“I was much taken by the risk-embracing few who willingly forfeited the comfort, safety and sanity of the enclosed automobile for the ‘live free and possibly die’ adventures of traveling on a motorcycle”
– Jack Lueders-Booth
“Motorcycles took permanent possession of my senses and my wallet when I was just nine years old,” says Jack Lueders-Booth. He’s 90 and still in love with riding, racing, repairing and rebuilding bikes. His new photo book shows us people like him who fell in love with bikes and the culture around them. It’s about living in the present. As he says of his photography: “The truth of the moment will reveal its own best form.”
Bryar Motorsports Park, New Hampshire by Jack Lueders-Booth
Junior Racers, Bryar Motorsports Park, Short Track, Loudon, NH
“Derring-do, operational skill, and mechanical aptitude characterised these riders, who were often regarded as heroes – and the predictable misfortune was that perversions developed”
– Jack Lueders-Booth
Daytona International Speedway, Florida
“Seven eternal years later I owned one, and ever since then I have squandered too much, and too little time riding motorcycles, repairing and rebuilding them and, for several decades, racing them”
– Jack Lueders-Booth
Harley Davidson and Indian Motorcycle Riders, Daytona Beach, Florida
Dave Roper with tuner Rob Iannucci, Daytona International Speedway, Florida
‘This is a practice session in progress at Daytona, and Dave has pulled off the track for Rob to make tuning adjustments, and to give advice. If Dave seems not entirely there, it is because, psychologically, he isn’t. He is all but deaf to whatever Rob is yelling. His mind has returned to the track, and the quest for faster ways and quicker times’
Gary Nixon, Bryar Motorsports Park, Loudon, New Hampshire
“Had ‘larger than life’ and ‘force of nature’ not lost their powers of expression through overuse, both could be used in portrayal of Gary Nixon’s racing accomplishments and enduring influence on the community. Here we see what would be most familiar to the countless riders that Gary led around so many race tracks: his back’”
– Jack Lueders-Booth
Junior Racers, Bryar Motorsports Park, Short Track, Loudon, New Hampshire
Bryar Motorsports Park, Short Track, Loudon, New Hampshire
Indian Day, Springfield, MA
‘The 1960s brought us the Japanese Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha, which in their cleverly designed campaign to capture middle-income earners created a multimillion-dollar motorcycling middle class. Model names such as Nighthawk, Invader, Intruder and Rebel played to consumer fantasies born in motorcycling’s earlier outlaw image, while advertising slogans such as ‘you meet the nicest people on a Honda’ ensured middle-class respectability”
– Jack Lueders-Booth
Daytona Beach, Florida a
Daytona Beach, Florida
‘We cannot know how this young man – as much a stranger to me as to you – wished to look, or be perceived, by those who might view this photograph. But he comes to the camera with trust and candour that persuaded me of the truth of what I infer: he is not revealing an aspirational identity. He is revealing himself, and I am honoured. Analogue photographers are made to wait to get into the darkroom before viewing their work, where sometimes epiphanies will occur”
– Jack Lueders-Booth
Racers Pit and Crews Fans
“It was an easy matter to make American machines of the day – Harley Davidsons and Indians – look and sound threateningly antisocial. Their riders wore heavy boots, leather chaps, sleeveless denim jackets, chains and swastika tattoos. Some wore second world war Nazi helmets. Many were armed, and all were dangerous”
– Jack Lueders-Booth
John Williams, Bryar Motorsports Park, Loudon, New Hampshire
Racers Pit and Crews Fans
American Motorcycling Culture by Jack Lueders-Booth is published by Stanley Barker. All photographs: Jack Lueders-Booth.
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