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Jack Lueders-Booth has been racing, repairing and photographing motorbikes for decades. His new book captures those people who crave the risk and romance of the road
Boy racer …. Bryar Motorsports Park, New Hampshire Photograph: Jack Lueders-Booth
Daytona International Speedway, Florida
Some obsessions never let you go. Jack Lueders-Booth’s passion began when he saw his first motorcycle as a child. Now 90, he has devoted his life to riding, racing, repairing and rebuilding bikes. A new book delves into his archive from 1980 to 2000. American Motorcycling Culture by Jack Lueders-Booth is published by Stanley Barker. All photographs: Jack Lueders-Booth
Harley Davidson and Indian Motorcycle Riders, Daytona Beach, Florida
The book is a record of machines and the people who rode them: bikers in heavy leathers on American-made Indians, fresh-faced kids on their first ride, pro racers pushing themselves and their bikes as far as they would go. Harleys and Beemers, Beezers and Trumpets, Ducatis, Hondas, Kawasakis, Suzukis, Yamahas …
Junior Racers, Bryar Motorsports Park, Short Track, Loudon, New Hampshire
Jack Lueders-Booth: ‘Motorcycles took permanent possession of my senses and my wallet when I was just nine years old’
Junior Racers, Bryar Motorsports Park, Short Track, Loudon, NH
‘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’
Junior Racers, Bryar Motorsports Park, Short Track, Loudon, New Hampshire
‘The truth of the moment will reveal its own best form’
Bryar Motorsports Park, Short Track, Loudon, New Hampshire
Lueders-Booth is a singular photographer, intent on showing communities as they are: honest, imperfect, unadorned
Daytona Beach, Florida
These photographs carry that restless hum, the thrill and the risk, the romance and the trouble, the small freedom of choosing the open road over the humdrum
Happy on a Harley, Indian Day, Springfield, Massachusetts
Jack Lueders-Booth: ‘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’
Indian Day, Springfield, MA
‘Derring-do, operational skill, and mechanical aptitude characterised these riders, who were often regarded as heroes – and the predictable misfortune was that perversions developed’
Daytona Beach, Florida
‘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’
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’
Racers Pit and Crews Fans
When Jack wasn’t on a bike he was behind a camera or in a classroom, teaching photography in a women’s prison, then later at Harvard, always drawn to the edges of things, to lives rarely shown in full light
John Williams, Bryar Motorsports Park, Loudon, New Hampshire
Lueders-Booth: ‘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’
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’
Racers Pit and Crews Fans
These photographs show something of what American motorcycling culture had been at the end of the 20th century
Racers Pit and Crews Fans
We get to see road racers, women racers, child racers, vintage racers, enduros, motocrossers, motorcycle blessings, swap meets and street cruisersExplore more on these topics
