Daytona Bike Week at 80: Motorcycle celebration expands beyond outlaw biker image

The term “biker” usually conjures images of burly, bearded, tattooed men donning sleeveless shirts and leather jackets. And for a while, that was the typical demographic of visitors to Daytona Bike Week.

But that only represents a fraction of the walks of life represented within motorcycle culture, something that’s been woven into the fabric of American life for more than a century.

Though the festival’s identity has changed over the years, Daytona Bike Week is almost as old as the tradition of motorcycling itself. Now celebrating its 80th year during the event March 5-14, longtime organizers, business owners and visitors are reflecting on where the event has been, where it is now and where it’s going.

“People want to get out, they want to ride that motorcycle,” said Janet Kersey, one of the main organizers behind Bike Week. “It’s that freedom of the road, that feeling they get and that group they can be a part of that understands the real joy of motorcycling.”

Every year, riders from as far away as Vermont and Alaska make the pilgrimage to sunny Daytona Beach to escape the cold and to celebrate motorcycle everything. Some of the hundreds of thousands of annual visitors even represent various corners of the globe including Russia, Germany, Tasmania and Scotland.

What has now grown to become a massive, organized and even family-friendly event of international recognition started with humble beginnings in beach racing.

Racing roots

In 1937, an estimated 15,000 fans showed up to watch the inaugural running of the Daytona 200, also known as the “Handlebar Derby,” with a 3.2-mile course on the beach and roadways. Of the more than 100 participating riders, Californian Ed “Iron Man” Kretz won the race aboard his Indian motorcycle, averaging just over 73 mph.

The race was canceled for five years amid World War II, then the event came back in a big way in 1947. The party surrounding the Daytona 200 swelled and the Chamber of Commerce was tasked with “preventing unbridled rowdyism,” according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal. Events seemed more under control in the 1950s with the presence of additional law enforcement and an organized entertainment schedule.

In 1961, racing promoter Bill France Sr. helped to move the race to the Daytona International Speedway, where the Daytona 200 continues to this day. But the revelers stayed near the beach, tore through the streets and partied with reckless abandon.

Rough and rowdy

During Bike Week events of the ’60s and ’70s, the festival entered an era where outlaw biker clubs sparred, the relationship between riders and law enforcement was less than friendly and some locals wanted nothing to do with the rowdy visitors.

Daytona Beach native James Gregory recalled Bike Week’s reputation during the “Wild West” years.

“In the ’60s, there were a lot of clubs and some of them didn’t like each other … When you got a bunch of guys together drinking, the clubs were having issues and some of them get into fights,” he said. “Driving my mother to church, she told me to run a red light because she didn’t want me to stop while there were bikers walking around the sidewalk.”

Those were the years when police handed out tickets like candy to visiting riders.

“One guy’s got one just for riding a Honda,” said one visitor, quoted in a March 1980 story from the Orlando Sentinel, then known as the Sentinel Star. Riders commonly received citations for not using headlights, having loud (or nonexistent) mufflers and improperly changing lanes.

At the same time, attendance was growing — from about 80,000 for the 40th anniversary festival in 1981 to an estimated 175,000 in 1983.

In 1982, a Sentinel reporter wrote that 100 Bike Week attendees had been arrested a week before racing even commenced at the speedway. But at the same time, Main Street merchants were beginning to accommodate the bikers, accepting the reality that Bike Week was here to stay.

“The culture of the country was so different then. You had Woodstock and all those crazy things that were going on in the world,” Kersey said. “The culture of motorcycling became very freewheeling and free spirited with exponential growth.”

Celebrity encounters

As Bike Week grew in notoriety, the event attracted well-known celebrities who visitors craned their necks to see or lined up to meet. Helen Humphreys, now 86, the longtime owner of Humphreys & Sons Jewelers on Main Street in Daytona Beach, has had a few lucky encounters over the years.

“I brought in a leather company from New York that made very upscale leather, they’re not here anymore. But because of them, Paul Newman came in to get a long coat made,” Humphreys said. “He ended up sitting down and … as long as people didn’t recognize him, he could just crowd watch.”

She also received a call one day from someone who she thought was just some “kook.”

