08/27/2026
“Heads to Beds, Food to Mouths and Lips to Sip”: A Conversation with Backroads of Appalachia’s Erik Hubbard
Across Eastern Kentucky, many of the same crooked roads once treated as ordinary backroads are being reimagined as tourism assets.
For Erik Hubbard, those roads are more than pavement through the mountains. They are part of a larger effort to bring visitors into Appalachian communities, support local businesses, and build a tourism economy around motorcycles, motorsports, scenery and small-town experiences.
Hubbard, a Letcher County native and Navy veteran, grew up riding motorcycles on the roads and trails near the Kentucky-Virginia line. After serving in the military and spending years working on the railroad, he eventually returned to his lifelong interests in racing, motorcycles and tourism.
To discuss his background, Backroads of Appalachia, motorsports tourism and the economic potential of Eastern Kentucky’s roads, Appalachia Insider spoke with Hubbard by phone.
The following is a condensed and edited account of our conversation.
Christopher Allen, Appalachia Insider: Erik, before we get started on Backroads of Appalachia, tell readers a little about yourself. Where did you grow up?
Erik Hubbard: I’m a jack of all trades and a master of none.
My name is Erik Hubbard. I grew up as the son of a paralyzed coal miner over in Letcher County, in the wonderful area of Eolia, Kentucky, what we call Flat Gap, right on the Virginia-Kentucky state line.
At the time, I thought I had a hard childhood. Looking back now, it was probably the best childhood anybody could have. I had a loving family. Most importantly, I had a motorcycle and plenty of trails to ride on, and that taught me a lot in life.
After high school, I joined the military, then worked on the railroad for 20 years. During all that time, my work and my passion were racing, motorsports and tourism. Eventually, I was able to take those passions and create something before I left the railroad, and that became Backroads of Appalachia.
AI: Which branch did you serve in?
Hubbard: I served in the United States Navy.
For a boy with limited income and limited resources, the Navy gave me a chance to experience the world. My nickname in the Navy was “Kentuck.”
I got to see 38 different countries, different continents, cross the equator, go from a pollywog to a shellback, all that good stuff. For someone who never really had the ability to get out and travel, being able to experience other cultures and other ways of life really opened me up.
It showed me my Appalachian roots, but it also gave me a different mindset than someone who had only stayed in Eastern Kentucky.
AI: Did your time in the Navy, especially being around equipment and machinery, affect your love for machinery?
Hubbard: Absolutely.
My family was in the coal business, so I already had a love for machinery. But my job in the Navy was machinist’s mate. I was a power plant operator.
The reason I joined the Navy and went into that field was because I wanted to become a power plant operator either in Eastern Kentucky or for TVA. That was what I thought I was going to become in life.
Long story short, that didn’t work out, so hello railroad.
AI: What was the moment you realized the roads you grew up riding and driving could become an economic asset?
Hubbard: Throughout my adult life, I didn’t know how blessed we were with our crooked, curvy roads.
Growing up, you learned how to save your tires and brakes, and how to handle the curves. But throughout my travels as an adult, not just in the United States but around the world, I realized our road structures are superior.
A lot of it is based off the Irish, and that’s where rally car racing comes into play. Our Scottish and Irish descendants here built roads very similar to Ireland, and that’s what makes our road infrastructure so good for what we’re doing.
I lived in Tennessee for 20 years. After the military, that’s where I decided to call home for a while. I lived on Cherokee Lake, and that was the Eastern Kentucky dream.
But throughout my life, I always found myself coming back here because of my passions.
We eventually started a group called the Hillbilly Run, where we would ride motorcycles and just bombard one of our little towns. That’s really where the concept of Backroads of Appalachia started.
We started off with the Dragon Slayer. I put my own overtime money into it. There wasn’t a whole lot going on, but a magistrate by the name of Paul Brown took the time to listen to what I was trying to do.
The idea was similar to what they do with the Tail of the Dragon in North Carolina and the Back of the Dragon over in Marion, Virginia. We wanted to make a destination experience for bikers to come here, experience it and, most importantly, spend their money here.
From that, it kept expanding. Now we’re partnering with sanctioning bodies, bringing in celebrities, and bringing in multiple racing series throughout the year. We’ve also worked on changing legislation to make motorsports more impactful for Eastern Kentucky.
AI: When you talk about changing legislation, what did that involve?
Hubbard: The first major change was giving Kentucky the ability to shut down a state highway for a motorsports event.
State Rep. Derek Lewis ran that legislation.
Other states had done it, but we wanted Kentucky to do it correctly. If you read some laws in other places, they don’t necessarily require sanctioned-body insurance or the proper procedures.
We made sure Kentucky required those documents and procedures so the state, the county and citizens are covered economically and for insurance purposes.
AI: When people hear Backroads of Appalachia, many probably think first of motorcycles. But you’ve also expanded into racing and other motorsports. One example is Drift Appalachia. What is that?
