The Wall of Death is a rare piece of Americana, a vintage live-action show featuring a silo-shaped wooden cylinder thirty feet in diameter. Inside this motordrome, daredevils on motorcycles ride a fourteen-foot wall. The American Motor Drome Company (AMDC) aims to keep this hundred-year-old tradition alive by taking the traveling show, featuring antique Indian and Harley-Davidson motorcycles and hand-built four-wheel racing machines, across the northern and southeastern United States. The AMDC motordrome was built in 1998 by Jay Lightnin’ (John Bentley) in an effort to revive the lost tradition, and it was the first of its kind to be built in the US in over fifty years.
These images were taken in Maggie Valley, North Carolina, in July 2024. The riders featured are Hobo Bill, Ariell Flight, JR Sparks, Charlie Ransom, and Preacher Man. They say the tips they collect from audience members go toward their medical costs. When asked about specific injuries sustained while riding on the Wall of Death, the riders remained quiet. They don’t like to go into detail about their injuries, they explained, but they assured me every scratch and scrape is earned the hard way.
—Lauren Stewart
