NORTH CAROLINA Motorcycle museum revs enthusiasm

Dale Walksler wants the display of his collection to appeal to all, even if they're not riders.
MAGGIE VALLEY, N.C. (AP) -- The deafening "briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip" of a small motor running at high speed echoes, and smoke and the acrid smell of burning castor bean oil hang in the air as Dale Walksler hops off a 1915 Harley-Davidson.
With typical enthusiasm, the former Harley dealer leads a group of visitors toward another of the hundreds of motorcycles on display in his personal candy store: the Wheels Through Time Museum of Vintage Transportation.
"This is really cool," Walksler says, showing off the 1938 Harley-Davidson 80 he rode 4,500 miles from Ottawa to Mexico City in 1995, finishing sixth in the "Great North American Race."
The same can be said of many of the vehicles on display in the 38,000-square-foot museum, which Walksler opened in June in this tiny Smoky Mountains town.
Walksler has hill-climbers and board-track racers, military cycles and one-of-a-kind machines built by Indian Motorcycle Co. engineer Oscar Hedstrom and a mystery man whose creation ended up hidden inside a Chicago wall for decades.
This is no stand-behind-the-velvet-rope museum. Nearly all of the motorcycles run, and Walksler needs only the slightest encouragement to demonstrate the earsplitting racket generated by, say, a board-racer's little engine.
Personal collection
Walksler started Wheels Through Time as a showcase for his personal motorcycle collection, adjacent to the Harley-Davidson dealership he owned in Mount Vernon, Ill. Last year, he sold the dealership and moved his collection to Maggie Valley, where Wheels Through Time has become Walksler's midlife dream come true, a love letter to the American motorcycle.
Now 49, Walksler grew up building go-carts in Chicago's western suburbs. He rode his first motorcycle when he was 15 and was dealing used Harley parts when he bought Mount Vernon's struggling Harley shop. He was 22, and spent the next quarter-century building Dale's Harley-Davidson into a marketing powerhouse.
At the dealership's peak, Walksler said, he was selling 100 bikes a month and making a seven-figure income -- pouring much of that into his private motorcycle collection.
Robin Hartfiel, editor in chief of the Santa Ana, Calif.-based industry trade magazine Dealernews, said Walksler's is the top private collection in the field. Hartfiel said Walksler's passion for old motorcycles makes him a magnet among collectors.
The right spot
By the spring of 2001, Walksler was ready to get out of the dealership business. He was scouting for a place to relocate Wheels Through Time when he took a vacation in the Smokies. Passing through Maggie Valley, about 30 miles west of Asheville, he decided its mountain beauty and proximity to popular tourist destinations made it the ideal location.
Walksler, who has put $1 million into the museum and has loans for $1.5 million more, thinks he can break even if he attracts just 50,000 of the tourists who pass through the Smokies each year. That's just a fraction of the approximately 900,000 people who annually visit Asheville's Biltmore Estate or the 1.8 million who see the Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies across the state line in Gatlinburg, Tenn.
The museum's location is promising -- just a few miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway, a popular touring destination for motorcyclists. Also, Maggie Valley and nearby Cherokee both hold annual motorcycle rallies.
Walksler wants Wheels Through Time to appeal even to those who have never mounted a motorcycle. Exhibits focus on the motorcycle's deep roots in American culture.