In the December issue of ‘American Motorcyclist’: Doing track days at age 69
AMA Charter Life member Arthur Ranney talks track days at the age of 69, AMA President and CEO Rob Dingman, who is also a charter life member, discusses his sidecar project, and the Lansing (Mich.) Motorcycle Club is featured in the December 2020 issue of American Motorcyclist magazine.
Ranney teamed up with buddies to race endurance races back in the early 1980s with his last race in 1983. In his column titled Time Traveling at Speed, Ranney says he decided to get back on the race track in 2019 at the age of 69.
Why? To test himself? Or to decide whether it was time to give up sport bike riding?
He describes prepping his 2016 Kawasaki ZX-6R for the track days, putting seven of them under his belt by the end of 2019, and his decision on whether to leave sport bikes behind at the age of 70.
Dingman, meanwhile, describes in his column titled Ukrainian Connection some of the challenges he faced in his effort to mate his Ukrainian Dnepr sidecar (apparently “from a two-wheel-drive military model”) to his custom 1986 BMW that started life as an R80RT.
“Since the sidecar frame didn’t come with a drive-wheel axle assembly, and since I was not going to be able to use the driven sidecar wheel anyway, I had to acquire a swingarm,” he wrote.
Getting parts from around the country, and around the world, was complicated, he wrote.
Meanwhile, the feature about the Lansing (Mich.) Motorcycle Club describes the club’s 100 years of hosting enduros, including the famed Jack Pine Enduro.
Plus, you can find out what’s happening around the country on the government front by checking out the Rights section of the magazine and find local races and rides in the Events Calendar.
You can read the December 2020 issue online now. Also, remember that you can get hard copies of American Motorcyclist at home if you are a Life Member Plus member. Not a Life Member Plus member? Call AMA Member Services at (800) AMA-JOIN (262-5646) to join for just $29 a year. The membership includes a hard copy of the magazine, AMA roadside assistance that covers all the motorcycles, cars, trucks and RVs in your household, and more benefits.