The Southern Throwdown

Throwing Down the Gauntlet at Yellow Rose Canyon

What a fabulous end-of-season event for all the chopper enthusiasts that attended. The Southern Throwdown‘s 8th iteration was an event that had previously been held in the Dallas’ Deep Ellum arts and entertainment district before Covid. After missing a year, it was moved to the all-natural outdoor amphitheater at Yellow Rose Canyon near Mt. Enterprise, TX this past October. The decision to move it was that of promoters, including the tattoo artist Oliver Peck, the 13-season judge on the reality television show Ink Master, along with the extraordinary painter Scott Hoepker of Chemical Candy Customs and several of their friends. And so, this story is as much about this new motorcycle-centric venue as it is about the Throwdown itself.

To put the Throwdown into context, understand it originally drew thousands as a free downtown Dallas event. It was like an urban street fair with custom bikes as its focus, and was of interest to anyone walking by. The promoters knew that moving the event 2-hours out into the country was a drastic change that would profoundly impact the turnout, but that was OK. Oliver said, “We knew we would lose thousands of people moving out to Mt. Enterprise, but the people that would come would be the core people we wanted.” To this end, they planned a custom show for 1984 and older bikes (although custom hard-tails of any year were welcome in the end) as the centerpiece. There was also a chopper ride Saturday morning, serious amateur, chopper, and minibike racing on a newly created oval dirt track Saturday afternoon, incredible trail riding on the 220-acre property, and a diverse selection of live Texas bands all weekend. They knew it would be more like a first-year event, and this was OK as well.

How this all came to be had more to do with serendipity and the property itself, Yellow Rose Canyon—formerly known as Durango’s Canyon. The story, as told by Scott, explains it. “I’ve known about the venue we now call Yellow Rose Canyon for at least 25-years. I went to school in Henderson with the people that owned the property when I was a kid. The first time I went to it was a year after my mom called me to say I don’t know what’s going on, but there’s a bunch of motorcycles in Henderson. A friend later explained how some investors bought the place and had a rally they called Dawgs on Hawgs. The following year when the event fell on the same weekend as my nearby Shed Run, me and 20-friends rode there to check it out. We weren’t willing to pay the $60 each to get in, but they did let us in for about 10-minutes to have a peek. That was plenty of time to see a place filled with completely nude older men and women (definitely Dawgs on Hawgs) and to know it was not our scene.”

Scott continued, “Then during Covid, I approached Mike Davis and Grant Peterson about possibly putting on a second version of their Free bike show in Texas. They asked if I knew of a venue that could handle it, when I thought of the Yellow Rose property. I told them Oliver, and I would go check it out and see if it could work. The owner gave us a full tour where we saw the rolling hills and gorgeous meadows, a hidden music stage in the woods, 3-ponds, off-road trails, 150 full RV hookups, lots of outbuildings, and a meteor crater as the main highlight. This crater has been ranked the 3rd best natural amphitheater in the USA. One of the best features was on the rim of this crater – ten rentable cabins that could each sleep anywhere from 4-16 people with kitchens, bathrooms, and decks overlooking the amphitheater as well as a restaurant that could seat 80. The owner told us what he would rent it to us for, and then at the very end of the visit he casually mentioned the entire venue was for sale. WOW! We instantly knew we wanted to buy the place. On our way back to Dallas, Oliver was already on the phone sharing our excitement with friends to get them involved. In July, we closed on the property, immediately started fixing things up and hosting some small trial events and made plans to move the annual Southern Throwdown there.”

