Amerivespa 2001
9th Annual National Rally
June 7th - 10th
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Review by J.D. Merryweather
Amerivespa 2001 swept through Oklahoma City this past June like a grass fire. It sparked a new enthusiasm among the local riders; it intrigued Oklahoma as a community and mostly, it brought together a cross section of VCOA American Scooterists.
Oklahoma City worked perfectly for a rally site. Central to the U.S. most travelers were within a day’s drive. Aside from some June heat, we had 94 registered attendants from 14 states, close to 200 scooters, and huge community support with over 500 plus people visiting the rally site. Eight vendors sold it all from cool shirts to brand new ET4s. Local news coverage lasted for weeks after the rally and the impact has been that neglected scooters are being dusted off and rolled back out onto the streets and new riders are joining our forces.
Organizational effort was a key element to this year’s rally. Creston and Teela Coates, the official Amerivespa 2001 organizers, did an amazing job. Months of preparation and planning insured that all the bases were covered. With the help of volunteer forces a very smooth event was pulled together and went off without a hitch.
Festivities began on Thursday night with a cookout at Oklahoma’s own Teela Park located in the Coates’ backyard. It was all catfish and scooters! A rally warm-up ride around Lake Overholser wrapped up the evening’s events. The smell of two stroke filled the air for the first of many times to follow as 30 plus bikes headed down the street.
Amerivespa tent city slowly filled up on Friday as participants streamed in, a constant flow of antique, stock, modified, new and some beat to hell rides were unloaded and fired up. It was great to see the camaraderie and intrigue as one by one the parkway was being lined with bikes. Friday’s main event was a 65-mile group ride lead by Creston Coates. It headed west on and off of the famous Route 66. The outer destination was a casino on the Concho Indian Reservation. Again the head count was about 30 plus scooters.
Saturday was quite hot in many ways. The temperature was in the mid to upper nineties. The scooters entered in the Concours d’ Elegance were smokin’. The Gymkhana competition was fierce. The evening activities were also pretty steamy. Vic Fletchall from Missouri won the best Vespa with the restoration of a beautiful GS. Mike Frankovich from California took honors with an exceptional rat bike. Steve Coates (aka Jimmy Kana) laid out a tough and challenging Gymkhana course that produced several victims, with Kevin Kibbe of Texas being the victor. The after dark entertainment included a bowling tourney & and some great live music by the Poison Okies (complete with a greaser midget) at the Sixty-Six Bowl.
Sunday
began with breakfast at the Runway Cafe, a large group photo followed by a
60 mile ride, lead by yours truly, on a long section of Route 66 that included
stops
at a landmark church designed by Bruce Goff (a student of Frank Lloyd
Wright) and the Historical Round Barn in Arcadia. We had 23 scooters in our
group.
Oklahoma City was definitely impacted by Amerivespa 2001. The Oklahoma scooterists and VCOA wish to thank all who showed, the rally sponsors, the volunteers and the local community for their support. It was a lot of fun and a great success. See you next year in Portland.