The 21st Big Daddy Rat's Hole Custom Motorcycle Show takes placed from 8:00am until dusk at Daytona's Ocean Center.
Started by Karl "Big Daddy Rat" Smith in 1967, the Rat’s Hole show is legendary, no trip to Daytona's Bike Week is complete without checking out the latest custom creation's from some of the best minds in bikedom. A trophy from Rat’s Hole confers instant bragging rights.
Karl Smith Jr. said when his dad first visited Bike Week in 1963, he "fell in love with Daytona." He started in business on Main Street in a 12-by-16-foot shop aptly named The Rat's Hole. Later, Big Daddy Rat's businesses grew to include seven shops in Daytona Beach, a gift shop in Las Vegas and the bike shows. His son, Karl Jr. said, "My dad was one of the very first to airbrush designs on T-shirts." A man of contradictions, he projected the image of a burly biker, but he was also a graduate with a degree in fine arts from Ohio's Wittenburg College.
And at Rat's Hole, from that loin-tingling panhead chop you're still wettin' yourself over to those can't-believe-it's-still-runnin' ratbikes, they're all there.
One of my personal highlights has always been the 1946 knucklehead rat owned and ridden by Conrad "Smitty" Smith. Smitty, of Flat Lick, Kentucky is well-known in biker circles, and by the Rat's Hole trophy presenters, he’s been coming to Daytona since 1971, riding the knuckle there since 1979.
His rat is a collection a collection of bits and pieces, “donated by people I’ve met and places I’ve been.” A true rat bike, the Knucklehead motor is the bike’s original, rebuilt for the first time in 2011. The motorcycle shows 40,000 miles, but Smitty doesn’t know its true mileage. “It was wore out when I got it, and I’ve put at least 40,000 miles on it since then."
Today in motorcycle history is a proud supporter of the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD). www.nabd.org.uk
