Vrooom! Vrooom!

63rd Annual Peoria Grand National TT headlines a big weekend

The familiar and loud Vroom! Vroom! that can belong only to motorcycles will permeate the air surrounding Peoria this weekend for the 63rd annual Grand National TT Races at the Peoria Motorcycle Club race park in Bartonville.

The motorcycle races will culminate a busy weekend, with the annual Parade of Motorcycles getting things started Saturday morning and a concert featuring rocker Ted Nugent scheduled on Peoria's riverfront Saturday night.

Another event of the two-wheeled variety is set for downtown Morton on Saturday, with the Morton Community Bank Cycling Classic.

It will be a fruitful weekend for local coffers, said Bob Marx, president of the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"We're talking upwards of 20,000 people with all the events – the TT race, the music festival with Ted Nugent, the bike racers in Morton. That's probably low because we tend to estimate conservatively. It will be busy, a very good busy," Marx said.

He said the Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates those attending the events will spend an average of $75 a day for food and drink, which he said may also be conservative.

The weekend, Marx added, will also be loud. "Noise will definitely be the key word this weekend with thousands of motorcycles and the music fest. For us, it will be a good noise," he said.

The Peoria Grand National TT is the oldest continuous dirt race in the world, said Bert Sanders, race director for the motorcycle club which this year celebrates its 80th anniversary.

Sanders, in his 28th year of involvement, said it has long been a special event not only because it is the largest single-day sporting event in Peoria each year, but because of what it means to the area.

"Really, the biggest thing we sell every year is the atmosphere. That starts with the race park itself, which we treat like a park because we mow it year-round so it's a nice place for race goers to be able to sit on the grass and watch the races. Also, we keep it family friendly and affordable.

"It's a good atmosphere and a fun time for everyone. I'd bet half the people, when they leave here, don't even know who won or even care. But they'll tell you they reconnected with some old friends or made new ones and just had a good time while they were here. That's what we want," Sanders said.

He noted the Peoria Motorcycle Club once surveyed race attendees and learned 92 percent of them had attended at least once before. "It's got to be good or else they wouldn't keep coming back," he said.

Sanders said the Peoria races' average more than 15,000 in attendance each year, with the recorded high being about 19,500 in 1998, the 50th anniversary of the event. He estimated it will generate about $1.5 million revenue for the area economy.

Sanders said he did not know the average number of motorcycles that come to Peoria for the event, but said last year there was more than 1,700 that drove in the Saturday morning parade.

"This thing really has a life of its own," Sanders said.

He added he believes the popularity of the race will remain strong in the foreseeable future, "It doesn't seem to be fading. We've got a lot of new riders the last few years," he said.

One thing that makes it different than flat track or road races is that in TT races there must be at least one right turn and one left turn and one jump on the race course.

TT, Sanders said, stands for Tourist Trophy, named for a European motorcycle race series that allowed so-called "tourists" to participate.

Race tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the gate. Children 12 and under are free with a paid adult admission. Advance tickets can be purchased at most motorcycle dealerships, including Walter Bros. Harley-Davidson, Grayboy Motorsports and other area bike shops.

Gates open at 8 a.m., with practice starting at 10:30 a.m. Opening ceremonies, including honoring Chris Carr for having one of the greatest careers in championship racing history, will be at 1:30 p.m. The first race begins at 2 p.m., with the final championship race starting about 3:30 p.m.

Other events scheduled for the weekend include:

• An all-star dirt track race at 7 p.m. Friday at Peoria Speedway, 3520 W. Farmington Road. Admission is $15 for adults; $13 for seniors age 60 and over; $5 for children ages 8-15; and free for children 7 and under.

• The Motorcycle Parade for Charity on Saturday starts at 10 a.m. It is a 10-mile trek from the PMC race park to the Peoria Riverfront. Money raised from the $15 fee to participate in the parade goes to the Downed Riders Association, which helps pay medical expenses for professional motorcycle racers that have been injured during stunts and performances.

• On the riverfront there will be several live music acts performing throughout the day, with Ted Nugent scheduled to play at 10 p.m. There also will be stunt show exhibits, a swap meet, antique and custom bike shows, leather goods vendors, and food and drink vendors. Admission is $15 in advance or $20 at the gate. Tickets are available at all area Co-Op Records locations, the Peoria Riverfront Visitors Center, participating motorcycle dealers and shops, and online at etix.com.

