Welcome everyone to the 2024 New Year – we officially opened Riding Into History’s registration website on January 1 so please visit our website and see all the details for this year’s Concours, Historic Ride and Grand Marshal Banquet. As most of you know, this will be our 24th year of hosting Riding Into History and it will include some significant changes due to the closure of the World Golf Hall of Fame Museum effective December 31, 2023.
The World Golf Fall of Fame Museum is in the process of relocating to Pinehurst, North Carolina and several related buildings, ground operations and staffing are in the process of shutting down at the St Augustine location. While the future ownership and utilization of those facilities is still being resolved between the County of St Johns and a complex set of other related parties, we are not able to secure a contract to use those facilities this year – but we are not going to let that stop us from holding the 24th Annual RIH event!
We are pleased to announce that we have secured a new location for the Concours d’Elegance on Saturday April 20th at the Classic Car Museum of St Augustine! The owners of the Classic Car Museum have an amazing facility and they host a busy schedule of major Classic Car Shows all throughout the year. They are thrilled to host the Riding Into History Antique Motorcycle Concours d’Elegance at their Museum. It will include all the usual fun things – vendors, food trucks, club booths, entertainment, awards and more with plenty of room to park cars, trailers and of course, motorcycles, for all our guests. The Concours itself will be setup on the pavement around the outside of the Classic Car Museum and it is easily accessible from their driveway entrance off US1 North – we have the potential to see record crowds of spectators with this increased drive-by visibility of the event. Spectators will also have the option to visit the Classic Car Museum (admission to the museum not included but worth the extra cost). Admission to the Riding Into History Concours for spectators remains at $15 per person (children under 12 free). Cash only at the gate – discount pre-purchased ticket options will be available on our web site soon. See our web site for full details.
We will continue to use the World Golf Village Renaissance Resort Hotel in St Augustine as our base location for the over-all Riding Into History celebration of events. The Grand Marshal Historic Ride (featuring Mary McGee) will embark from the Renaissance’s Parking lot, as it always has, on Friday morning. The Grand Marshal Banquet, on Friday night, will be held inside the Renaissance Resort’s Conference Center (where we originally hosted it as the Biker’s Ball in the early 2000’s!). The hotel has ample parking for trailers, motorcycles and vehicles for those guests who arrive on Thursday or Friday and plan to attend the Grand Marshal Historic Ride and/or Banquet. On Saturday morning, we will all move to the Classic Car Museum on US1 in St Augustine to unload the bikes and setup the show – the new facility has plenty of parking spaces both onsite and on adjacent properties to park trailers, while the logistics for setting up the show there will make the morning setup easier than ever. Please see our web site for the information to book discounted room reservations at the Renaissance Resort.
The Grand Marshal Historic Ride has a limited number of slots and is open to registered Concours Entrants only – you will receive an invitation after your Concours Registration Request is processed. The Grand Marshal Banquet is open to everyone and you can register any time.
We look forward to your continued support as we carry on the tradition of this annual event – as always, we donate 100% of the profits from this event to our favorite charity – K9’s for Warriors. Help us make this one of our best years ever.
Bill Peterson – President, Riding Into History