For miles and miles, it was just Erik Hubbard and his Harley-Davidson. His father and a friend were along for the ride as well, but it’s hard to have meaningful conversations when driving motorcycles across the country.
“You have a lot of time to think,” Hubbard said.
Hubbard was on a three-week motorcycle trip in 2017 that would take him from Eastern Kentucky to California and back without ever going on an interstate of any kind. Along the way, Hubbard and company stopped through towns that were way off the beaten path.
“Some of them were hole in the walls and dying, and then some of them were thriving because they figured out a niche for hospitality and tourism,” Hubbard said.
Hubbard immediately thought about his expansive backyard of Eastern Kentucky and how many towns were indeed dying economically due to the downturn of the coal industry. The skating rinks and softball fields that blanketed his childhood memories were gone.
As a disabled veteran of the U.S. Navy, he also thought about how many good times he has had traveling on his bike through the winding roads of his home turf.
Hubbard’s thoughts would eventually turn into what would become Backroads of Appalachia, with its mission of promoting economic development through motorsports — both of the two-wheel and four-wheel variety — while supporting local businesses along the way.
The nonprofit organization based out of Lynch, Kentucky, has picked up so much steam in Eastern Kentucky over the last few years that about 14 weeks ago Hubbard “took a leap of faith” and stepped down from his job as a traveling mechanic for Norfolk Southern Railway to take on the organization’s executive director position at a full-time capacity.
He’s come a long way from when he started the Backroads with $347 of his own money — used mostly to construct shelves for the T-shirts that would be sold in its storefront in Harlan County. He co-founded the organization with Jim Wills.
These days, visitors can use an app that was made through a $900,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development sector to explore the 50-plus routes covering approximately 4,500 miles in the region that have been created for motor enthusiasts to discover while holding meet-up events — but no large rallies.
“We don't want 20,000 people on one road section,” Hubbard said. “We want to give everybody options to go explore and what we focus on is we want them to get them tired, thirsty and hungry, in our little coal community towns where they spend their money.”
When Hubbard spoke with me, he did so from the Freedom Ridge Welcome Center, a new general store in Jackson County near the town of McKee, Kentucky. It was recently opened as a way to provide resources to the local community given the scarcity of surrounding businesses — and is one of approximately 1,200 places of interest listed for visitors, which could number more than 40,000 visitors in 2023 alone.
“If there was a country store within 30 miles of where I’m at, we wouldn’t be a country store, because I’m not going to compete against the local business — but up here there’s actually a need for it,” he said.
Drawing in dollars
Last year Backroads of Appalachia brought in $11.9 million of trackable income from the counties of Eastern Kentucky — but had closer to $38 million of estimated economic impact, Hubbard said. This year, the hope is to break the $40 million mark in economic impact.
As of a recent date, the organization had already brought in approximately $13.6 million after just a quarter of the events scheduled for the year — 131 in total — having had taken place.
"Erik has put Eastern Kentucky on the map for best motorsports tourism in the nation. We are excited to see the future of Backroads of Appalachia," said Geoff Marietta, the founder of Invest 606, in an email. The nonprofit organization has an annual pitch competition and accelerator exclusively for Eastern Kentucky startups.
“Erik has rallied folks from different backgrounds and interests together in a magical way to really push the needle forward in Eastern Kentucky. His ability to create collaboration and drive impact is what makes his mission so unique. I appreciate all that Erik does, and the hustle he has about him,” added Sabrina McWhorter, the director of business innovation at Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR), in an email. SOAR provides resources to founders to 54 counties in the region.
Among its recent accolades, Backroads of Appalachia was named the recipient of the Eastern Kentucky Tourism Award by SOAR — in spite of the fact that the organization is not officially recognized as a tourism entity by the state of Kentucky.
It does, though, receive $200,000 annually from the state for marketing purposes — and has reached a similar one-time arrangement with West Virginia, as the state looks to take advantage of the similar driving atmosphere to motorsport enthusiasts. That program will begin in July.
In the last three years, Backroads of Appalachia has received approximately $2.4 million in funding from the USDA, Appalachian Regional Commission and the Bureau of Land Management’s Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) program.
There’s one other thing to mention: The racing-centered events that the organizations help set up are done so many times with second chance workers serving as racing stewards, giving members of the community a sense of purpose after completing substance abuse rehabilitation programs.
Hubbard added that his organization is working in partnership with Addiction Recovery Care and Appalachian Regional Commission to build a transition home for the workers as well.
“We give them an opportunity to publicly speak,” he said, “and give them hope.”
