Races, revving and revelry: 20 years of US motorcycling in photos

In 1944, as a nine-year-old growing up in Kingston, Massachusetts, Jack Lueders-Booth used to sit on the grass outside his home. It was located on a main road, and he was mostly looking and listening out for one thing: motorbikes.

“The sound, the smell, the rider being exposed – they knights on shining armour,” Lueders-Booth recalls. ​“It seemed like if you had to go down the road on wheels, this was the way to do it. There was also a certain amount of daring to do it, and that was just so thrilling to me.”

At the time he had a canvas drawstring bag, in which he’d keep spare change, and painted a large ​‘M’ on it. ​“So when I was nine-years-old, I started saving to own a motorcycle,” he continues. It was the beginning of an obsession that he has held for over eight decades since. As soon as he turned 16, he bought his first motorbike, which he actually had to keep hidden from his parents.

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“Legislation was lax, and there were no computers,” he explains of how he managed to keep it away from their eyes. ​“It was easy to bend the laws, break rules and get away with it because there was only the paper trail, and paper was slow, so you could do things like that for a very long time.”

By the ​’80s, Lueders-Booth’s love for the two-wheeled vehicles took him to races, both as a participant, but also a photographer.  ​“I would go to motorcycle tracks and events with just my camera in my van – it would be full of film and cameras, but there was no motorcycle, so I couldn’t get on a bike even if I wanted to,” he says. ​“There were road racing events, dirt track events, woods racing events. I photographed all those events, and I would participate in the road races.”

His new photobook, American Motorcycling Culture, explores his archive of images taken between two decades, from 1980 to 2000, travelling to races and meets around the USA, as well as the nation’s biggest motorcycling event of the year – the Daytona 200. It’s a wide-ranging view of America’s love affair with motorcycles and their wider culture during the late 20^th century. There’s motocross, track meets, Ducatis, Hondas, and of course, Harley Davidson cruisers helmed by greased haired, leather jacket donning riders.

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The motorbikes themselves play key characters, but they make up only part of Lueders-Booth’s focus. ​“I also wanted to include mechanics, pit crews, spectators, people who are fans and then people who actually ride it themselves,” he says. ​“And then the social aspect, which is a really big part of it – you spend most of your time hanging out, camping, cooking, preparing your bike, changing tyres and parts, all just to put your bike on the track for a half hour race.”

That off-track socialising culture was no more evident than at the Daytona Bike Week, centred around the Daytona 200, which draws hundreds of thousands of attendees to Florida each year. ​“It’s a serious road racing event, and the best riders from Europe and Americas come to it,” he says. ​“But at the same time, on Main Street like three or four blocks away, there was this enormous social scene going on, and they couldn’t care less about the racing. They’re only interested in styling and going up and down the main drag and showing off.”

And it’s ultimately what Lueders-Booth captures in the book – the wider culture of motorcycling in America, and the reasons why people are so attracted to a form of transport that’s inherently daring and dangerous. ​“They signal you out from the guy going down the street in a Chevrolet Coupe – knights of the road,” he continues. ​“On a motorcycle, you’re exposed. Motorcyclists always wave at each other, and if someone is broken down on a highway, others will almost always stop and provide assistance. There’s a brotherhood, and there’s a camaraderie.”

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American Motorcycling Culture by Jack Lueders-Booth is published by STANLEY/BARKER.

Isaac Muk is Huck’s digital editor. Follow him on Bluesky.

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