The Southern Throwdown was then the first actual bike event at Yellow Rose Canyon, and it turned out to be the ultimate proof of concept. This is going to work! The cabins all rented out quickly, and there was incredible and seemingly endless tent camping in the trees and meadows that make up the property. For anyone coming in with a rig, 110-RV sites with full hookups were available. I was fortunate enough to get an invitation to join the Vintage Technology crew that came all the way down from Kalispell, Montana with a group of beautiful customs to put in the show and ride the surrounding roads. As Hawke Lawshe described the “Blues House” cabin they rented, “It was super killer. It was spacious enough to rewire a Knucklehead in the living room (which is what we did with Chuck’s bike), and the covered deck overlooking the crater was ideal for chilling late into the night.” The 3-bedroom cabin was super comfortable, even with this extra body crashing on a couch in the living room. My favorite part was that deck. We hung out drinking and chatting until all hours of the night, and it had the best possible view of the action in the crater below.

Thousands of years ago, legend has it that a giant meteorite fell to earth and created this geologic formation. Some say you can find interesting rocks and boulders that could be meteorite debris, but apparently, no one has studied the area to prove it one way or the other. What you are looking at is a giant bowl 300-yards across and more than 100′ deep. It is hard to understand the crater without experiencing it—but try to imagine it. With its sharp lip at the top, it would be the world’s largest and coolest skate park if it were paved!

LuLu and the Black Sheep kicked things off Friday night on the large stage at the bottom of the crater. And Matt the Cat Hillyer closed it down late Sunday afternoon. Five other bands played in-between, including “The Last Knife Fighter” and “Outbound Train,” which stood out. In front of the stage an area where vendors and the bike show were set up. If you were to have a major concert or music festival here, the slopes down into the crater would make for incredible seating since it is estimated the crater can hold 12,000! These slopes served another purpose at the Southern Throwdown, where some riders were compelled to ride their choppers up them in the middle of the night as if they were hill climbing. It was also well suited for the uber Slip-N-Slide built for the occasion that provided hours of entertainment for those who partook.

While the weekend weather turned out to be fantastic, the predicted forecast in the days running up to the event calling for rain and very cool temps took its toll on the turnout. The only weather we encountered was Saturday morning when the skies were dark, it was drizzling, and it appeared a storm was coming. While we delayed our ride to the Cosmic Shed just a bit, we did finally say, “Let’s Go!” We saw a few minutes of rain, and that was it. It never interfered with our ride nor our visit to the unique handcrafted studio and gallery of folk artist Fred Rogers who died in 1992.

Fred’s partner Cindy has kept the Cosmic Shed running all these years and was kind enough to welcome our helter-skelter group of chopper guys and gals. All I can say is it was incredible, and the takeaway was this would make an ideal location for a mid-1960’s commune period movie set!

Returning to the Yellow Rose by mid-day Saturday, the sun was out and the temperature near perfect for the dirt track racing—the main attraction for the afternoon. There were still some kinks in the new track, making it a bit bumpy, but this didn’t stop anyone from having a ton of fun. The serious amateurs had formal heats, and then the minibike and chopper guys got out there and tore it up without any rhyme or reason other than them believing this is what you’re supposed to do when you get on a track.

The bike show set up on both days had some beautiful offerings, that Oliver acknowledged at the Sunday afternoon awards ceremony that wrapped up the weekend. Scott said, “There were some beautiful Shovelheads, and the Panheads from Clinton Wallace, Matt Jackson, and Chop Merchandise’s Luke Morris stood out. And then what stole the show were Hawke Lawshe’s Vintage Technology bikes that came 1,800 miles from near the Canadian border. They, hands down were the most well thought out beautiful customs anywhere.”

The Southern Throwdown will surely become a more significant event, but it will take time. For now, it has thrown down the gauntlet for the Yellow Rose Canyon to become what I believe will eventually be a major motorcycle gathering place. With its well-situated East Texas location just two hours from Dallas and one hour from Shreveport, it is easy to get to, and maybe, along the way, they’ll add some major concerts into the mix. (Willie Nelson once played on this very same stage. Perhaps there’s a bike-centric Woodstock in its future?)

We do know already that there are plans in place to host the 9th annual Southern Throwdown in September 2022, as well as a second Born Free in October. (The BF event is in addition to the annual June event held in Silverado, California.)

It’s all about having a great time, so mark your calendars now.