Beach racing on historic motorcycles is a magic carpet ride that transports you across space and time to a less technical and preelectronic era when men were men (it was a different era!) and motorcycles went fast and made lots of noise – glorious, ear-splitting noise untrammelled by silencing devices, noise that you didn’t just hear but that you felt pulsating through every fibre of your being, your heartbeat rising in unison and your adrenaline pumping through your body.
Beach racing on historic motorcycles is a magic carpet ride that transports you across space and time to a less technical and preelectronic era when men were men (it was a different era!) and motorcycles went fast and made lots of noise – glorious, ear-splitting noise untrammelled by silencing devices, noise that you didn’t just hear but that you felt pulsating through every fibre of your being, your heartbeat rising in unison and your adrenaline pumping through your body.
And that’s what you experienced if you attended The Levis Motorcycle Club’s (Levis MCC) Harley-Davidson Sellicks Beach Historic Motorcycle Races, which were held over 16-17 February. This was the second event which the Levis MCC had presented, the previous one being held in 2017. There were classic bikes, all built before 1963, from Adler, AJS, Ariel, BSA, Bultaco, DKW, Douglas, Harley-Davidson, Honda, Indian, James, Jap, Levis, Matchless, Norton, Norton Manx, OEC, Rickman ESO, Royal Enfield, Triumph, Velocette, Villiers and Zundapp, all screaming round the track, their riders being bucked and bounced like rodeo riders as they charged along the soft sand side of the track, which got progressively lumpy as the day wore on.
This year, the Harley-Davidson Motor Company came on board as a major sponsor and Adelaide Harley-Davidson Bike Works mounted a display of bikes, along with clothing and accessories.
Why Sellicks Beach? Well, in the days before we had any decent roads, sand racing was popular and Sellicks Beach, some 50 kilometres south of Adelaide, with its bed of stabilising pebbles under the sand, became the ‘go to’ place for speed record attempts from early in the 20th century.
This story is from the May/June 2019 edition of HEAVY DUTY Magazine.
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This story is from the May/June 2019 edition of HEAVY DUTY Magazine.
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