok, more than several...I was on a ride with some BMW types and we rode to the Air Force Museum. This was at the time the Stealth planes were mostly rumors and blurry DOD pictures.
We rode up, and WOW, there, right in front was one of those
stealth planes. B-1 bombers were around, but everyone was
looking at this big black plane.
We took pictures...wondering if we weren't violating some
national secrecy act. Finally, one of the guys got closer...and
read the plaque in front of the plane. It read something like this.

"This mock-up of a stealth aircraft was used in a
Honda automobile commercial filmed here at the
airbase. The plane is made of wood, and uses the
tricycle landing gear from a World War II trainer
and a Chevrolet Corvette windshield and top as
its canopy.

Needless to say....we weren't in violation of anything.

Macl

[kbasa]

I've been to WPAFB and the museum a couple times.

It is, without a doubt, THE place for airplane junkies. In the more modern section of the display, they have a huge collection of the X planes, including the only remaining XB-70. They have an X15 you can just walk up to and look in. They have the X whatever Vertijet too. It's all just too much. Take a camera and plan on spending a full day there.

[The_Veg]

I fondly recall how I disovered the existence of the museum from reading the text on the box of a model kit. It was a model of the Douglas X-3 Stiletto, an obscure high-altitude research vehicle that lives in the museum.
If you're a real hardcore aviation buff, be sure to be in DC on December 17th- it's the Wright anniversary and opening day at the National Air and Space Museum's second/overflow facility, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. This is a huge facility that will have something like 200 aircraft on disply including the Enola Gay and many other aircraft that they've had in storage for years due to the growth of the collection and limits of the original facility, which of course will not be going away.

You now have two NASMs to go see.

[lorazepam]

hey Kbasa, I believe the XB-70 was the original "star wars" pump of the Soviets.

[kbasa]

http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/images/xb-70.jpg

[lorazepam]

I would love to see all six of those afterburners lit up just once :D

[The_Veg]

The XB70 was one heluva screamer, and was seen as such a great airplane by those who flew it that they all said they'd gladly pay out of their own pockets to be able to keep flying it when they heard it was cancelled.

[kbasa]

I think they only built two and one crashed.

Bummer. It must have been quite a sight to see that big thing honking through the sky.