In Morton on Saturday bicycle riders in 11 different age and gender categories will participate in the Morton Community Bank Classic. Races are from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Children ages 4 to 6 and 7 to 9 will compete at 12:10 p.m. The premiere event is at 4 p.m. "I expect some of the fastest cyclists in the Midwest to be at that race," said Kevin Lantz, event promoter and president of the Peoria Bicycle Club.

The race course is three-fourths of a mile and runs along Main and Jefferson streets, First Avenue and Wick Street. The shortest race is 30 minutes; the longest is 75 minutes.

Besides the road races, there will be an art show and arts and craft show. Several Morton restaurants will sell food near the course.

The annual event had been held in Downtown Peoria for 23 years and was called the Proctor Cycling Classic until Proctor Hospital ended its sponsorship after the 2009 race. There was no sponsor last year and the race was simply called the Peoria Cycling Classic.

For the kids

St. Jude’s Memphis-to-Peoria run reaches 30 years; Value to research, survival rates continue growing

For 30 years, in some of the hottest weather of the summer, Mike McCoy has formed a posse he uses to chase what he says is the worst of all evildoers, cancer in children.

The Peoria County Sheriff believes that through the efforts of those who participate in annual fundraisers for St. Jude Children's Hospital – including the annual St. Jude's Memphis-to Peoria that is today happening for the 30th year – some of evil has been arrested and will continue to be restrained more in the future.

Given the run will top the $25 million mark this year McCoy has reason to be optimistic.

"If you are doing something like this for the right reason, it is worth the work setting up and running and all that has to get done. I guarantee you, all our volunteers are doing it for the right reason," McCoy said a few days ago while he and many others prepared for the run, which began Wednesday afternoon, a day after he and nearly 200 other runners trekked to Memphis in motor homes.

"This is not a running event. It's a fund raising event that uses running as a means in which to raise money. We're not racing; we're raising money. And we're doing it for the kids," he said.

We talked with McCoy as he and the others were prepping the 24 motor homes brought up last Saturday from St. Louis, filling them will water and food and supplies and equipping them with radios so they communicate with each and with the lead and chase vehicles – vans with large, lighted "Caution: Runners" signs attached to their roofs.

The prep work two days on Green Chevrolet property in North Peoria, then the drive from Peoria to Memphis began with a sendoff celebration at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday from St. Jude Run headquarters in Glen Plaza. Families were there, including some children still in pajamas, to see loved ones off and former Mayor Jim Maloof, the patriarch of the St. Jude Telethon, spoke a few words and wished the runners well.

Former St. Jude patients were there, waiting to board their motor homes for the journey. They included Dawn Johnson Tanner, who survived two bouts with leukemia as a child. Recently married, she and her husband Jordan Tanner were making the run together.

"This means so much to me and my family," she said just before the line of motor homes snaked their way out of Glen Plaza and headed out.

Tuesday night the runners were feted at a dinner then given a tour of the St. Jude Children's Hospital on Wednesday morning.

At noon Wednesday, with temperatures near or slightly above 100 degrees and a heat index topping 110 degrees, the first group of runners from the Gold Team – headed by Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis and Chris Smith – took off on the first leg of the 465-mile run.

The Blue Team, headed by McCoy and Ryan Beck, took over at 8 p.m. on Wednesday and ran until 6 a.m. Then the teams alternated every eight hours, running relay style.

The run is scheduled to conclude at about 6:30 p.m. when the Memphis-to-Peoria runners and all those hundreds of others running to Peoria from satellite cities reach the Peoria Civic Center. Then as a group all 1,800 will jog into the Civic Center and into the telethon to be greeted there by Jim Maloof, the man who started the telethon 34 years ago.

Altogether 26 cities now participate in the run. Those include Chicago and St. Louis and many in between, such as Springfield, Bloomington-Normal, Quincy, Macomb and Galesburg. Those on the Memphis-to-Peoria teams were required to get a minimum of $3,000 in pledges and to run 35 to 45 miles over a three-day stretch. Satellite runners were required to get a minimum of $750 in pledges.

