Detroit Renaissance

**black gold man** · January-24-12, 01:08 AM

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**black gold man** · January-24-12, 02:13 PM

I came across this put it on your list of things to do in DETROIT.

Detroit's Dorais Velodrome, a 0.2-mile, heavily banked, concrete, oval racetrack, was built in 1969 by the Wolverine Bicycle Club. The site of several national bike racing championships, the Velodrome was actively ridden and maintained until 1986, when the city of Detroit essentially abandoned it to the elements. The last known race happened some time around 1990. In the next two decades, the Velodrome deteriorated to a pitiful condition, looking less and less like a racetrack and more like a jungle. When Detroit's renegade landscaping crew, The Mower Gang, recently rediscovered the site, they found mature trees growing from cracks in the broken concrete, with garbage and tires strewn everywhere. My partners, Andy Didorosi, Al Schlutow, and I decided we'd work to pry it from Mother Nature's grip and put it to good use again. We would call the reborn racetrack the Thunderdrome.

Breaking with the past, we decided that the Thunderdrome wouldn't be limited to just bicycles. We wanted higher speeds and more excitement. We wanted loony subcultures, weirdos, a scene, a spectacle—something people could get excited about. So in addition to traditional fixed-gear road bicycles, geared bikes and mountain bikes, we also invited racers on mopeds, scooters and pit bikes [[think: shrunken dirt bike). We worked nonstop for a month, cutting down shrubs and trees—and grinding stumps mid-track—clearing overgrown sod and pouring new concrete. Oh, and we also built a website, promoted the event, hunted for sponsors and raided enthusiast forums of the various vehicles. Would the hard work be worth it? The contestants looked promising as they registered online, but we had no idea what we were in for on race day.

At nine on a clear autumn morning, Oct. 16, 2010, the crowd started rolling in. One guy arrived dressed as a jack-o'-lantern, complete with a bright orange helmet and a pumpkin stem glued on top. Another one in full race leathers had come up from South Carolina with a beautiful home-built white moped that looked worthy of a museum. A man dressed as Evel Knievel took a parade lap on his Yamaha 750. There were clowns—actual, creepy clowns, in costume. A gang that resembled the moped version of the Hell's Angels, with black leather and unwashed scruff, practiced nearby, as a hint of two-cycle exhaust wafted on a gentle breeze beneath a brilliant blue sky. At noon, with about 300 spectators and over 100 vehicles in attendance, the racers took their marks.
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Read more: Detroit Thunderdrome DIY Race - Thunderdrome Bike Track - Popular Mechanics