Were you at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally twenty years ago? Do you recall some of the great events of that year, or do you even have any memories of that year? One thing is for sure, about 100,000 people attended the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally that year, and the Rapid City Journal worked hard to document some of the great events that happened each day. For many years, the Rapid City Journal has published the Rally Daily – a special pull-out section of the newspaper. While the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum doesn’t have a complete set of the Daily’s from every year, there are some years we do have in our archives: 1992 is one of those.
From Sunday, August 2 through Friday, August 7th, the Rally Daily reported on happenings around the Black Hills. The Rally Daily featured articles on tattooing, entertainers who were headlining at various venues throughout the Black Hills, calendars of events, and even some world news. In ’92, headliners included Waylon & Willie, Cheap Trick, Edgar Winter Blues Band and many more. Venues for the concerts included the Buffalo chip, Bentshoe and the Rapid City Civic Center.
The lead story in the first Rally Daily was about a new name for the event – in 1992, the name of the event was “Sturgis Rally & Races” for the first time. Prior to that year, the event was the “Black Hills Motor Classic.” Organizers of the event felt that while “Black Hills Motor Classic” had some recognition, it did not have the universal recognition of “Sturgis.”
A few other events that were new in ’92 included a Governor’s Tour led by then-governor George Mickelson, the first trade show that featured first-time exhibitors, a vintage bike show, some poker runs and a (believe it or not) Medieval Festival with knights in armor, beggars, musicians and story-tellers.
With everything that goes on at the rally each year, it’s really very interesting to look through these old papers to see what’s changed and what hasn’t over the last 20 years.