The total amount raised from all of them will top $25 million this year, $2.7 million this year alone.

Not bad for an event started in 1982 by a couple guys – Mike McCoy and Gene Pratt -- who wondered what they could do for the St. Jude's cause. "We are proud of what we have accomplished and believe me it has taken many, many more than just two people from the very start. What is great is how it has grown every year because of people who want to make a difference. We all know it is making a difference and that we are part of helping find a cure for cancer, to help these kids live long, normal lives."

McCoy said he got involved through his father Dean McCoy and Maloof as a teen-ager and felt even then that it just wasn't right that children should get and die of cancer.

When the run started in 1982, only about 4 percent of the children who got cancer survived. Now, McCoy said, the national average survival rate is over 70 percent and in some types of cancer, over 90 percent.

"Why do we do this? It's simple. It's making a difference. We do it for the kids," he said.

Others helping to prepare the motor homes all basically said those three words when asked why they do it: "For the kids."

"We've been doing this and the telethon for 20-plus years," said Sherry Semonis, speaking for herself and her husband Rick. Their children have helped as well, she said.

Last Saturday night, she said, they went to the "Backyard Talent Show" in Morton that started four years ago in the back yard of the Kolvec home in Morton as an attempt by some pre-teens trying to raise a few bucks for St. Jude. It has turned into an event that raises big bucks – more than $25,000 to date – and had to be moved to a city park because it outgrew the Kolvec back yard.

Semonis estimated 400 to 500 people were at the talent show. "You see things like that and it really warms your heart. And you know that everybody is doing it for the kids of St. Jude," she said.

Another who gave that reason was Tom Kahn, in his ninth year in the run. Last Sunday he was not only putting water in the motor homes, he was making sure others working were getting water to stay hydrated in the intense heat. "We'll be hot enough on the run. We need to stay cool and hydrated when we're not running," he said.

Kahn said he feels lucky to still be running. Five years ago he and McCoy were jogging together along Western Avenue in Peoria when they struck by a car. Both were nearly killed and still bear scars today. But neither missed the St. Jude run that year, even though it was only months later.

"This is huge for all of us," Kahn said.

McCoy said he realizes he is lucky not only for surviving that accident but also because he never had to face what the parents of children with cancer do each day. "That's why I will keep doing this, as long as I am physically able," he said.

Paul Gordon is editor of The Peorian. He can be reached at (309) 692-7880 or at editor@thepeorian.com

Focus on the Future

Road construction pains eventually turn to gains

Eric Brinker expects that by mid-November cheers will replace jeers regarding the reconstruction of the intersection of University Street and Glen Avenue, as traffic moves easily and safely when the holiday shopping season gets into full throttle.

Brinker, president of the Metro Centre and a positive thinker, said he keeps reminding himself and his tenants of that when traffic at and near the intersection gets backed up. That intersection averages more than 46,000 vehicles each day.

“It’s going to be wonderful, I think. It will be good for all of us here at Metro Centre and all around us as well as up and down what is the busiest retail corridor in the city,” Brinker said. “I think., too, that this reaffirms the Metro Center is at the very center of Peoria. It will help us attract more great tenants and keep the ones we have.”

Construction at the intersection began a few weeks ago and is expected to last into November. It entails removal of the medians at and leading to the intersection, relocating traffic light poles from the medians, repairs to the sidewalks and curb and repaving. The intersection will be made fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The city will keep one lane open in each direction throughout the project, but is encouraging motorists to find alternatives routes unless they are going to one of the businesses in the area.

Motorists seem to be taking heed, said Paul Sherman, president of Sherman’s at 1215 W. Glen Ave. “I think the daily commuters have figured it out. There are certain times of day where there is quite a traffic backup, but not as much as when it first started,” he said.

Ronda Daily, owner of Bremer Jewelry at 4707 N. University St., said she thinks the decrease in traffic snarls has less to do with drivers avoiding the area and more with learning to work around it. “I see it every day, people cutting through Metro Centre or by Schnucks. Still, I just don’t think it is a big problem except for a couple normally busy times of day,” she said.

Like Brinker and Sherman, Daily looks at the situation with a positive mindset. “I think its going to bring this area into the 21^st century, so to speak. It will be good for traffic flow and for those who want to walk in the area from place to place. It will be safer.

