Motorcycle Mecca
by Judy Hall-Folde
Title
Motorcycle Mecca
Artist
Judy Hall-Folde
Medium
Photograph
Description
The sleepy little town of Sturgis, South Dakota, is tucked away in the Black Hills. Each August, this town comes alive with music, motorcycles, games and entertainment. Here's the history of the event: "The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is a motorcycle rally held annually in Sturgis, South Dakota each first full week of August. It was founded on August 14, 1938 by the Jackpine Gypsies Motorcycle Club who still own and operate the tracks, hillclimb, and field areas that the rally is concentrated around. The first rally lasted two days and was focused on racing and stunts.
The founder is generally considered to be Clarence �Pappy� Hotel who is still honored in various ways by the crowd at Sturgis.
The main focus of a motorcycle rally was originally racing and stunts. This could include half mile track racing (the first year in Sturgis, there were 19 participants), board wall crashes (intentional), ramp jumps and head on collisions with automobiles.
The Sturgis Rally has been held every year, with exceptions during World War II.
In modern times, there has been a revitalization of motorcycling and a new group of fans that are interested in the old rallies. This has led to huge attendance numbers for classic rallies such as Sturgis. Attendance was estimated at 514,951 in 2004, and 525,250 in 2005. This rivals the resident population of the entire state � 754,844 in 2000. Many of the new attendees of the Sturgis Rally are family people, bringing their children with them and often driving trailers and campers to the rally and riding their motorcycles the last few miles. This has prompted several of the attendees to start wearing patches and shirts saying �I Rode Mine to Sturgis� with the date instead of the traditional patch stating that the wearer attended the event in such-and-such a year."
(www.sturgis.com)
Uploaded
August 13th, 2016
Statistics
Viewed 301 Times - Last Visitor from Cupertino, CA on 04/18/2024 at 10:52 PM
Embed
Share
Sales Sheet
Comments
There are no comments for Motorcycle Mecca. Click here to post the first comment.