The 85th anniversary of Daytona Bike Week had not officially started Wednesday, Feb. 25, but there was already some mayhem on Main Street.
A man on a motorcycle with his dog riding shotgun in a side car hit some parked motorcycle across from the Boot Hill Saloon, knocking four big, shiny machines to the pavement. The bikes sustained some damage — scratches and dents. The dog in the sidecar suffered a minor wound to a paw but was otherwise fine.
But besides the crash, everything else seemed pretty normal as the 2026 edition of Bike Week was rolling into town for its official start on Friday, Feb. 27, running through Sunday, March 8.
The stream of motorcycles going up and down Main Street was increasing as the sun crossed the sky. T-shirt vendors were setting up shop under freshly sprung tarps. An Indian Motorcycle dealer was setting up motorcycle displays on elevated platforms. Some spectators were already lining the road to get a look. And people wearing Harley-Davidson T-shirts walked along the sidewalk.
Daytona Bike Week: ‘Best free show on earth’
Kenny Wayman of Port Orange was one of those spectators. He was back on Main Street for Bike Week as he has been for three decades, sitting and watching the passing people and motorcycles. Main Street had not yet been closed to cars, so there were plenty of those as well.
“Best free show on earth, right here on Main Street,” Wayman said.
Right next to him was his 100th anniversary Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail, all polished and shiny.
“I’ve met people from all over the world. I mean everywhere,” Wayman said. “There’s real good Christian bikers also, lots of them.”
Rock ‘N Ride on Bike Week
Wayman was sitting near John’s Rock ‘N Ride, a shop that sells Grateful Dead collectibles, cigars and other items at 817B Main St.. The shop is owned by Johnny Sanchez, a biker and Bike Week veteran whose first Bike Week was in 1980. He said the event only gets better.
“More and more people keep coming. But now they come from all over the world. It’s an international event,” he said.
“I know for a fact, it’s not just me, that Bike Week pays the bills for a whole lot of people in this town,” Sanchez said. “A lot of people. We really depend on this event and I’m happy to be here to be part of it.”
Not everyone on Main Street had a motorcycle. Larry Walker Jr. had a guitar. He was playing outside Froggy’s, sitting on one of the building’s ledges.
“Playing the guitar to entertain, make people happy, for no value of it or nothing but to make people happy. I don’t have any tip jar,” said Walker, who said he was from Kentucky and had arrived in town for the Daytona 500 last weekend. “Just something I like to do.”
But someone didn’t like Walker, at least he preferred that Walker play his guitar in Kentucky or some other place. The interview was interrupted by a man in a pickup truck who stopped to yell at Walker that he had already been warned yesterday to move along and he was telling him again to get going. The man then drove off.
Walker said he didn’t know who the man was, but he gathered his guitar and backpack and found another spot farther west on Main Street.
Phil Collier from Tennessee was in town for Bike Week with his friend, also from the Bluegrass State. They said they planned to stay for the full 10 days, visiting Destination Daytona, Iron Horse Saloon in Ormond Beach and the Cabbage Patch in Samsula. He said they were happy to get away from the snow up north.
Collier said he has been to six or seven Bike Weeks.
“It’s got better. Love it,” Collier said.
Accident resulting in 7 surgeries doesn’t keep this rider from Daytona Bike Week
Chris DeBarr, of Morgantown, West Virginia, was watching the goings on on Main Street from a front-row seat by the sidewalk at the Boot Hill Saloon. This is his third Bike Week.
“Love it,” DeBarr said.
DeBarr now rides a trike, a three-wheeled motorcycle. He used two ride two-wheeled motorcycles, but he says, he liked to ride them on one wheel. He said he rode a wheelie once for 7.5 miles. (By the way, police frown upon this.)
DeBarr said he still rides despite a horrible crash in 2017. He said he was doing 90 mph on a motorcycle, as he was passing cars when a deer crashed into him.
“I was passing two cars, doing 90, the deer jumped over top of two cars, landed on me,” DeBarr said, adding that he then his a barbed wire fence, a tree and a metal post. (90 mph on anything will also be frowned upon by the police. See Florida’s super speeder law.)
“Woke up in the hospital 16 days later,” DeBarr said. “Had seven surgeries on my leg.”
Daytona Bike Week crash outside the Boot Hill Saloon
DeBarr was at the Boot Hill when the motorcycle with the sidecar-riding dog crashed into the four bikes across the street.
Joe Feldhaus, a snowbird from Ohio who lives in South Daytona, was at the Boot Hill with the group that had their motorcycles knocked over. Once the bikes were righted, several worked on restarting one of the felled Harleys. Feldhaus said he has been coming to Bike Week for 20 years.
“No problems till now,” he said referring to the crash.
“We were next door. We heard the burnout and the trike, motorcycle with sidecar, ran into four motorcycles and knocked them all over,” Feldhaus said.
A Daytona Beach Police officer talked to Jules Delatorre, who was riding the motorcycle with the sidecar. Delatorre had his dog Jane on a leash. A woman walked out of the Boot Hill placed a cup of water on the pavement for Jane.
At one point, a man who apparently owned one of the damaged bikes, walked over to Delatorre and things started to get heated quickly. The police officer ordered both men to get away from each other. And they did.
Several people said Delatorre was trying to do a burnout, basically spinning the rear tire in places and sending up a plume of rubbery-smoke, when he crashed into the other bikes. (Nope, police won’t like this either.)
But Delatorre emphatically denied that he was trying to do a burnout. He said he was uninjured in the crash but Jane suffered a minor cut to her paw.
“I wasn’t doing a burnout,” he said. “The throttle got stuck.”
Delatorre’s black motorcycle with a Batman symbol on the tank and “Dog Dad” decal on the back sat parked nearby.
Delatorre said he is a bouncer at Boot Hill. He added ruefully that the money he makes during Bike Week will go for paying for the crash.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Bike Week rolling into Daytona Beach for the 85th annual celebration
Reporting by Frank Fernandez, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
