Registration is now open for the 2016 AMA Hillclimb Grand Championship, hosted by Pleasure Riders M/C at a brand-new facility in Neoga, IL – Thunder Ridge!

All entry forms must be postmarked by July 1st, 2016 – as usual there will be no late or on-site registration…so get those forms in today!

The date originally provided for the VSMC event this year was Sept. 3rd – should be Sept. 4th.  The change has been made on the D16 and D23 schedules – please note the change!

At the turn of the century…er, the previous turn of the century, like 1900, sports like hare scrambles, enduro, and motocross didn’t exist.  Motocross is clearly the most popular form of offroad motorcycle competition now, but it didn’t really even exist in the USA until the late 1960s.  Waaaay before any of these sports started, there were basically 2 types of organized motorcycle racing – board track racing (which eventually evolved into dirt track racing) and hillclimb.

The X-Games are now filled with all kinds of mind-bendingly awesome stuff, but the original extreme sport was hillclimb – and there were factory teams too…it’s just that the factories were companies like Indian and Harley-Davidson – there were, in fact, no motorcycle companies in Japan at all.  Bikes back then had no suspension, made very little power (compared to modern bikes), and were ridden by competitors who didn’t even wear helmets.  Things have changed a lot – but I recently was directed to an article about a custom bike builder who created this homage to the American factory hillclimbers of the past:

There’s a lot of ingenuity in that bike that isn’t exactly period-correct…but the overall effect certainly is.  Do yourself a favor and give the article on Revzilla.com a quick read.  Cool stuff!

Technically, all ticket purchases for the D23 hillclimb banquet were supposed to be in the mail by now…if you haven’t done so yet, get it in the mail – like now.

As noted earlier, there was a ticket order form in the D23 fall flyer…or you can use…

THIS ONE HERE.

As usual, there will be no walk-ins or at-the-door ticket purchases…so if you plan on being there and haven’t gotten your tickets bought already, get that in the mail ASAP – like the next couple days.

The 2016 D17 schedule has been posted – go check it out!

There’s also an opportunity to ride the brand-new hill in Neoga, IL before the 2016 AMA Hillclimb Grand Championship…and the new location finally has a name…