Rubber meets the road

Wyoming Wednesday in Sundance was slower – and colder – than many of us have come to expect. Main Street and 3rd, the traditional location for bikers to stop and enjoy the sunshine as they wait for the burnouts at the Dime Horseshoe Bar to begin, was relatively empty until shortly before the main event.

Still, the end of town by Deluxe Harley Davidson attracted traffic throughout the day and, by the time the scent of rubber filled the air, it was business as usual for the downtown, with bikes lining Main Street all the way down past the courthouse.

Sheriff Jeff Hodge reports a “really quiet” day for law enforcement, with one minor accident on a county road.

Things were a little busier for Wyoming Highway Patrol. Across the local service territory of Crook and Weston counties, Lieutenant Tim Boumeester reports 630 calls for service between August 4 and 13.

Of those, around half were traffic stops, he says, while 48 were checking on disabled motorists, 24 were hazard calls (for debris in the road), 27 were livestock in the right of way and 25 were commercial vehicle inspections.

A total of 18 crashes were reported. Ten of those involved injuries, while the remaining eight were property damage only.

No fatal accidents took place during the rally time period.

Highway Patrol made five arrests during the timeframe, says Boumeester. Three were for misdemeanor driving under the influence, one was for misdemeanor controlled substance and one was a warrant.

It’s no surprise that the day started out sparse, considering that numbers for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally as a whole were significantly down this year. The South Dakota Department of Transportation records vehicles entering Sturgis throughout the week, and their numbers were down on four of the seven days from the five-year average.

Traffic is counted by placing portable road tube counters at all nine locations through which traffic can enter Sturgis. These counters record a vehicle for every two axles that hit the road tube. On August 4, 45,652 vehicles entered – down 13.4% from the previous five-year average. The next day, Saturday, saw an even bigger drop: 38,126 vehicles, which was down 37.3%.

Numbers went up on August 6, but only by 4.4%, and were down again the next two days by 16.9% and 4.2%. On August 9 and 10, 56,444 and 52,195 vehicles entered Sturgis, up 1.4% and 3.7% from the five-year average.

The total number of bikes recorded entering Sturgis for the rally over the week was 359,338 – just over 37,000 fewer than the five-year average.

Nevertheless, Sundance welcomed its visitors with the usual enthusiasm, with vendors spread across the downtown area (including the return of the PRECorp Foundation’s always-popular walking tacos) and “bar stool burnouts” entertaining early birds in the run-up to the burnouts themselves.