Archive for November, 2014

Ahhh, nostalgia!

GreatSeymour

Ahhh, nostalgia! Behold, it is I, 76 year old Greatseymour. As you might well imagine, I am a great fan for the club grounds as they were back in the day. Even when there was nothing going on we could go there and find it peacefully quiet. Birdies chirping, and a wilderness like atmosphere, shrouded from adjacent noises by being tucked into its mini enclave. It was a painful day for many when the property went to developers in exchange for money.

The Jolly Rogers president when the grounds were sold was Carmen Tom who owned Downtown Harley. He was well noted for negotiating to make the top dollar on his business deals. He was encouraged to do that as he became more involved with the grounds buyers and was able to squeeze more money from them. After the sale, cries of alarm and betrayal came in from the fans of the grounds and he began to feel guilty so he bought another property for replacement.

Unfortunately his lawyers assured him he would never be able to escape liability. In the face of that, he never used his new property for the purpose he intended.

Back in the day, oldy moldy “hill climbers” were mostly old Harleys and Indians with straight pipes, poor front suspension, no rear suspension, that would run the

GreatSeymour

hill with wide-open throttle’s moderated only by a kill switch and looking every part of many failed attempts. Later, when large displacement two-stroke motocross bikes were used with very long swing arms, the spectacle was terribly reduced. The old bikes would thrash around and send great swathes of dirt and rocks behind them, but the later version of hill climb motorcycles greatly reduced that. It reminds me of the unlimited hydroplane races using large displacement airplane engines, when they were replaced by turbines. They used to roar and snort but now they just whistle.

For the most part my wife took the movies while I was racing, although Mickey Fay did contribute some. It was somewhat of a pain to go from movies to video, and then have our web master convert them for use on the Jolly Rogers Motorcycle Club website. There is little likelihood they could be sold for reasonable compensation.  However, they are fun to watch.

Have a look!  http://jollyrogersmotorcycleclub.com/homemovies/home_movies.htm