Yankee Meet Report
Rob Sigond | Published on 9/6/2024
This report will probably not do the meet justice. I did not go until Sunday as that was the day bikes were being judged. Ride from Albany is about 2 hours. I set the cruise at 70mph since I was hauling my big fiberglass egg trailer.
Many of the vendors who had been there since Friday had already left. That’s always an issue with the last day of these meets. Wayne Carini of Motor Trend TV fame was the grand marshal for a parade thru town on Friday night. In talking to those who were still there on Sunday, the meet was packed with both vendors and attendees on Saturday.
Nevertheless, there was still no shortage of very nice machines both in line for judging and just out on the field on Sunday.
The Franklin County Fairgrounds are a class act. Every building is well maintained, they are all painted red with white trim. The grounds are a huge expanse of well manicured grass that for the most part was dead flat. No hills to hike up and down. All the roadways, even those that run thru the areas where vendors would line up were freshly paved. The only dirt roads are by the horse barns at the back of the fairgrounds and where I suspect horse events are held out in a large center field. They had two vendors selling food. Both were in separate fairgrounds buildings. No roach coaches were present. I got there about 7:30am so grabbed an egg with bacon and cheese sandwich on an English muffin for $5. That’s dirt cheap by today’s standards. And it was damn good! I grabbed a cheeseburger from the other vendor for the ride home and that hit the spot as well. There were permanent bathroom at opposite ends of the fairgrounds. These were real bathrooms, not porta-johns and were clean and well maintained.
Everyone was smiling. I would walk by a vendor or folks just sitting under an EZ-up and everyone said good morning with a smile. I suspect that the great weather that weekend had made normally nice folks even nicer.
I perused the various vendors. Did not see anything I needed. I am on a quest for a nice set of original gas caps for my Knuck as mine are dented. The quest continues. I did not see a lot of junk which seems to be getting more and more common at meets these days. No T-shirt vendors, either. Might have been a few on Saturday. I did see one vendor selling pins, but he also had a table full of vintage parts.
Something I noticed as I walked around the vendor area is that there were more sidecars and sidecar rigs present than I have ever seen at a meet in the past. Even the old Rhinebeck meet, which was huge would only draw one, two maybe 3 sidecar rigs. I did not count all of them at Greenfield, but there were quite a few. Maybe it a sign of the aging process.
Judging took place in a huge barn with a poured concrete floor. Doors were open at each end and in the middle making for a grease cool breeze. It was about 10 deg cooler in the barn than outside. Keith Kizer was there from the AMCA and Bendon Romke-Harbor from the Yankee Chapter was helping him. There were other chapter members assisting and quite a few judges. I was actually impressed by the number of judges I saw walking around the bikes. I did not get a bike count. I would estimate there were at least 30 bikes being judged. And there were some very unique machines there, some of which I’d never seen before.
I did not snap photos of every bike. I’m sure all on distribution have seen Kawis, Hondas and Harleys from the 70’s and 80’s. The photos I did take were of what I thought were the true gems at this meet.
This is Wojciech Kasperuk's BMW R2. 198cc. Betcha never saw one of these in the US before. Voitec, the gentleman mentioned above who is from Poland, ran this bike in the Cannonball last year. He finished. Said he had a valve seat start to burn and he had to be trailered 400 miles. But he had a spare head, put it on the engine and finished the event. I believe that he said he placed 16th in his class.
Very nicely restored 1964 Ducati Monza. This is a very rare year. I was talking to the owner, Mike Raferty. He did 3 of these in one year. He will be riding in his first Moto Giro this fall. I did not have the heart to tell him about the dirt sections.
David Hinze's 1934 H-D CAC. This was my favorite bike at the meet. It’s an original Harley Peashooter (last year) that was an original speedway bike.
Early DKW. This is the engine that the Germans were forced to share with the Allies at the end of WWII. It’s the basis for the engine in the HD Hummer. It later gave Yamaha their start. Sorry for the blurry photo. Did not notice that when I looked at it on my phone.
This is a 1936 Husqvarna. I’ve never seen anything but the motocrossers from the 70’s. Note the tiny little tank shifter.
This is Brendon’s 1939 Chief. He just had it on display. This bike went thru the Judging process alongside of my Indian Four at Rhinebeck.
It’s not every day that you see a supercharged Commando. Owner said that it goes REALLLLLL GOOD! He said he built it from parts.
This Honda Dream was very nice. I could not walk by without snapping a couple of pics. It’s the giro rider in me.