Both Daniel and I managed to pry ourselves out of bed before everyone left for the next day's activities (even though we were still the last up) so we got to touch bases with the guys about what's going on. Chris had the day off and was going to take a ride on one of his bikes and then was going to head over to the speedway to watch the vintage bikes run. Sounds good.

But first, breakfast. Chris had mentioned to us that Deland was one of the older towns in the area and had a nice historic downtown. Daniel and I hadn't seen it yet so we thought that it seemed a likely place to find something good to eat.

It was. With little fuss or bother we came across Paul Hunter's Restaurant.

Yep, chicken-fried steak, eggs over medium (with tabasco, natch), hot coffee and grits. Yes my north/east/west friends, I said grits! Hey man, ya gotta do it, this is the "south" after all and the south is about grits. "When in Rome ya gotta eat pasta." They are the perfect food for this time and this place (besides which I found them to be somewhat tasty).

Then it's time to get down to business once again (oh drat...lol). The day is proving to be a bit more gray with rain in the forecast. The buzz at Chris's house was that they had kicked up the start time at the speedway to try to beat the rain (how our guys come up with this kind of information remains a mystery). They did a great job of predicting when the rain would start (apparently it's easier to track rain across the flatland of Florida than in my moutainous home in California). The rain started less than an hour after the meet ended.

Ha! We're not in California anymore. Hellmann's mayonnaise is only "Hellmann's" east of the Mississippi. Way out west it's "Best Foods" and I have no idea why.

We did our now familiar dance, find the "unmarked guy" (or woman in today's case) in the "unknown location" and get pit passes (still $25) and then headed over to watch the action.

The Indian hand-shifters were there but looking a bit ragged.

Especially this one. I can't imagine anyone actually racing this bike, and yet...

To watch some of these hand-shifters heading out onto the track click the icon to the right.

We ran across Ed Milch in the pits. Ed is there with his wife racing a Ducati and a Moto Guzzi (actually I'm not quite sure what Ed's wife was racing). Ed is quite the legend here in the U.S. among we Guzzista. He's very active in Moto Guzzi forums online and runs the GuzziTech.com site. And he runs the Moto Guzzi Cup contingency program (a program designed to put a little extra money in the pockets of racers with podium finishes while riding Moto Guzzi's...very worthwhile). And he also writes the "Mad Scientist" column in the National Moto Guzzi Owners Club magazine. He did very well here yesterday taking a 1st place in his division on the Ducati. They even did one of those short interviews with him in the announcers booth. We gave him hell (lite) for not mentioning Moto Guzzi's once during his interview. The second time he went to the announcers booth Ed mocked the competition with "Forza Moto Guzzi! Forza Ducati!" His next time out on the track while riding in 2nd place he lost control of the bike in a corner and crashed out. Both he and the bike were fine ("I crash pretty good" was his his only comment afterwards).

Rounding a corner in the pits we ran across this crusty bunch of guys signing autographs. They all retired riders and all famous. Some I'd never heard of (this is all still pretty new to me) but Daniel seemed to at least know a bit about most of them. They were names like, David Aldana (BSA factory rider), Larry Coleman (3 time AMA Roadracing sidecar champion), Don Emde (won Daytona in '72), Walt Fulton (Harley Davidson factory rider), Dick Klamfoth (3 time Daytona winner, 2 time Laconia winner), Bob McKeever (14th at Daytona in '48 when they still raced on the beach), Ronnie Rall (Top Dirt Track competitor in '60-70's), John Tibben (Nation #60, Dirt track) and of course the legendary Gary Nixon (we're getting to be old friends now). I dutifully stood in line and got each of their autographs.

And so the day went, racing, racing and more racing. It was wonderful but oh those ominous skies. Now there's rumors of possible tornadoes...swell.

I elected to fly my Sport-Touring.Net (a favorite online group of mine) colors for our final day of racing.

They got in all 11 of the races in before the rains started. Left with a partial afternoon to kill we decided to head over to Pantheon Pizza and even though we'd missed the previous night's fun we'd at least maybe catch a little of the ambiance. The parking lot was deserted...

...but joy of joy's they offered up a bodacious meatball sandwich ;-)

Over lunch we decided to go take a look for something called "The Birth of Speed Museum" that we'd spotted on our maps. It took a little looking around (in the now torrential downpour...but thankfully no tornadoes) but we finally found it. It's not really a museum per se but more a set of small memorials overlooking a stretch of beach memorializing the spot where since 1903 hundreds of motorcycles and automobiles haved raced and dozens of records were set. Fred Marriott set the world land speed record in '06 at 127.659 in a Stanley Steamer that stood for four years and Glenn Curtiss (the "Father of Naval Aviation") set the world land speed record in 1907 on a V8 powered motorcycle and became "The Fastest Man On Earth!"

Of course Daniel had to head out into the storm to stand on the hallowed ground.

We'd put in another long day and it was now time to head back over to Chris's. We amused ourselves through the evening by replacing a headlight (or rather, watching Chris replace a headlight) on his Breva, drinking some most excellent beers, rebuilding a DVD player (never did get it running), drinking more beers and watching some of the photos you've seen here on Chris's television screen.

We were in bed by 10:00...we're up at 4:30 in the morning and Chris has generously offered to drive us back down to Orlando to catch our flights.

We arrived in time for our check-in's (actually Daniel's flight was a couple of hours behind mine) and roamed Orlando International Airport. We breakfasted at an airport cafe (Daniel with a Krispy Kreme doughnut and me with something called a "breakfast panini)...we're used to better.

I said goodbye to Daniel and headed off to my gate via one of these trippy trams.

Leaving Daniel facing an empty chair where I had just been and TWO HOURS to kill in this place...

My luck had worn out in respect to having 1/2 full flights. The 10 hour, non-stop flight home was booked full but I had an aisle seat (thank you Becky) so it wasn't too bad and arrived home mid-day.

It was nice to get home...but I'm ready to go again.

And in closing I would like to publically thank Chris Galardi for his kindness, his hospitality and his generosity to us on this trip. He made this mini-vacation for us something very special. Chris, thanks for the sleeping accomodations, the food (and beers), the car, the comaraderie, and just in general making this a trip that neither of us will soon forget.

Did I mention that I love Guzzi people?


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