About four years ago I took a little trip up to Barber Motorsports Park for the inaugural Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama. It’s a fantastic facility; perfectly manicured grounds, replete with gargantuan sculptures of ants, spiders, and other oddities. I’d comment on the track, but I haven’t personally driven it yet, so that’ll have to wait. But for the spectator in all of us, the main attraction has to be the Motorsports Museum.
It’s a true mecca for the two wheeled type, housing the largest collection of motorcycles in the World. So many that many aren’t really on display but instead a relegated to just forming parts of the building as pure decor. But there’s a lot for the car enthusiast as well, how’s the World’s largest fleet of Lotus race cars sound? Or perhaps you just like staring at engines, they’ve got plenty of those as well. If you fancy yourself any sort of gear-head, you must make this a check-box on your bucket list.
I happened to be travelling through Birmingham on my move from Texas to South Carolina, so why not see what new additions have been made over the last four years. Unlike my last visit during the GP, this was a very quiet average Tuesday afternoon. The only cars on track were from the Porsche Driving Experience customers, playing follow the leader in 911’s, Panameras, and Caymans. There were perhaps only five other visitors to the museum, so I was afforded free roam of the exhibits. Unfortunately the basement, which serves as the facilities workshop and restoration are, was off limits. Too bad, as I could see down through the open atrium that there was a nice collection of P-cars and other race cars ringing the basement.
The museum also sports a strange collection of antique outboard motors, if that happens to be your thing. I started my way on the top floor, working down in a spiral fashion, spending the majority of my time ogling the Lotus race cars from the Indy and F1 series. Like most museums, there’s a look but don’t touch policy, but unlike most museums you can get as up close to the cars and bikes as you wish from 360 degrees of vantage.
Hope you enjoy the photos I captured of just a small snippet of the collection. Sorry I was only equipped with my camera phone.
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