Copyright 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By Michael D. Green

AHRMA’s Vintage race weekend at Mid-Ohio was dominated by veteran David Roper. Roper won three of the feature races on Saturday and repeated his feat on Sunday to take home six first-place trophies. His first win on both days came on his 250 Aermacchi in the 250GP class. Jonathan White on a 250 Ducati was Roper’s only challenger, but White was not able to match Roper’s pace and settled for a safe second. Roper was truly dominant in the 350GP class on Tom Marquart’s Yetman-framed Honda beating Canadian Paul Germain by over 30 seconds on both days.

Many of the top riders in the 500 Premier class were absent from the Mid-Ohio event, and Roper cruised to victory on Maurice Candy’s Manx Norton replica on both days of racing. Roper beat Chuck Davis on his Manx Norton replica by 35 seconds on Saturday. Roper slowed his pace slightly on Sunday, but he still beat Wes Orloff on his Honda CB450 by over 20 seconds.

Results are at http://www.ahrma.org/results/rr2004-14-15.htm

The AHRMA race weekend was held in conjunction with the AMA’a Vintage Motorcycle Days. AHRMA’s activities included two days of Vintage motocross along with vintage dirt track racing and Vintage observed trials. There was plenty of actvity for the Vintage afficianado away from the racetrack. The giant swap meet held a record 970 vendors. BMW was the featured marque of the weekend. Vintage BMW enthusuasts showed up in their thousands, putting their own stamp on the weekend. There were lectures and demonstations all weekend along with a BMW-mounted stunt rider, Rhett Rotten’s Wall of Death, and a live rock band. Vintage Motorcycle Days continues to grow year after year. A journalist estimated that 20,000 people were at the racetrack on Friday, the busiest of the three days, with a third of those riding BMWs.