There used to be a real jungle behind the Red Lobster parking lot on the far end of International Speedway Blvd. When trash-talking street racers who gathered there had to take a leak, they'd step behind Joe Marasco's Maximum Street Performance trailer and relieve themselves in that jungle, taking care to avoid the assorted drunk and homeless folk who lived back there. Now that jungle is gone and has been replaced this year with a brand-new hotel, which tells you everything you need to know about Bike Week 2005. Although there seemed to be as many riders as ever in town for the event, the wildness was all but gone. There were no street racers at Red Lobster to shout each other down, and Marasco was in bed each night at 10-freakin'-30. The horror.
Next door to Red Lobster at the famous Hess Service Station, the parking lot was packed but quiet as a library. You could hear the pump lever click from 50 yards away as Barry Henson squeezed street gas into his 580-horsepower, AMA/Prostar Pro Street Hayabusa. While Henson hung out, the crowd around his bike never thinned. Even if they had no idea what his bike was or what it does, everyone knew his bike was something very special. Seeing Henson's 200-mph racebike riding down the street is a great advertisement for motorcycle dragracing, which only makes you wonder why dragracing (legal or otherwise) isn't a bigger part of Bike Week.
On the stunt side, the StarBoyz left their bikes in the trailer and idled through the Hess in their crew cab, looking for all the world like the bored suburban youths they once were, with nothing better to do than cruise the local convenience store. Joe Rocket used the Hess crowd to sell leathers, posing coiffed-bunny teenbots against the parking-lot backdrop for a photo shoot. At one point a wino-looking guy we dubbed Mudfoot shouted, "Show us the meat!" to the comely young models, who rightfully ignored him. He climbed back in his rusty conversion van and pumped the brakes suggestively as he idled past the girls in the parking lot, but his clumsy sexual antics seemed totally baffling to the unusually well-mannered crowd. Out on the Boulevard bikes streamed politely by-front wheels firmly touching the pavement and butts planted firmly in their seats.
Desperate for some real action, we eventually made our way downtown to Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Boulevard, ground zero for the Black Bike Week festivities. The crowds there lined the streets like a Mardi Gras parade as sportbike traffic moved slowly by. The smell of fried seafood mixed in the air with thumpin' funk and old-school hip-hop. If all your relatives were bikers, this is what your family reunion might be like. Later NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle bad boy Redell Harris caused a stir by the Biarritz Members Only Club. Wearing loafers, jeans and the jacket from his No Limit leathers, Harris revved up onlookers when he ripped off a string of smoky street burnouts with his Pro Stock bike. Satisfied, Harris parked his Suzuki back in the bike show area, failing to notice that his bike was on fire! An alarmed group (including Harris) made a madcap attempt to loosen the Dzus fasteners and remove the bodywork, eventually giving up and dumping two coffin-sized coolers of Bud on ice over the bike. "It was just a piece of tape touching the header," Harris said later. "I think I'll go out there and do it again!" Somehow, the bike survived the night and actually qualified the next weekend at Gainesville, a relatively rare event for Harris that raised the eyebrows of fellow competitors and tech officials alike. It wasn't nitrous, guys; it must have been all the spilled beer.
Lesson learned: The party's still on at Bike Week, it's just getting harder to find.