Hubbard: Drift Appalachia is something we’ve been doing with a group of professional Formula Drift drivers for the past three years.
We’ve done multiple events. It can be hard for spectators because we’re on mountain roads, and there aren’t many places to put people. But from the internet and exposure side, it breaks the internet when the videos start dropping.
We’ve done multiple events up around Slade, one at Buckhorn State Park, and we’re working on one in Leslie and Perry counties using Highway 221. We’re finishing up the permitting now to make sure everything is legal and compliant.
AI: When Americans think about racing, a lot of people immediately think of NASCAR. But you’ve talked about rally racing as something that may actually fit Appalachia better.
Hubbard: NASCAR got brought up when the Louisville Courier Journal spent a couple of days with us talking about rally.
Rally is the number two motorsport in the world. NASCAR is number 11. When you look at how we were portrayed with bootleggers running during Prohibition on gravel roads, going left and right to get away, they weren’t NASCAR drivers and they didn’t end up at a beach.
They were rally car drivers. They just didn’t know it.
Rally is a European sport, and it fits with the Scottish, Irish and English descent of a lot of our people.
AI: How does rally racing connect with rural America?
Hubbard: The American Rally Association is something our organization is part of now.
We first started with NASA Rally, and then we moved up to ARA. Through conversations with people like Lance Smith, who owns Vermont SportsCar and is part of Rally Forward, we started really talking about rural America.
That came up a lot with the Boone Forest Rally.
A lot of rallies don’t have many residential areas, but the Boone Forest Rally has roads with houses on them. I go knock on every door, talk to every person and make sure they know we’re going to be closing the road for a race that day.
I tell them, bring your family, bring your friends, have a barbecue and have a good time. Where else in the world do you have a racetrack that goes by your house?
NASCAR focuses on places like Las Vegas and Bristol. Rally focuses on less populated gravel roads in rural America.
That has helped grow the sport. The American Rally Association’s sponsor is Kubota because Kubota sells tractors and equipment to rural America.
For years, Subaru was really the only manufacturer involved at that level in American rally. Now we’re seeing more manufacturers come in, including Ford, Toyota, Honda, Acura, Hyundai and others.
The World Rally Championship wants to come back to America, and they are looking heavily at Tennessee and Kentucky. That is a tremendous opportunity.
AI: I’m originally from Magoffin County, so when I think about roads, I think about places like the S-curves on the Breathitt Ridge down Route 30. Are roads like that part of what Backroads could eventually use?
Hubbard: I know all about it.
I can only lead and give recommendations to sanctioning bodies when it comes to those kinds of events, but we are having multiple conversations with different types of motorsports for that ridge.
Of course, that requires working with county government and getting the blessing of the Transportation Cabinet in Magoffin County.
AI: Have counties like Magoffin, Johnson and others in this region been open to those conversations?
Hubbard: You’re going to get me in trouble.
We’ve done things in Johnson County. We’ve done some things in Martin County. Magoffin County has routes through it, but we really haven’t had the hard discussions yet about the potential for events there.
For me to do that, I have to have a sanctioning body that wants to come in and do it.
AI: Beyond motorcycles and drifting, what other types of events has Backroads been involved with?
Hubbard: This year alone, we had 187 events in three states: Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio.
We’ve also expanded 24 Hours of Appalachia, and now we’re in Colorado. We were asked to come to Colorado to help do events there for a Special Forces operator veteran unit that we’re part of.
This year we also had GNCC over in Knott County. We had more than 15,000 people spend a week with us there, and that money spreads into surrounding counties.
We’ve done rally car racing through the American Rally Association. We’ve also worked to develop a Toyota GR Corolla race car, and it was done entirely in Eastern Kentucky. I think that’s really cool for rally car racing.
AI: For readers who may not understand the tourism side, walk me through how this works economically. If someone comes here from Ohio, Michigan or somewhere else, how does that eventually put money into the pocket of someone running a restaurant, motel, gas station or small business in Eastern Kentucky?
Hubbard: If we’re talking about rally, rally is at least a four-day event.
Everybody comes in and stays. Since we’re rural, Airbnbs are being purchased by these teams. There isn’t just one person on a rally team. It’s at least four people per team. You’ve got volunteers. You’ve got trained staff that comes in, just like NASCAR or any other event.
They’re staying in lodging. They’re going to restaurants inside the communities.
Before the race, we also do some kind of car expose. That’s a European term for a car show before they take off. There’s a ceremonial start where the cars line up by their placement, and people are allowed to come out, view the cars, talk to the drivers and co-drivers, and experience that.
While they’re there, people are spending money in that community.
Gas is another thing. Most of these rally cars run on pump gas. Most of our events run on pump gas.
With 24 Hours of Appalachia, you have 250 entries doing 600 miles navigating through Eastern Kentucky’s primitive public roads. They have to stop for fuel on the way, and we put the gas stations on our route so they know where they can stop and get fuel before they go back off-roading.
