By Aug. 30, the streets of Durango will be filled with glistening, roaring motorcycles ready for the Four Corners Motorcycle Rally. While rally events will take place throughout the region, one community that is not involved is Ignacio – where the rally was held for years.

Ignacio has a long, complicated history with the rally. Its newest owners want the rally to benefit every community, but they have not had a partnership with the town since they took ownership in 2017. However the two entities are involved, or not involved, it’s the residents and business owners who are caught in the middle.

“At this point, we do not have our hands in any portion of it, nor do we want to,” said Trennie Collins, president of the Ignacio Chamber of Commerce. “I had a couple of our board members mention that they do want the Ignacio chamber to be involved, but we have not heard from them (the rally owners) directly on that.”

The newest owners, Trevor Bird, owner of Durango Harley-Davidson, and John Oakes, CEO of Freeze Management, are using every tool they have to grow the rally, and they plan to continue running it for the next 20 years. They have motorcycle tours coming from Texas, California, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and the Colorado Front Range.

In order to direct more revenue to local businesses, they are holding a downtown Durango street party throughout the weekend with live music and vendors. They’re also continuing the rally’s tradition of giving to nonprofits, focusing mostly on veterans’ and children’s organizations.

Bird couldn’t estimate how many people might show up this year; however, its social media presence suggests growing popularity. In 2017, the rally didn’t have an Instagram presence – now it has 218,000 followers and its Facebook page has tripled from 16,000 to about 52,000 followers.

“This is a long-term play. It’s very important to us that we’re giving back to the community from the very beginning, and that ultimately, this rally is helping to lift up the communities of not just Durango but Ignacio, Silverton and all the surrounding areas,” Bird said.

Bird is working closely with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Sky Ute Casino. Because Ignacio is a separate entity from the tribe, Bird would need to work directly with the town. At the time of publication, the rally did not have a partnership with and had not reached out to the Ignacio Chamber of Commerce or the town government.

“I would love to know who to talk to at the chamber of commerce and get more involved with them,” Bird said. “Ignacio has such deep roots with the rally, we’re really trying to honor that.”

Ben Nighthorse Campbell, former U.S. representative and senator for Colorado, started it as the Iron Horse Motorcycle Rally at the Sky Ute Event Center. Soon, attendance doubled, and even celebrities like Peter Fonda attended as grand marshal for the parade. As it grew, they found it had a huge economic impact in Durango and the surrounding area, Nighthorse Campbell said.

The rally ran for 13 years before the Ignacio Chamber of Commerce took it on in 2006, where it had less success. Johnny Valdez took it over in 2015, and in 2017, it had so many financial difficulties that Valdez canceled it. Bird and Oakes partnered up and took it over in time to hold a small rally in 2017.

Now, Nighthorse Campbell is excited to see what Bird will do. “I think he has a really good business sense.”

In trying to incorporate Ignacio and the tribe, the new owners started by moving demo trucks out to the Sky Ute Casino and stationing 10 times more vendors in the casino parking lot than last year. Other events, like motorcycle stunt shows and a concert featuring nationally recognized bands Great White and Slaughter, are “designed to bring more people and more business to the businesses in Ignacio,” Bird said.

The only issue is that those events are at the casino, and while people might pass through the town, there aren’t events or organized efforts to pull them that way.

“For me as president, I really want to be open to all events,” Collins said, “because once you close yourself off to certain things, it stays there. It lasts.”

Emily Archuleta, manager at Wells Liquor South, hopes to see some of that revenue flow to businesses further down Goddard Avenue. This summer, they’ll be running advertisements and posting a banner to attract rally-goers into town.

“Some of these small businesses depend on the rally. It keeps them going all year,” Archuleta said.

Although Ignacio does have small community events, it doesn’t have a Labor Day celebration without the rally or a big Fourth of July event. That leaves businesses with Memorial Day as their only large summer sales opportunity.

“I grew up when all the main street was closed off for the rally in Ignacio,” she said. “It needs to get back to that.”

The community was not always in favor of it being in town, Collins said.

“There were tons of bikes that used to come over ... we were just packed into this little town,” she said, adding that it left people feeling overwhelmed. “A lot of the locals would leave during that weekend. I can’t speak for them on why they left, but ...”

For Archuleta, she’s willing to take the noise and crowd for four days of big revenue that rolls into town with them.

smullane@durangoherald.com