DAYTONA BIKE WEEK HISTORY– Bikers and bike fans gathered at the World’s Most Famous Beach as early as 1903 for beach speed trials, but it wasn’t until 30 years later that Daytona Beach’s bike racing tradition, and Bike Week, gained traction.
The Daytona 200 took place on January 24, 1937. Bill France was one of the race’s founders. The race ran 3.2 miles, including parts on the beach and A1A connected by banked sand turns. There were 86 starters and about 15,000 fans watching as Ed “Iron Man” Kretz won on an Indian motorcycle, with an average speed of 73.34 mph.
For nearly a decade the event grew until it was halted by WWII, when most factories were retooled for national defense. Motorcycle racing resumed in 1947, promoted by France, and drew 176 drivers. The motorcycle enthusiasts who showed up for the races usually spent their nights at area bars. And, since the races were along the beach, the racers and the fans generally stayed in beachside motels and hung out at beachside taverns.
Main Street became the hub and remained so even after the Daytona 200 moved to an infield 2-mile road course at Daytona International Speedway in 1961, with a full course (including banks) of 3.81 miles opening in 1964.
As the nation’s interest in motorcycles grew, so did its interest in Bike Week. Mingling with the race fans, though, was an ever larger number of hard-core bikers — Outlaws, Hell’s Angels and others — more interested in partying and fighting than watching and talking racing.
Some Bike Week observers said the 1970s and ’80s were the event’s Golden Age, but others said the atmosphere got decidedly unfriendly by the early ’80s. Rifts grew between traditional Harley- Davidson motorcyclists and those favoring exotic foreign bikes.
A popular motorcycle magazine suggested there shouldn’t be a 1981 event. Newspapers reported disorderly conduct and public nudity. Trouble with rival motorcycle gangs began to get the attention of the law enforcement community. A former Orlando motorcycle gang leader was sent to prison for murdering a Daytona Beach biker.
In the late ’80s the Daytona Beach Chamber of Commerce, led by George Mirabel, decided to change the event from a raucous party to a biker festival and took over management of Bike Week. “Welcome Bikers” became the attitude, while police cracked down hard on nudity, fighting and public drinking. Bars, cooperating with the chamber’s plan, refused to admit bikers wearing “colors” those patches on their jackets or vests indicating membership in a gang or club. Noise ordinances were put in place.
In the decades since, the annual event has grown from 100,000 to half a million visitors arriving every year for the 10-day event, which now stretches over five counties, filled with concerts, parties, vendor exhibitions, street festivals and, yes, motorcycle racing.
— from Rogue
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