The 2001 Turkey Pro National: Pictures
Why fly with the Eagles
when you can scratch with the Turkey?
The Turkey Pro itself begins with a cold early-morning ride, then ends up at Frame's Motor Freight
in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Against a backdrop of bright red semi trailers, all the activities
of the classic Weekend Motorcycle Rally unfold: the standing around, the telling of lies, the consumption
of coffee and fat pills.
But the Turkey Pro has one feature that, I believe, other rallies do not: the Slow Race, a grueling
contest that separates the men from the boys, the sheep from the goats, and the losers from those
who will have to haul home a 150-pound trophy.
Here are the photos:
Standing Around
The most important part
of any motorcycle rally is standing around and looking at everyone else's bike. The Turkey Pro
draws an extremely wide cross-section of bikers, so there's a lot of different kinds of bikes to
look at. The people with the cool old bikes, like this BSA, draw rings of lookers. Hands in pockets,
chins on chests, the bikes get a mighty good looking at. Then everyone goes inside to look at the
really special bikes.
I have no idea what this old piston popper is, except that it looks like the bike
Tom Swift would have ridden.
This bike has a rotary Wankel engine. It looks like it has a jet engine slung under it, which
is enough to get my vote for coolest looking bike ever.
This is an Aprilia. On seeing this bike, I
predicted that Aprilias would be the new Ducati-beater. The next week? Yup, an Aprilia was parked
outside Starbucks on Spring street. Damn, now all the Ducatistas will have to go get beige
leathers!
The Slow Race
The slow race is a short course marked out on the parking lot with chalk and tape. The object is to
take as long a time as possible to complete a circuit. The better you are on a bike, the slower
you can go and still keep your balance. Those who are truly at one with their bikes can almost stand still.
Contestants start in heats of two, facing each other. Psyching out your opponent is encouraged,
especially lots of engine-revving, to demonstrate what you won't be doing in the race.
Some of the bikes are really nice and expensive,
but all the numbers are made out of paper plates. Here: a rare one-mile-per-hour tank slapper.
Kate's dad, famed brit-bike racer "Snuffy" smith, inches around the track. If you look
carefully, you can actually see the waves of enlightenment surrounding the rider, keeping him
upright at 0.00001 MPH.
All the timers are children of contestants. They took their jobs very seriously.
The rich pageant of human struggle is all here: the thrill of victory...
...and the agony of defeat.
The times are tallied. The two younger guys in the center are Classic British Bike Hipster Acolytes, who
have been hanging out with Moto Guzzi icon Fritz at his shop in Philadelphia, the
Spare Parts company.
I don't have the sideburns to be a brit-bike hipster, so I'm gonna stick to UJMs and BMWs.
The trophy is presented. It's huge and unwieldy, with a working headlight, tiger tails
on the handlebars, and the names of the winners engraved on the front. The winner has to take
the trophy home for the year, whether he or she wants to or not. Bob, on the left, looks so happy because
he's getting it out of his garage.
Hot Dogging
This guy made it all the way around the Slow Race course with the sidecar
TILTED UP IN THE AIR! Unbelievable!
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