Vintage Racing: Revving Up History On The Big Track - Part 1

This weekend was the weekend of the American Historic Motorcycle Racing Association's vintage races out at Willow Springs.  Truth be told, I had been counting it down for a few weeks now; not as a racer, but as a spectator.  Usually, I am doing a track day on Streets of Willow at the same time that this event is being held at the big track, but this weekend I didn't have anything going on and I had specifically set aside the time to take my camera out and get some good practice in.  My original plan was to go out for both days but a storm blew through town and put a damper [pun] on my Saturday plans. Instead, I wound up going down to LA with a friend to pick up his bike from a shop, and bumped my travel plan to going on Sunday instead; because dropping in for a visit at a cramped dusty bike shop in sunny Los Angeles is close enough to a day spent hanging out with bike enthusiasts at a cold, rainy and windy desert race track... heh heh!

I woke up pretty early and checked the weather forecast.  It was still looking pretty gloomy in my neck of the woods so I figured I'd wait it out a couple of hours and see if the clouds passed. Not that I mind riding in the rain, but probably 35 of the 60 miles is through the higher elevations as you wind through the Tehachapis and the weather is usually a little worse when it comes to cloudy and cold. Around 11 I checked again: partly cloudy and chilly in the mountains, and there was a weather alert for wind gusts between 40 and 50 mph from the mountains into the desert. I can handle a little wind, and it's usually always windy out at Willow Springs anyway so I grabbed my camera, filled up the bike and hit the road. 

It was sunny and cool, perfect for my leather jacket with just a long sleeved shirt underneath.  I took the back-roads out to the highway and as I rode along the sweeping curves I looked over into the foothills and saw a dirt bike rider pacing me from a dirt trail just off the roadway.  I raised my hand up and gave him a wave and he returned the gesture with a wave and a wheelie before breaking off and disappearing on the other side of the foothills, a little part of me was charmed even though I'm sure he thought I was a guy.

Once I hit the highway I paced myself a little more modestly to avoid any unnecessary law enforcement interventions.  I made my way up into the Tehachapi pass,  and along the way I encountered hordes of Harley riders making their way toward some unknown congregation point. There must have been a convention somewhere. We exchanged a few polite waves until the roads separated and I once again picked up the pace.  At 4,000 feet I had reached the summit and it was noticeably cooler but bearable.   I was pretty happy that the sun was still out and as I exited the freeway to catch another back road I was greeted with a trademark gust of wind, giving me a gentle nudge as a warning for what was in store.

Tehachapi Willow-Springs Road carves it's way through the mountains and some consider it a scenic route because of the windmill farms that sit just a few miles off of the main highway all the way through the pass and at the higher plateaus in the desert floor just on the southern side.  The windmills are quite massive, towering over the roadway in a way that makes you feel like nothing more than a tiny field mouse scurrying through the land of a thousand giants.  Most of the corners are blind sweeping corners with variable drops and rises to match the changing landscape.  I enjoy the ride because its a shortcut to the track, and it's a lot more entertaining than the slabs of overcrowded freeway that wind all the way around the mountains and out into the desert before backtracking to the race track.

It is absolutely impossible to miss the track from the two lane road that leads to the main entrance. With the exception of a few houses strewn about in the distance surrounding it, the track is basically laid out in the middle of nowhere in the California desert and yet, only a few miles from the city of Rosamond.  The infamous "Omega" of the big track lays like a ribbon along the side of a hill and you can usually make out the smaller Streets of Willow, and Horse-Thief mile tracks as you look closer.  Either way I get chills every time I approach.  "The fastest track in the west" has a way of maintaining a powerful presence in the landscape, even if some of the buildings are a little older and faded... the green paint just adds to it's charm.  It is a true racing complex that has been a mecca for a variety of different types of racing since it was built in 1953. It always seems fitting to me that this is the local stop for the vintage races.