There Ain’t No Place Like This Place, Anyplace

Article By: Marjorie Klieman Photos Courtesy Of: Marjorie Klieman, Jack McIntyre And Sturgis Buffalo Chip

take 40,000 bikers swarming a small city in South Dakota, add citizens concerned about rowdy behavior, stir in the resulting City Park camping prohibition and elimination of street vendors, and you have the recipe for a brand-new rally venue several miles outside the city.

This 1980 scenario was the catalyst for Ron “Woody” Woodruff to create what later became known as the Sturgis Buffalo Chip. Woody, president and CEO of the Chip recalled, “The City of Sturgis was trying to get rid of the rally; they wanted to find ways to keep the bikers out of town. We used to throw keg parties in high school, right? We just find a place to go, invite people out, have a party, and make ‘em feel welcome. And sure enough, in 1981, we found a place a few miles out of town that had a natural amphitheater. The folks that didn’t like bikers really couldn’t see what was going on the

other side of the hill.”

According to Woody, the first few years were sparse. He was practicing law in Belle Fourche, and they’d come out to that piece of borrowed land, take down the gate, chase the cows out of the pasture, and set up. They put up a small stage, and in August 1982, they had Johnny Paycheck, Susan Nelson, and some local folks entertain for what Woody called “a nice party” where a few hundred people came. The Chip is both nationally and internationally known, but that happened in steps. Woody says, “What really made a difference was probably in the second or third year when the Rapid City Journal came out because people were talking about us. And it didn’t take long for some of the folks in Sturgis to wish that they hadn’t encouraged somebody to take the bikers out of town. They were afraid the money was going out of town, but we weren’t making any money then. I think we

were charging $2 at the time. We had no water, no power, no nothin’. So we didn’t have any real overhead, either. We were just throwing a keg party.”

In the next morning’s paper, the article described the affair as something like an old mountain man’s rendezvous with a bunch of guys standing around a bonfire telling baloney stories, smoking, and drinking beer. That night, there was a line of cars from Rapid City and the local area: a few hundred people came because of that article. Great publicity, even if that wasn’t the intent!

Improvements were incremental and borne of necessity. The county government dictated the requirement for garbage pickup, so the Chip had to accomplish that. Water was required, so the Chip drilled a well. Woody describes the first showers as PVC running down the hill from some old abandoned water tanks, tin for the walls, and another PVC pipe with holes drilled in it for the shower. He laughs, “Hey, we never had any complaints about that! We were upgrading the place.”

Vendor buildings were constructed out of old fence boards and other junk wood. Artists started coming around, would find some junk laying around and make something out of it, like the buffalo skull on the Kinison stage’s roof. Woody says, “We just kept changing one little thing at a time because we didn’t have any money. We weren’t charging any money. We were just trying to pay the bills.”

What made the Chip gain such tremendous popularity over the years? One element is that Peter Fonda had an affinity for the place and would tell all his movie and television business friends about it. TV coverage began in 2000 when a Travel Channel show was shot and aired, featuring Robbie Knievel jumping over the main stage that had just been built the year prior. It wasn’t a planned event; Robbie just said, “Let’s jump the stage.” He needed a take-off ramp, so the stagehands built one.

After the first three runs up the ramp, “fourth run, vroom, and he does it, man!” Woody exclaims. “He goes over the bands’ equipment, under the lights, clears the stage and the little fence line in front of it, and hits hit the dirt. The handlebars were twisted, and you could see he had enough strength to straighten it out, getting control of that bike almost instantly. We’d asked the crowd to separate because Robbie was going to land in

between everybody without a landing ramp. The next thing you know, and I saw him do it, he hit the throttle, and he lunged into the hay bales, and then he came out of there, and he groaned, ‘Ohhhh, I think I broke some ribs.’ Just doing the jump wasn’t enough. People want drama.” The show was number 1 on the Travel Channel for three years!

That same year, .38 Special came out to record a live album called “Live at Sturgis.” Woody asked the producer why he chose this place to do a recording of a live album at the big expense of hauling millions of dollars’ worth of equipment. The producer responded, “Well, it seems there’s a certain ambiance that exists here that doesn’t exist anywhere else.” Woody says, “It’s just one of those things that I don’t understand how that happened. We’ve just been blessed. I tell people, it’s just magic. There’s a certain magic that we just fell into here. Our job here is to continue to grow and provide a better experience without screwing up the magic that we don’t understand in the first place.” And to quote Bon Jovi’s tour manager: “I’ve been all over the world, done shows in all the big cities, and I can tell you truthfully, there ain’t no place like this place, anyplace.”

Over the years, the Chip has grown from that first 20 acres to 600 acres, now offering amenities such as the popular Bikini Beach alongside a lagoon, food and merchandise vendor village, bars, tattoo café, and even an onsite gas station. Various forms of racing take place at the powersports complex, amphitheater, and the hill. Stunters performers and precision teams such as the Seattle Cossacks perform. Daily competitions and biker games abound, and the heavily attended nightly concerts feature the top names in the music industry. This year, the Reverend Horton Heat/Kid Rock show drew more fans than any concert in the Chip’s history. In fact, indications are that more people came to the Chip this year than ever before.

In recent years, the Chip has added attractions outside the gates, most with no entrance fee. Since 2009, Michael Lichter’s annual Motorcycles As Art show has been hosted at the purposebuilt Russ Brown Event Center. The hugely popular Crossroads venue opened in 2012 and includes vendors, two garages with techs that attend to your motorcycle’s needs, live bands, daily bike shows, and much more.

And in 2018, Camp Zero opened across Alkali Road, offering a more grassroots, economical option to the main campground.

Along with providing a fabulous place for bikers to stay and enjoy themselves, Woody and the Chip support numerous charities, having raised over $1 million to date. For instance, the Chip supports the Shriners transportation fund that gets children with medical emergencies to specialized facilities at no cost to the family. The Sturgis Motorcycle Museum is another non-profit that benefits from the Chip’s fundraising efforts, as does the All Kids Bike organization. Through the Chip’s Legends Ride, funds have been raised to purchase a bus for the Rapid City chapter of Special Olympics to transport the athletes to events.

The Chip supports many other causes as well. Veterans are honored during the annual Freedom Celebration and with the display of nearly 1,000 American flags that pay tribute to all service personnel who have sacrificed to protect our freedom. Women riders are supported through functions like the Biker Belles Celebration, Wild Gypsy Tour, and the Maiden Moto Art Show. Even small vendors are supported at the Chip. Woody’s philosophy? “It could be said I have an affinity for the underdog. You see somebody trying to do something, you should help them. We’re giving them a chance to do their thing. That’s what everybody needs, right? It’s part of freedom.” Yet even after 40 years of success, Woody still sees the Chip as an underdog. “We might have a pretty goodsized crowd, and we might have a reputation, but we’re still the underdog in Sturgis. Bikers have two enemies: rust and politicians.” Woody says, “We provide the place for people to come and have a good time. You watch the smiles on people’s faces, the compliments they give you: ‘Thank you for doing all this. Thank you for giving us a place to come to.’ I like doing this. It just feels good. You know, we’re open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. We’re not on the beaten path, and other than during the Sturgis rally, we’re not staffed. If you want to come out, plug in and spend the night, we can accommodate you.”