WORDS: Mitch Boehm
It’s been nearly four months since the MOMBA experience at Mid-Ohio, but I just can’t quit thinking how fun and energizing the AMA’s Vintage Motorcycle Days weekend was. And it’s not just me…seems the whole team’s still semi-jacked about it. I’m hearing rumors of the MOMBA bike - as-raced, with no lighting or licensing to speak of! - showing up at assorted bike nights in the Milwaukee area. That’d be Wes Orloff - aka Elton - doing his thing aboard the very thing all of us involved with that special weekend can point to to make all the memories come flooding back: a certain lime-green KZ550 LTD cruiser we - they, really, the team - turned into a decent roadracer in the space of about two and a half days, working 24/7 the whole time.
It’s amazing as I think back to the whole crazy thing.
One of the MOMBITES, Dave Mersfelder, another Harley Davidson employee (like Orloff, his girlfriend Leah Bober, and others on the team), videotaped the entire weekend, and sent me an only slightly edited version on DVD that was about 2 hours long. What a trip! Watching all the stuff that went on before I arrived Friday afternoon was a huge gas; all the searching, the 100-plus miles they put on scooters running up and down the vendor rows looking for the right bike, and then once they had it, the right parts to make the thing - a frickin’ cruiser! - into something someone might recognize as a roadracer. I invite all of you to get on the MOMBA website and buy a copy of the DVD right now. It’s for a good cause (proceeds go to the American Cancer Society), and you’ll get a bird’s eye view of what really happened that weekend. There’s way more detail than what ended up in my too-short magazine feature. www.momba.com
Let me know what you think of it.
We have an interesting MOMBA Part II idea percolating… It’s not quite ready to public consumption, but let’s just say anyone with an interest in the whole MOMBA idea might wanna make it to VMD in ’07. You never know what will show up.
Best,
Mitch