Turnout for Vintage Motorcycle Days 2007 was huge. Though the weather on the way was less than ideal, once I arrived, the skies cleared up somewhat and the crowds rolled in, in fact, traffic was lined up for well over a mile to enter the Mid Ohio track and parking seemed to be filled but, as usual, the bikes were out in force.

Norm Wilding of Mid Missouri Motorcycles was there with his Kawabusa II, the Hayabusa powered Kawasaki ZRX, and the bike looks great up close. It’s hard to tell the factory isn’t producing these cross breeds, the finish work is superb. It’s one of those bikes a lot of people walk right by unless they’re paying attention and then they look twice and smile. It’s very cool.

As mentioned in a previous post about his first Kawabusa, Norm comes from England where the idea of swapping engines has a long history with Tritons, Norvins, Tribsas and many other examples, why not get the ball rolling with Japanese motorcycles? I still don’t understand why we don’t see more of this.

More bikes and photos below:

This was a nice example of a CB750 cafe racer. There’s been a lot of discussion about cafe racer conversions on The Kneeslider and I thought this one just looked nice. I have no other information about it but it looked well done.

Harley Davidson Sportsters were the marque of the year and there was a special display showing many different models, even a Bronson bike from the old “Then Came Bronson” TV series. This bike in this photo is a “Classified” Sportster. The Classified was a parts kit put together by Dan Wilson of Carmel Valley, California with the intention of turning Sportsters into a kind of Vincent look alike. He produced 25 kits back in 1993, consisting of an aluminum tank, seat, exhaust, fenders, wheels, luggage rack, headlight and handlebars. The finished product had a pretty neat look to it. This is the first one I have ever seen. I haven’t heard of these kits since and I imagine the initial 25 kits were all he ever produced. If you know otherwise, let us know.

There’s so much to see at this event, you never get around to it all unless you spend the entire weekend. Some go for the vintage races, some check out the bikes or the auction, some dig through the swap meet, there’s a little something for everyone. If you didn’t make it this year, think about it next year. It’s a good time.