And now, a Moped intermission...

A while back I posted this moped

 It looks like a survey party has been through, and the cactus have grown  quite  a bit.

Decided to stop by and see if it was still there, and see what changes had happened in the garden. Caught my friend in the middle of yard work, sprucing up for a  visiting mother-in -law. Got to be tough to weed around those prickly cactii. He told me his daughter and boyfriend were looking for another moped, this moped thing seems to be catching on.

This moped caught my eye as I was driving by.

A cafe inspired moped.

An interesting double silencer equipped expansion chamber.

It said Moto Minarelli on the engine cover.

Looks like it would be a fun one to ride.




So SFB and Kawa , what have we here?  I'm assuming it is someones custom work . I did a quick web search and came up with pretty standard looking mopeds. With the K& N air filter, expansion chamber, seat and tank, and racing crouch bars, I am assuming this is a custom. Unfortunately the owner wasn't around to query. I'm wondering, do people race mopeds,well- other than street racing? Any way , presented for your viewing pleasure.

And the winner is...

One of the early races, the big screen and flying through turn one.

In the main event the winner is Bryan Smith over Chris Carr by the proverbial wheel and a half...

Looking across to the main pit area.

     

Kicking up dust coming through turn four.

Start of  the main event

Out on the track

Zoom, zoom.

Back from the races, have a bunch of pics to go through. Since I had luck posting some vids, here's a few and a couple of pics. Will post more tomorrow. Was an excellent day at the races. Some amazing action .Too tired to deal with blogger.

The Sacramento Mile is back...

Going to the race

The Sacramento Mile is back!! After, over a ten year absence- the mile race is back at the track at "Cal-Expo", site of the State Fair. Just got back from buying my ticket. A "cheap" seat in the bleachers...only about 15 dollars less than the nifty engine stand that "Bodger" just bought for his BSA Victor. Forty dollars, but that's less than half what the highest price tickies are going for. It does also include entrance to the fair, so I guess I shouldn't grouse too much.

I live about a mile from the old State fair grounds. That was where the "Mile" used to be held. Cal Expo was opened about '68, I believe. The new site is across the river to the north-east of the old site. I can hear the fireworks go off from my house. In fact they'll be going off in about 7 minutes at 10:00. Time to vacate the McWiFi, as Mat calls it....

With any luck I'll get a few pics of the race to post here. This will be Chris Carr's retirement race. He's from Stockton, not too far from Sacramento.  You can go to WWW.sacramentoflattrack.com for a look at ticket info. It says there, that the Mile has been  at Cal-Expo since 1959, which can't be, since Cal Expo opened in 1968. In fact I've been seeing info on races at the old fairgrounds till 1970. I know a fellow who has written books on dirt track racing, I should check with him and get the real skinny.

His name is Tom Motter. He was originally from the Bay Area, and raced "Quarter-midget" race cars. He has published several books on local racing. I believe somewhere I have a photo I took of him on a Ducati out at a local dirt riding area in the 60's.This was way before I actually met him. Yeah, somewhere-buried in the "archives".

Like fairs all over the United States, there are cows, sheep, goats, chickens,cotton candy, corn dogs,and deep-fried  Snickers?

Travels through the neighborhood-continued, one for Mat

Built in 1935-1936

 The bottling can be viewed through these windows

 Great mexican food now, used to buy motorcycle parts here when it was Sarkees  Honda/Triumph/BSA

This blogging stuff can drive ya nuts!! Since I can't seem to put any more pics where I want them, it must be time to start typing. I gave up trying to add a video on the last post, maybe I'll try again some time.

The Coca Cola bottling plant is just up the street from where I live. I drive by it every day, to and from work.
The other day as I motored by I thought about how Mat, of "Mat Versus the USA" works at a Coke plant down under. So these pics are for Mat. After visiting a website I can tell you that Coke was introduced in the Sacramento California area in 1909. This "Spanish Colonial Revival"  building was put up to replace the early 20th century plant.

Nice little Motorcycle clubhouse

This club has been around for a while

Not far from where the bike shop was on Broadway is Tower Theater, and not far from there is the Clubhouse for the Capital City Motorcycle Club. I've run into guys from this club over the years. It's a family oriented motorcycle club, and according to the website they have, they have gotten back into competition stuff. I'm not sure, but it seems that one of the guys told me that way back it originally started out as a bicycling club. 

As I headed home I stopped in at Willie's and had a "Slammer" (Chili burger) ,with fries and of course a coke.

Here you go Mat

Tower Records Sacramento

Tower Theater building that housed the drug store that Tower records got it's start in.

 Shot of Tower Records on Broadway-Going out of business sale.

 For awhile Tower became "R5"

 Now it is Dimple Records, at least they didn't paint over the cool murals.

 A shot of the old neon sign that was restored and returned to the theater building where the first record store within the drug store  was. Looks like the neon could use some work...

Right about here was where I was gonna add the snazzy "movie" I made with a Windows program on my lil' puter....but Blogger doesn't seem to recognize it as a video...so looks like I get to upload stills instead. Anyway this hasn't a lot to do with motorcycles, but is a look at an old local business that has gone by the wayside. I spent way too much time and money at Tower stores, but where else would I have bought my copies of "Classic Bike"to read at the local coffee shop? The Tower name was sold on and is an "on-line" business now. I haven't given up on the "video" yet. It shows the murals on the building...might have a "lo-tech" way to add them...we'll see. Did you have Tower outlets near you?