Mama Tried, Milwaukee, WI
Momma Would be Proud
Burn outs on top of the bar are your thing? Oval racing on the Friday? A bunch of big inching customs in the ballroom? Merle Haggard once wrote a song about parents’ failed attempts at making their children good people, called "Mama tried". Weyll, Mama Tried didn’t disappoint here, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a place you might have heard of before. The local maker of murdersickles was all over the place, starting with the pre party on the Thursday night. Our friends at LowBrow had brought round a few barrels of beer, propelling the night into a sort of burnout frenzy. They just heaved a Sporty up onto the bar, the rest of the evening was hidden behind an ever thickening fog of booze and burnt rubber …
The next opportunity to make Mama proud
was the racing on Flat Out Friday. Nothing to do with a lack of air pressure in a tire, but with regular flat tracking: go fast, turn left. But this was different, because it took place in the Milwaukee Bucks’ indoor arena. Being smaller than a regular track they sprayed everything with "Sticky Soda Syrup" to give those rubbers something to cling to and get the racing action to boiling point. 21 classes were on the start line, from "Brakeless", „Women’s Twins“, „50cc Four Stroke“ to „Goofball“ and „Anything but a Motorcycle“, cheered on by a well filled arena.
The real cruncher for all those pro and semi-pro wrenchers
was the invitation-only Mama Tried Motorcycle Show on Saturday and Sunday in the Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee. Dozens of high end customs, parked in endless rows under the ballroom’s festive lights, ready for the wave of crowds looking for a treat. Among the machines there were flat trackers, hillclimbers, choppers, bar hoppers … painstaking detailing and superior wrenching skills invited the afiçionados to take a closer look, and find all those nifty little ideas hidden deep among the tubes, the hoses, the pipes, the immaculate welds, the paint and the chrome … they also had a bunch of vendors selling parts and accessories, even tattoos could be ordered. "Well done, kid!" even the most jaded of moms would say!
