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By: Lincoln Infield
The Carolinas’ Full Throttle Magazine
June Jam Rocks August ait, what?
Nah, you read that right, June Jam Rocked August. It’s 2020 stop trying to make sense of it! But let’s rewind a little bit to get a bearing on where we are going here. We all thought that 2020 was gonna be a rough go late in 2019 when the Easyrider Bike Show was “taking a year off”, then we heard that the SmokeOut was DOA after a 20 year run. Little did we know that would only be the tip of the iceberg. These circumstances also opened the door for the resurgence and rebirth of other old skool bike rallies, the June Jam being the leader of that push. After a 14-year hiatus and with the blessings of its originators, Garret Berger and Blue Line Entertainment brought the June Jam back to life and set it up to go off mid-June at the Rowan County Fair Grounds in Salisbury, NC. Now, we don’t really need to recap all the BS that we have been living through since mid-March, so let’s just say due to the “pandemic” restrictions that our “governor” put in place were not so inviting for the large time we as bikers are used to having. Garret and the June Jam weren’t just going to roll over though and after being put off in June, the new dates were set for August 22-23 and brought with it a come hell or high water attitude. Well, neither hell or high water came and on August 22 the parking lot for the fairgrounds was full and the party was on! I got there round noon and entertainment was in full effect.
The sound competition was bumping in a back and forth audio showdown that had a pileup of folks watching it all go down. I was on the Full Throttle Magazine 73 Servi-Car and made a few laps around the fairgrounds to pass out some magazines and see all my vending friends before I parked it in the Bike Show area. I was hanging out with William aka Mr. Kat Daddy Cigar Company when I saw my buddy Randall ride by on his primo garage-built Shovelhead and I knew right then I was getting second place in the Antique class! I even ran into some new friends Mike and Courtney Horkey who won free tickets to the June Jam from The McGrath Law Firm at the Full Throttle Magazine 22nd Anniversary Bike Night. It was
good to hang out with yall! I rode over to the bike show area and got registered, but was lured away to the live music tent by the rocking sounds of the Low Down Dirty Heathens. It’s not often that I stumble onto a band I haven’t heard (and like) at these local rallies, but like I said, It’s 2020 man! It doesn’t have to make sense! Anyway, the Heathens were really laying it down and were a perfect fit to the rally atmosphere. There were a lot of familiar faces there and I had a hell of a time getting around and visiting with everyone. I briefly saw bike builder extraordinaire Luke Heafner of Iron Horse Motorcycles. Luke always has a great swap meet set up with