“Evel Knievel called me one day on the phone and wanted to know if my place was secure enough for his bike,” Humphreys said. “He rode up on a big black Harley with flags flying. When he came in, I went, ‘Holy cow, you actually are Evel Knievel!’ He ended up putting his bike that almost jumped the Snake River in my store next door.”

Sometime around the festival’s 50th anniversary, which took place in 1991, former Bike Week organizer and chamber executive George Mirabal remembers several more star sightings.

“We brought in Jean-Claude Van Damme and Lorenzo Lamas, Chad McQueen, who’s Steve McQueen’s son, and one or two others,” he said. “When Jean-Claude flew in, there must have been 3,000 or 4,000 people at the airport to greet him.”

‘Let’s put some guidelines to it’

What was known as a loosely organized, somewhat raucous event for decades was brought under control by the Daytona Chamber of Commerce, who took the reins on organizing Bike Week beginning in 1987.

In the years to follow, Mirabal, along with business owners Alan Robertson, Ron Reese, Bob Wilson and many others took on the daunting task of turning Bike Week into something Daytona Beach could be proud of.

“In April of ’87, I asked the chamber what they do during Bike Week … and they said, ‘We do nothing, we try and get out of town,'” Mirabal, who had just moved from Shreveport, Louisiana, said. “I was naive, and I thought that we should be doing something to help generate $90 million in 10 days.”

In time for the 1988 festival, the event received its first corporate sponsor with a $10,000 donation from Harley Davidson. Using that money, the newly-formed Bike Week Task Force produced 40-foot banners that read, “Daytona Beach welcomes bikers,” rented portable toilets and printed sheets listing scheduled activities. Meanwhile, they worked to get rid of outlaw biker clubs.

“Anytime we had a meeting, it was a constantly filled room … we had every representative from the city from police, fire, beach patrol, hotel and motel. Plus, we had representatives from all the merchant associations in the area,” said Bob Wilson, who co-chaired the task force in the ’90s. “We tried to include everybody that needed to have a voice as to what we did and how we did it.”

Ultimately, the chamber’s efforts seemed to elevate the event to international prominence and give it a more family-friendly vibe.

“I had three little kids. And I had no problem taking my kids down to Main Street on Saturday night of Bike Week and walking the streets just because it was fun to do,” Wilson said. “I had no fear or qualms about doing that.”

The 80th anniversary celebration has come with the additional challenge of implementing COVID-19 guidelines amid the continuing pandemic, a job taken on task force members like Kersey.

Signs on Main Street, the epicenter of Bike Week festivities, will read, “Wash up, back up, mask up.” Merchants will limit their interior capacity to 60 percent and motorcycles won’t be allowed to park on sidewalks to allow for extra spacing.

“We’re trying to encourage visitors that mask use and social distancing is necessary for your safety,” Kersey said.

Riding forward

As Bike Week’s merchants and organizers look back at the event’s rugged history, they’ve noticed a shift in how people behave now that the event is sanctioned and warring clubs have faded into the background.

Even if some riders present a tough exterior, Bike Week’s advocates say there’s more to bikers than meets the eye.

“Local people would come in and say, ‘Oh Helen, Bike week is coming. You close, don’t you?’ Actually, we stay open until midnight for 10 days,” Humphreys said. “The people that come in are really quite nice … Motorcyclists are known for being good tippers.”

Shelly Rossmeyer Pepe, who owns two Harley Davidson dealerships and a Main Street store with her family, gets similar questions.

“They go, ‘Wow, so you’re used to being around bikers, you know, what is it like?’ And I’m just like, ‘They’re the coolest people in the world,'” she said. “Around these rallies, people get to kind of truly let their hair down and not have to explain where and who and how and what, they’re kind of all in it together.”

As the culture and perception of bikers changes, Bike Week is seeing more visitors who don’t ride but are interested in people watching, seeing unique choppers and watching interesting events like coleslaw wrestling. And while one generation of riders ages out, Kersey said she thinks the event has a bright future ahead.

“It’s a culture. It’s an American icon. People love motorcycling,” she said. “It’s passed through generations, all these years and I think it’s going to keep right on rolling.”

If you go

Bike Week 2021 runs March 5-14 in Daytona Beach. Visit officialbikeweek.com for a travel guide, schedule of events and vendor information.

Find me on Twitter @PConnPie, Instagram @PConnPie or send me an email: pconnolly@orlandosentinel.com.