Most people have heard of the Barber Motorsports Park. The “Park,” opened in 2003, is a 17 turn, 2.28 mile (3.83 km) road course designed by Alan Wilson. Also residing in the Park’s complex is the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum.

The museum’s webpage says that the facility is “Dedicated to the preservation, interpretation, exhibition and the history of motorcycles, vintage vehicles, and motorsports. That’s a pretty lofty dedication, and with such a high bar, you might think that there’s not much more that the Park would want to do.

But wait, there’s still more! The folks at Barber have dreamed up another vision for the Park. While the museum houses many motorcycles and exhibits, there’s little about the future of motorcycles. And that’s what their newest “facility” takes on.

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Each October brings us to Barber Motorsports Park’s 880-acre facility near Birmingham, Alabama, for the Barber Vintage Festival. The three-day event includes everything motorcycles: vintage racing (road, trials, enduro, motocross), bike shows, swap meet, auction, demo rides, the worlds largest motorcycle museum (over 1600 motorcycles in the collection) and the “Motorcycles by Moonlight” fund raising dinner in the museum, which each year features a motorcycling icon as the Grand Marshal. This year the honoree was AMA Hall of Famer Mary McGee.

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In Leeds, Alabama, there is a sprawling museum dedicated to cars and motorcycles. For the people interested in automotive history, this place is a dream come true.

The Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum has the largest motorcycle collection in the United States with more than 1,600 motorcycles and racing cars that date from the early 1900s to modern day. The museum began as the private collection of George W. Barber, a former racecar driver. Barber first opened a museum in 1995, but relocated to this larger facility in 2003.

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A stereotype of chaplains is that they are always serious and deal only with illness, injury and death. But Mark Merical, Raceline Ministry chaplain who serves club and pro motorcycle racing, breaks that stereotype.

“I’m very good looking,” he jokes, admitting chaplains sometimes “lie.”

“I’m also a black belt in the martial arts. So I will get people to Jesus one way or the other!”

Merical said on his first day as a chaplain 10 years ago he didn’t know what to expect. Wearing his Raceline shirt with “Chaplain” on it, he introduced himself to the riders.

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Once I had caught the fragrant whiff of Castrol R and then heard the rasping bark of two-stroke engines, I felt that all-enveloping anticipation that washes over you when you know you’re about to have a really good time.

This was set up the day before the event opened. The friendly banter of stallholders and people setting up items to sell at the swap meet section rang through the already warm morning air. Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum Founder George Barber was hosting the 16th Barber Vintage Festival, and momentum was gathering, poised with the promise of yet another enjoyable annual event.

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The man behind some of the most memorable Ducatis of all time, Pierre Terblanche, has reimagined the Supermono to help launch the new Barber Advanced Design Centre. The centre, based at the Barber Motorsports Complex in Alabama, has been built to help educate and inspire the next generation of industrial designers. The first bike to come out of the centre is the ‘Mono’ concept that’s being billed as a sort of director’s cut.

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HP feels the need, the need for speed, in its latest sponsored webinar, “Need for Speed: How Additive Manufacturing Helps to Re-Design Racing Motorcycles,” at 2 pm EST on the 14th. Attendees will learn how 3D printing was used to redesign a 30-year-old motorcycle for top performance, how to produce a functional prototype directly from CAD, and more from three expert speakers: Brian Case, Director of the Barber Advanced Design Center at the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum; HP Applications Engineer Justin Case; and Mike Santora, Associate Editor of Design World, WTWH Media LLC.

“Do you race motorcycles? The Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum houses the world’s largest motorcycle collection. The museum is also home to a 3D design and research center focused on educating and exploring concepts and ideas to advance motorcycle design for peak racing performance. Join this session to hear about an exciting project the Barber team has been working on using additive manufacturing technology!”

You can register for the webinar here.

The Western Reserve Historical Society will launch “The Year of the Motorcycle” Aug. 19 at the Cleveland History Center, 10825 East Blvd. in Cleveland.

The grand opening is at 6 p.m. Aug. 19. Tickets are $25 for general admission and $20 for society members.

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If you consider yourself a motorcycle enthusiast and appreciate vintage cruisers, custom choppers and cool hogs, you’ll find plenty to gawk at when the Cleveland History Center launches “The Year of the Motorcycle” with a pair of exhibits starting in August.

The first, “A Century of the American Motorcycle,” comes from the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Alabama. Click Here to continue reading.

Racing action at this weekend’s Historic Sportscar Racing (HSR) Barber Historics moved off to a competitive start Friday at Barber Motorsports Park where a stout field of 37 competitors took the green flag for the day’s featured Sasco Sports International/American Challenge race. Continue Reading