AMA Superbike Races in Birmingham, AL

This past weekend I rode my Ninja 250 to Birmingham for the second round of the AMA Superbike races. Tom and Brent from the Ninja forum also rode in, and the three of us stayed with a fourth forum member, Bo, who lives in Birmingham.

Tom and I arrived around noon on Friday, so the two of us and Bo headed over and met another Ninja forum member, DJ, at Old Smokey Barbecue, just down Hwy 78 from Barber; I had found it during a previous visit to the Barber museum. The food was every bit as good as I remembered it being, but the staff seemed to have not a clue as to what was going on; it was pure chaos, and they weren't even busy! :/



The three of us spent the afternoon at the museum; this was their first visit and my third; you could visit it a dozen times and still highly enjoy it each time and see something new each time. For dinner we ate at Frontera Grill, a Mexican restaurant that Bo recommended; it was very tasty, and as soon as you took a sip or two of tea, someone was over refilling it. Their service was directly opposite that of Old Smokey.
Some pretty heavy rain moved into the area later in the evening, and unfortunately Brent was pretty soaked when he arrived around 11:00pm.

We made it over to the track Saturday morning and enjoyed alternating between wandering around the vendor displays, the paddock, and watching qualifying. We hooked up with my friend Pat and his son Tony later in the afternoon and watched the Superbike race with them over on the straightaway hill. A pretty good battle between Mladin and Spies ensued, and when Mladin and another rider bumped, that sealed Spies' victory. It was an exciting race.



Me with Jessica Zalusky, a racer in the Supersport and Formula Extreme classes


Miguel Duhamel


Later in the evening Brent and I swapped bikes for about 20 miles, and I found that I really liked his Bandit 600 S. I found the ergonomics and power delivery to be really nice. I shall have to start researching this bike.

The Mexican place was so good that we decided to go there again for dinner, and once again, it was superb, and nary a tea glass approached the halfway mark. Until the check came. Apparantly that signifies "end of meal" and you need to get the hell out. :-)

Sunday morning before we all began our journies back home we rode out to 29 Dreams motorcycle resort, which is on Hwy 25 off of Hwy 78 heading out of Leeds. 25 was a fantastic road; I was quite surprised to learn that such a good road is just right outside of Birmingham! 29 Dreams was a neat place, and they offered an excellent breakfast buffet. Anyone who lives anywear near Birmingham really needs to go check this place out.



All the photos I took