I agree on the shop, I am in cleaning right now. It is a bit much. Taking it in small parts. When you read this keep in mind that I am not sour graping. I would do it all again. Also in some of the text there may be some errors, I am still recovering from this whole ordeal. To say the least it is a major emotional tax to do one of these, the TV only makes them look easy.
We did 2 shows in 2 days. The first was the "Wing and Wheels" show, which I found out later was not a jurryed show. However it was good advertising. Not a bad show for the first one. Figures the slacker local papers did not even come out.
The attendance was very good and we made lots of contacts. Ours was the only cafe' there. It was funny really. Even the Harley guys who did not want to look at Home Wrecker as they pulled in on their whatever model with 50 LBS of chrome bolted on it had to look. When some of them walked by it was akin to seeing a hot woman in the store when you are with your wife.
You keep saying, I wont look, nope I'll stare at this interesting box of cereal as she walks by, ok I'll look once but not let here catch me, ok twice, DAMN busted....
We even had one guy curse that he forgot his camera.... He went across the street and bought one just to take pictures of Home Wrecker, Not my boasting---this is what he told us. I guess he and his son are building a Cafe'. So it is real cool to think that maybe I could inspire them just a bit if any at all. Afterall I drew a lot of my inspiration from you guys! THANKS!!!
The Iola show on Sunday was ok but mostly a joke. I guess it did not help that I was only there on the last day. When I pushed Home Wrecker into the show hall it stopped everyone in the room. It drew a huge crowd which was cool. What was cooler is that people came back a few times. Next year I will be better prepared for all of this. My first set of real shows. Sort of like one of those real cool moments in the movies where time slows down. Proper respect from the biker community for the SOHC's. Next time I will make sure to Ham it up. There was a lot of picture taking of Home Wrecker again.
After a while I realized that the guy handing out the trophies was a judge and had a bunch of his bikes in the show. Well you know how it goes, "This is a show for me and my buddies, glad you all could come, but you other dudes can't win"... While he had a very nice set of SOHC's including a mint sandcast among other bikes, I thought it was in bad taste. If that guy is a member of this board then sorry, if not then I am not sorry.
Again I was the only full Cafe' There was one other that was a stocker with a fairing. Nice bike, but not a cafe really.
When all the ass patting was over I went and pushed Home Wrecker out of the show room to load up. I could hear him still going on and on with the ass patting, so I pushed her outside the door on the opposite side of the building, hopped on on and fired her up
. I guess at first I did not notice (or think) that the pipes were pointed at the building nicely. Really I did not mean to do it as I know she smokes just a pinch when cold. And I say a room full of smoke is just rude. Before anyone beats on me, keep in mind that I was at least 20 feet out the door. Anyway she started up real nice, sounded pretty mean like I had said. Gave her a couple hard winds and rode her off to the trailer. The rear tire was so hard she spun the rear tire pretty fast
. Got just a bit squirrelly
and began to enjoy her a bit. Made a couple of mild speed laps around the lot as on lookers outside gave a good round of applause, which I thought was damn cool. I went to put her on the trailer, it took 45 minutes to get her loaded as the onlookers became question askers. I think the one guy was from Classic Motorcycle Mag but I am not sure. I could only hope as he was taking gobs of pictures.
All in all it was a great experience, I would do it again. However I want to keep away from near impossible deadline builds in the future. 24 days is not nearly enough time, but I did like the self imposed challenge.
Now time to go back to cleaning and shipping parts. Teal I owe you big for being patient
