AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days

The premise of the 1971 documentary On Any Sunday is to humanize motorcycle riders and showcase the pure, infectious joy of motorcycle racing. Which I find to be the perfect description of Vintage days. Its humanizing because you get beat by a couple kids during a barrel race, but its just pure infectious joy as you fly through the event laughing with riders of all ages.

You literally cannot keep a smile off your face.

This was the 34th running, at Mid-Ohio in Lexington, Ohio. Tens of thousands of people across a 380 acre facility wrapped around a 2.4 mile, 15 turn road course. The event is the primary fundraiser for the American Motorcycle Heritage Foundation, which funds the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame, so every dollar you spend on a corndog is technically historic preservation….technically.

The days start with fog hanging low over the field, and for awhile the only sound you hear are racers prepping bikes. The paddock is a mix of heavily sponsored teams in decked out rigs next to the hometown racer who bought a box trailer and sleeps on a cot in the back of it. You should know racers get treated like superheroes once they start winning, but before that they are expected to beg, borrow and steal their way to the top.

The only other sound is the brave few who bounce out of bed in time to hit the showers. It is a short window. Once the first few bikes turn over, the kids find their way out of the tents, and then the whole camp is up.

I start my days at the swap meet, where I have a terrible habit of making a note of something I want, deciding it costs too much, and coming back later to find it sold hours ago. I swear I will learn one day. This is the largest motorcycle swap meet in North America, roughly 80 acres, so drive your mini bike right into it, because you will not see all of it on foot.

Racing is the actual spine of the weekend. The AMA runs one of the widest vintage programs in the country here: road racing, motocross, hare scrambles, trials, flat track and pitbikes. Six disciplines in three days, most of them running at the same time on different corners of the property.

Thats completely ignoring the unstructured races you will find in the campgrounds like barrel races. The idea is simple enough, ride a loop around two barrels, there is no start and no finish, just race your friends at random with everyone else. It looks casual right up until you are in it, and then you find out how hard the younger generation rides. Granted I was on a two stroke scooter, but I don't think I would have gained much on them with more power.

Friday belongs to the hare scrambles, a one hour run on a 3.5 mile natural terrain loop through woods, open fields and over every rock or root you can find. Youth classes go off a little before nine in the morning and the schedule works its way up to the Revolution classes in the early afternoon.

Wander back toward the paddock and the road racers have already hit the track. They mark the whole weekend with the sounds of bikes accelerating out of the corner, and because the track sits at the center of everything, the racing becomes part of your day whether you are watching it or not. You will be halfway through a conversation when a pack comes through and you both just stop and wait it out.

This year the road course carried more weight than usual. For the first time in the event's history the AMA Road Race Grand Championship ran alongside Vintage Motorcycle Days, putting the best amateur road racers in the country on the same 2.4 miles as vintage rigs.

Saturday afternoon the road course got loud in a different way. The AMA Amateur National Bagger Championship is six laps of full dress touring bikes doing things full dress touring bikes were never engineered to do. Seth Dahmer won Bagger GP by 4.6 seconds over Cody Gilmore, with Drew Jankord third, and set the fastest lap at 1:34.775. Thats an average of 90mph around the whole track.

Out on the motocross track the AMA ran the King's Cup and Golden Cup for a second year. The Golden Cup went Saturday for air-cooled, drum-braked 125cc two-strokes from the late seventies. The King's Cup went Sunday for air-cooled open class two-strokes from the seventies and eighties. Both split into under-40 and over-40 divisions.

Sunday morning is trials, simultaneously the quietest and the most alarming racing at the whole event. Riders pick their way through natural terrain sections without stalling, crashing or putting a foot down, at a speed that looks like nothing until you try it yourself. Pit bike racing runs alongside everything else all weekend.

Presiding over all of it was Freddie Spencer. The AMA Hall of Famer and three-time Grand Prix world champion. He led the Lap for History, a parade lap of the road course open to anybody willing to put a twenty in the Heritage Foundation bucket and ride their own bike around Mid-Ohio. Its not a race, but every small bore scooter from the 70s can have a shit ton of fun going around in the back of the pack.

Adjacent to all of that is the AMA infield, where Wendy and Liza were presented their record for the largest GPS drawing made by motorcycle. The infield also holds a run of vendors that pulled me in, plus enough custom bikes that by the time I came out the other side I wanted a corndog more than I have ever wanted anything.

If you head for the food you will figure out the one universal truth of this event pretty quickly. Bringing your own is faster. The lines are absurd. The upside is that standing in one puts you in perfect view of the stunt show, and of the kids ripping around the Mimi and Moto track on balance bikes with a level of commitment most adults have long since traded away. We have an interview coming with the Mimi and Moto team, and after watching that track for an hour I understand exactly why they built it.

The best hours of the weekend have no plan attached to them. You get on whatever you rode in on and drift through camp, stopping wherever you see a friend or a cool ride. Catching up with friends from the past, or in my case people I had only known online. We chat until the sun sets.

The nights are their own event. Once the track goes quiet the paddock does not. People wander from camp to camp with a flashlight and a beer, looking at whatever is pulled apart on a tailgate, offering opinions nobody asked for. Somebody fires up a two stroke for no reason other than that it is loud and it is theirs. It goes later than anyone plans.

Then the fog rolls back in and the whole thing starts over....

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Frequently Asked Questions

When and where is AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days?

AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days runs in late July at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio. The 2026 event was the 34th running, held July 24–26 across the 380-acre facility that wraps around the 2.4-mile road course. It has been held at Mid-Ohio for most of its history and draws tens of thousands of people over three days.

What does it cost to attend?

Admission is sold as single-day and weekend passes, with camping priced separately and kids admitted free below a certain age. Prices change year to year, so buy from the official Vintage Motorcycle Days ticket page rather than a resale site. Worth knowing: the event is the primary fundraiser for the American Motorcycle Heritage Foundation, which funds the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame, so your ticket is underwriting the museum.

Do you need a vintage motorcycle to go?

No. Spectating is open to anyone, and plenty of people show up on modern bikes or in a truck. You only need period-correct machinery if you plan to race, where the classes are built around specific eras and engine types. If you want to ride the road course, the Lap for History parade lap takes any bike and any rider willing to put a donation in the Heritage Foundation bucket.

How big is the swap meet?

Roughly 80 acres, which makes it the largest motorcycle swap meet in North America. You will not see all of it on foot in a day, and most regulars ride a mini bike straight into the rows. The standard mistake is spotting a part, deciding it costs too much, and coming back two hours later to find it sold.

What kinds of racing are there?

Six disciplines across three days: road racing, motocross, hare scrambles, trials, flat track and pitbikes, most of them running simultaneously in different corners of the property. Motocross, hare scrambles and trials combine on points into the AMA Vintage Grand Championship. Recent years have also added the AMA Amateur National Bagger Championship and, in 2026, the AMA Road Race Grand Championship alongside the vintage program.

Is it worth going with kids?

Yes, and it is one of the few motorsport events genuinely built for them. There are youth classes in the racing program, a Mimi and Moto balance bike track, and a campground where kids ride from morning until dark. The unstructured campground barrel races are open to anyone. Fair warning: you will get beaten by an eleven-year-old.