Antique Motorcycle Club Of America Southern National Swap Meet

By: Lincoln Infield

Photos By: Lincoln Infield, Maggie Infield & Alan Dockery Big events and toilet paper are two things that have been scarce in 2020. The AMCA Southern National Swap Meet is usually the third weekend in May and was one of the many events that got caught up in the havoc of 2020. I’m not gonna say it didn’t suck to miss out on this event, it being a 11-year tradition and all, but I wasn’t surprised when I got the cancellation call. As the months rolled on a rumor started up that there may still be hope of having the Southern National Swap Meet in October. I took it with a grain of salt until I got the green light from event organizer, Bob Aton, that the Meet would be October 16-17. We slapped the new dates on an ad and ran it in the September issue and the event started gathering momentum again! This is such a great event that the entire family can attend and enjoy. In years past, I have taken my pre-teen daughter to get a little “learnin” on old motorcycles, this year my wife, Maggie, was able to join the Full Throttle Magazine crew and enjoy the Southern National. We headed out early on Friday morning to go set up our vending spot, as we rounded the last curve on our approach to the Denton Farm Park that hosts the event, I was blown away at the number of vendors and visitors I could see from 100 yards away! I had been a little apprehensive of how the event was gonna go, what with the late notice of the rescheduled dates. Apparently, everyone else was as excited about this event as we were! Once we made a stake to our claim and set up our HQ, we set out to see what we could see! The Denton Farm Park is a perfect match for this event and pairs a historical park with 15 restored buildings, including a general store, grist mill, church, plantation house, blacksmith shop, and a log cabin with the sights, sounds and smells of antique motorcycles buzzing and puting all through the park. Ya gotta stop off at the AMCA tent to get your “souveeners” cause they sell out early. This year’s event was a celebration of the 70th Anniversary of the 80” Indian Chief and the commemorative shirts, pins and stickers were stellar. Our next stop was just around the corner at the Rusty Nutz Lounge, Machine Shop And Notary Race Team where the curator, Joe Cranford, had on display the AMCA coozie museum and displays the progression of the AMCA Coozie over the years. Joe also brings a slew of fun looking small cc antiques to show and have judged. This year, he showed a 1985 Honda Spree in the Concourse D’Ordinare and brought home the “Least Chrome” award. There were vendor’s tents with crusty and chrome offerings along with antique motorcycles of all shapes and sizes for as far as the eye could see. There are always folks picking through boxes and crates looking for those illusive old parts. Others are rolling away with front ends, frames, pipes, bars or complete motorcycles. If you need it, you can probably find it at the Southern National Swap meet, but you better get there early when the picking is good! The other part of the excitement around this event, you see all kinds of cool old motorcycles ranging from unique Danish made Nimbus (model C, I think) that was sitting all by itself behind one of the buildings on the property, or the ultra-rare shaft driven, Harley-Davidson Knucklehead Servi-Car that was being piloted around by Ramsey Allen. Naturally, you see all sorts of other beautiful antiques like the knuckles, shovels, flatty’s and single cylinder scoots that are more like what we are used to seeing. This year, I saw an abundance of Servi-Cars. We always bring out the Carolinas’ Full Throttle Magazine ’73 Servi-Car and usually see one or two others, but this year I counted at least 10 Servi’s running around the property. This year’s event was a little different than usual. It went on with no bike games nor the History In Motion parade that has made the Southern National Meet an icon. These missing items were made up for in the huge abundance of vendors, quality swap meet items, and celebrities. I saw a couple of local and national celebrities including Billy Lane of Choppers Inc., Oliver Peck from Elm St. Tattoo in Dallas, Texas and the TV show Ink Master. Both were as easy going and hospitable as you could ask for. The local legends were in attendance as well including Luke Heafner who brought his Builtwell People’s Choice Shovelhead Chopper and Doug Wothke who was a banquet speaker at a past Southern National and has ridden his motorcycles across the US, Europe and Asia. I even ran in to Jake from Prism Supply Co. checking out this years vendor offerings. This year’s event had great fall weather, I still love the hot May weather and ducking down in the wooded part of the farm park to get away from the sun, but it really was a great weekend and certainly better late than never! We thoroughly enjoyed our weekend hanging out with friends, sharing old stories, stumbling into new ones and naturally checking out all Antique Iron we could. The weekend wouldn’t have been complete without a fried bologna sandwich, so as the sun went down, we visited the mess trailer and got one with all the fixin’s. It was a perfect way to end the weekend. Whether the Southern National is in May or October of next year doesn’t matter, we will be ready for another great weekend with our friends. If you love old motorcycles, you should certainly check it out.