Vintage motorcycles on display at VIR

ALTON — Robin Scudder built a particular motorcycle while toiling away more than a quarter century ago in a tiny, little-known factory in southern England.

In fact, he built two.

“They were working in a stone barn that I’m sure was on the tax rolls when Charles I was in power,” motorcycle enthusiast Ron Raven said, “and I always wanted one of their bikes.”

One of the bikes Raven saw during his 1983 trip to England was one of the bikes Scudder built — one of only two of its kind in the world — and until very recently, one that haunted its creator’s dreams for decades. That 1980 Hejira Rotax 250 motorcycle with a single-cylinder Can-Am engine is one of a fistful of vintage motorcycles on display this weekend in a different kind of barn — this one is made of wood — at Virginia International Raceway. The show is one of the side attractions at the Suzuki Big Kahuna Nationals AMA Superbike Championships, an event that runs through Sunday on the 2.25-mile North Course at this historic road racing venue.

There is much, much more to the story behind the Rotax — as is common with many of the bikes on display.

Scudder sold the motorcycle in 1988 and moved on to other things, eventually marrying an American girl and relocating to the United States in 2000.

Raven purchased the bike only recently — “I was able to finally buy one and import it years later,” he said — and managed to track down Scudder in Kentucky.

“He was sorry he had sold the bike and he had dreamed over the years about getting to ride it again. When we made contact earlier in the year and I said come on down and ride it, he said it was a dream come true, literally a dream come true,” the slight-built older gentleman said. “I got him down to Talladega for the reunion ride, so the first ride that this bike has had was with its original rider. I haven’t ridden it yet.

“(Today) I’m going to take it out on a parade lap and I’m so excited. I’ve never been on this track and I’ve only just gotten this completely restored. … I’m just all excited, and at my age that’s probably bad for my heart.”

The hearts of all motorcycle lovers are certainly aflutter from the moment they step foot in this history-laden building.

Another bike on display is a Yamaha TZ 750 with a four-cylinder, two-stroke engine, the very motorcycle ridden by the late Dale Singleton when he won the 1979 and 1981 Daytona 200. He placed second on the bike in 1980.

It was refurbished by Singleton’s brother and is being loaned for display to Bill Brown, a former event coordinator for Road Atlanta.

“(Singleton) got into NASCAR and he was coming back from Darlington and got into a thunderstorm and the plane was struck by lightning and it knocked him out of the sky,” Brown said. “Dale did it as a privateer, not on a factory team. He beat the factory teams — and that’s quite a thing to do. He was an amazing young man.”

There are lots of bikes and lots of stories.

There’s a Formula USA championship bike, a similar model with the covering removed “so people can see what it looks like, see the bare bones,” Brown said. There’s a bike formerly ridden by Rocky Stargell, one Frank Trevino rode to the Canada World Superbike championship, an extremely rare R7 Yamaha with carbon fiber wheels.

Brown goes on and on pointing out motorcycles.

“Then we have some earlier model Ducatis. There’s a Vincent up there that would just like pay off anybody’s house. That’s probably $250,000. … Some very nice stuff that people were good enough to bring out and show to people. We’re thrilled about it.

“And for what they are, old motorcycles, they run really, really well.”

The 1950 single-engine Vincent Comet that Brown speaks of was recently restored and is owned by Velocity, a shop in Richmond. It’s not as sought after as some of the older twins, like the Black Shadows, shop employee Justin Brickett explains, “but it’s still a really cool bike.”

“We pained it blue because there was a myth going around that Vincent made five Egyptian blue Comets. So we kind of wanted just to stir up the myth again,” Brickett said. “I think it’s one of the coolest colors for any bike I’ve ever seen.”

It remains to be seen where the second Hejira Rotax 250 — the bike Scudder dreamed about for 20 years – is located. Raven, who owns five other motorcycles, said the whereabouts are unknown.

“It’s lost at the moment. But I’m sure somebody is looking for it. Somebody has got it,” he said. “It only took me from ’83 to ’06 to find one, but hey, I got it done in my lifetime.”

Motorcycle fans, riders, restorers and owners mill around, gawking at the historic machinery.

“We all got a passion for this stuff,” Raven said, “and it’s so much more fun when you can share you passion rather that just sit in your garage and enjoy it by yourself.”