“I think anytime the city does a road project it’s difficult at first, but it always ends up being better for the community,” she said.

Brinker and Sherman lauded the city for keeping the residents and commercial and retail tenants in the area informed about the project from the start. Brinker hosted a meeting of the city and those affected and he believes it helped ease the anxiety such projects often cause. “We worked closely with the city to minimize the inconvenience as much as possible. The city has a good plan in place and so far is sticking to it, and when we have concerns about something, they listen,” he said.

The city said the project came about because it listened to concerns about the condition of the road as well as safety concerns about the poles in the medians. Sherman said people in his store have heard those poles get hit by cars many times as well as other accidents at the intersection. “They happen pretty frequently. When this is done it’s going to be nice and a heckuva lot safer.”

David Barber, director of public works for the city, said concerns about making the intersection ADA compliant and generally safer was the impetus for for the improvements. “The islands we have there were not the safest and were not compliant with ADA; not when people had to cross to the island and step up on a curb to push the crosswalk signal button,” he said. “So we wanted to make sure it was pedestrian friendly while improving the pavement in the area, and putting in new sidewalks and improving the drive approaches where appropriate.”

The islands where the poles now are will be removed and it’s likely the medians continuing down the streets in all directions will not be replaced once repaving is completed, as long as studies show there won’t be significant turning problems if they are not replaced.

“Our goal, of course, is to improve traffic flow while making the area more pedestrian friendly. Nobody likes to slow down and drive through congestion while the work is being done, but that doesn’t last forever.

“Of course, there is something to be said for slowing the cars down if it lets people see what stores and businesses are in that area,” he added.

Sherman also believes the improvements will have a positive effect on the area. “Just as bad things can have a domino effect, the same is true when positive things happen. I think this will give impetus to the property owners in the area to keep up their own properties, which also will help attract people to the area,” he said.

Another area of the city where road construction is a pain at the moment is on Northmoor Road, mostly around its intersection with Sheridan Road and in all directions leading to that intersection. That is just the second phase of a multiple-phase project that will see the entire length of Northmoor Road improved, from Knoxville Avenue to Allen Road.

The first phase – from Knoxville Avenue to Sheridan Road – is completed and the largest commercial business on that stretch is better off for it, one person said.

Meredith Bunch, president of Midstate College at 411 W. Northmoor Road, said the new road – three newly paved lanes with a center turn lane – was well worth the hassles during the construction. The city, she added, worked to keep those hassles to a minimum. “It really never was disruptive,” she said.

“It’s been a great enhancement to the whole area and now with the work being done on the Rock Island Trail right next to us, the attractiveness of our school and the area is really being enhanced,” Bunch said.

Homeowners in the second phase of the project, however, remain unconvinced it will be positive overall, said Stan Harris, president of the Northmoor Hills Homeowners Association. That’s particularly true, he noted, of those homeowners on the north side of Kensington Road, which runs parallel to Northmoor. Those homeowners will lose a part of their backyards when Northmoor is widened to two lanes and a center turn lane and they are concerned about the noise factor as the road will be closer to their houses.

Homeowners also fear the improvements will increase traffic through the area, Harris said, but he acknowledged the city listened to those concerns when it changed the original plan, which called for four lanes and a center turn lane. “That plan met with a tremendous amount of resistance,” he said.

Still, Harris noted, there are positives to be considered. One is improved safety , especially with the addition of sidewalks on the south side of Northmoor, and better drainage systems that will keep water from accumulating in ditches along the road.

Barber said the identified needs along Northmoor were safety and traffic flow. He acknowledged studies showed there is enough traffic to warrant five lanes, but said the city doesn’t want to do that – at least for now. There is no question, he added, that something was needed to remove bottlenecks that happen now without a center turn lane. “Traffic really backs up if a car is turning left and that creates problems,” he said.

With new sidewalks and the bike path under construction in the area, “we are making it more pedestrian friendly. We are trying to be as understanding as we can about the concerns of the residents, but we have to meet the safety needs,” Barber said.

Paul Gordon is editor of The Peorian. He can be reached at (309) 692-7880 or email him at paul@thepeorian.com