Charlie St. Clair on Bike Week

Referring to a recent front-page story in the Daily Sun headlined "Let Bike Week be Bike Week," Charlie St. Clair, executive director of the Laconia Motorcycle Week Rally & Race Association (LMWRRA), Wednesday night dismissed outright any suggestion that the rally has suffered from being tamed.

Speaking to the Motorcycle Week Advisory Committee (MWAC), St. Clair challenged remarks made at previous meeting by Russ Pettit, a regular vendor at rally and author of the words in the offending headline, who told the committee that "the rally is going down the tubes", in part because of strict curbs on the bawdy behavior that was once its hallmark. He advocated returning the rally to a four-day affair, so bikers could have their fun and then "give the people their town back."

St. Clair said that after the riot at Weirs Beach in 1965, the rally , which stretched over a long weekend, was "nothing more than a four-day drunkathon" until the early 1990s. In 1990, the Bahre family acquired Bryar Motorsport Park in Loudon, host to the annual bike races and site of the infamous "Animal Hill," turning it into New Hampshire International Speedway. A year later Bob Lawton of Funspot, who had closed his business during the rally since it was damaged in the riot in 1965, agreed to host rally headquarters. And a few years later, what had been a riotous weekend became a nine-day rally.

"When the rally was a four-day thing," St. Clair said, "it was a regional event. The nine-day rally has turned Laconia into an international destination."

As for the excesses of the past, St. Clair said that LMWRR "fought hard for the ordinance prohibiting nudity. How would you like a bunch of guys waving signs asking your mother, or your sister or your wife to bare her breasts?" he asked. When the ordinance was adopted, he said, "we got thank you calls from bikers, not just residents." Likewise, St. Clair endorsed efforts to clamp down on bikers who smoked their tires and ran straight pipes.

"I'm pleased when I see parents with their children at the rally, sharing their love and enthusiasm for motorcycles," St. Clair said. "It's a motorcycle rally, but it's also a family event that offers something for everybody."