That is spending money in the communities.
AI: You mentioned Tony Tackett in Pike County as someone who mentored you early on. What did he teach you about tourism?
Hubbard: Mr. Tony Tackett at Pike County Tourism has done an amazing job.
Years ago, when I started doing this on my own time, doing mapping and helping with maps to create opportunities to drive motorcyclists into Eastern Kentucky, Tony became a mentor of mine.
I had a lot of questions. I wanted to learn how tourism worked in the world he was in.
The saying Tony had for me, and it has always stuck with me, was that you’ve got to have heads to beds, food to mouths and lips to sip. If you have those three things, you have a community that is ready for tourism, for people to come and visit and stay.
A lot of tourism industries are designed for people to come to the city or county seat, see it, explore it and spend their money there.
My job is to get people out in the middle of nowhere and get them tired, thirsty and hungry, where they land in those communities.
I have an engineering background, so our job is to create a schematic. We are creating a funnel from all the surrounding states. Through our mobile application and website, we drive traffic the way we want it to flow so it lands in our communities.
AI: Your latest economic impact study puts the number at roughly $96 million in new regional spending. When people hear that number, how should they understand it?
Hubbard: I want to say specifically that it is regional.
That number is broken down between Kentucky and West Virginia. It is not $96 million just for Eastern Kentucky.
But I do have strong confidence in what we’re building.
I encourage anybody to look at King of the Hammers in California and their economic impact report. There are multiple states that have done economic impact reports on motorsport activities.
GNCC, which is the largest motorcycle and four-wheeler race, does an economic study on it. It’s all based on the spending per person per day when people come into a region for food, lodging and gas.
If that person is here for three days, you multiply that by three, and that is the direct spending impact. Then you get into the economic side of it, where that dollar can be spent seven times throughout the region before it leaves. That’s how you get the economic impact versus the direct spending impact.
One point I want to make clear is that we do not do our own economic impact report.
We do case studies. We do numbers. We work with county governments. We go by entry forms, surveys and things of that nature. With spectators, we do some geofencing and work with counties on that as well.
That way, we have direct numbers we can report to our economist, who does the report every year.
AI: For generations, a lot of economic activity in Eastern Kentucky has been extractive. A company would come in and extract coal, timber or labor. It could build middle-class jobs for a time, but when the company pulled out, the economy often suffered.
Tourism seems different because people come in, spend money, and leave without taking the road, mountain or community with them. What are your thoughts on that?
Hubbard: I agree with that 100%.
I always tell everybody, we are a small cog in a big gear to help fix Eastern Kentucky.
My number one job with Backroads of Appalachia, and what legislators, the federal government and everybody trusting us to do, is drive traffic.
If you drive traffic, it starts creating exposure and opportunities. Tourism is a big part of that, and it’s growing every year. It is something that can economically sustain and help create entrepreneurship jobs inside the region.
But is it the cure-all for everything? I don’t think so.
This is where education, training and traffic count flow matter. People can come in and see what we have to offer.
The state of Kentucky recognizes county and city tourism initiatives, but it doesn’t really recognize a regional tourism initiative the same way. So we’re more on the economic development side of things than just the tourism side.
My job is to drive traffic and find people with the opportunity to invest inside the region.
AI: So tourism is not the whole answer, but it can create the traffic and exposure that make other things possible?
Hubbard: That’s right.
AI: When you talk about getting people into these communities, it sounds like you’re not just trying to get them to a main street or one destination. You’re trying to create a flow that moves people through the region.
Hubbard: Exactly.
We’re creating a funnel.
We want people to come from surrounding states, get out on the roads, get tired, thirsty and hungry, and then land in our communities.
That’s where the spending happens. That’s where the restaurants, lodging, gas stations and small businesses benefit.
AI: What do you hope local communities understand about what Backroads is trying to build?
Hubbard: We’re trying to drive traffic.
The roads, the mountains and the culture are already here. We’re trying to create a way for people to experience them, and for that experience to create opportunity in the communities.
As the conversation came to a close, Hubbard returned to the same basic idea that runs through much of the work of Backroads of Appalachia: Eastern Kentucky already has assets that can attract people from outside the region.
The roads, scenery, culture, small towns and local businesses are already here. The challenge, as Hubbard described it, is building the systems that bring people in, move them through the region and give them reasons to spend money in local communities.
Throughout the interview, Hubbard returned to the idea that Eastern Kentucky does not have to become somewhere else to create opportunity. Instead, he argued, the region’s roads, landscapes and communities already possess value that can be shared with people from outside Appalachia.
For Hubbard, the winding roads that once carried him through the mountains as a young rider now represent something larger: an opportunity to bring visitors into the region while reminding the people who live there that what has always felt ordinary to them may be extraordinary to someone seeing it for the first time.
The roads themselves never changed. What has changed may be the way people are beginning to see where they lead, and the recognition of the future they can guide us to.
