The 33rd Annual Cycle World Trek’s history, and this one topped the ’04 Slushy Finale by a ton. Details to come, but if you ever think you’ve done a cold ride, unless it was below freezing at 7,000 feet in the middle of a full-on blizzard, you haven’t.
Complete posting to follow.
Once a year Trek riding pal Steve Soto’s beautifully prepped Northland Motorsports/Soto Racing Honda XR650R finished 9th in class (Expert-Open) in this year’s Vegas to Reno off-road classic in an event that saw over half the field DNF. Last year a fried alternator sidelined the Reno or Bust team, but this year luck smiled on #334 and 587 miles of Nevada desert’s in the history books. Big thumbs up to Steven and co-riders Gene Lane and Jeff Leonard for a great job of safe riding, and to photojournalist Mark Kariya for a great image.
On June 2nd Steven Soto, Ryan Hanna and Jim MacArthur line up with nearly 500 other entries in for the 2007 Baja 500, riding Soto Racing’s immaculate Pro Class 21x XR650R.
Steven pre-ran the course, which starts/finishes in Ensenada, Baja California, a few weeks back and reported an extra 1/4 mile thrown in along the coastline, along with the always welcome cacti in case you’re prone to daydreaming.
I’ve just posted my web account of what it’s like to be a freshly minted initiate to the SEMA aftermarket trade event. Words aren’t enough. Neither are pix – this show dwarfs anything I’d previously attended.
I’ve been asked a few times about what SEMA (and Globalshop, PRI, etc.) have to do with our powersports industry. My answer is – everything.
The crew at The Shop is hosting their 9th Annual Back to the Beach Kustom Kulture Festival April 21st. Time’s short, it’s just around the corner, at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. Oh, and guess what? No tow or trailer ins! Yup, if you’re going to enter, you’re going to ride/drive/push.
(LAS VEGAS, NV) Just back from the 2007 edition of Globalshop that took place March 7th-9th. If you’re in the visual marketing business, this is like being stranded in Santa’s workshop and all the goodies are yours to keep.
What’s it about? Anything and everything having to do with retail marketing — print, digital, dimensional, audio — Globalshop puts it all out on one floor, and you’d better be wearing track shoes to keep up.
We’ll put a full report up on the web site later, along with a short slide show. For now the excitement’s still palpable, reviewing the fascinating methodology behind the manipulation of consumer instincts. Say what? Ka-ching ka-ching, that’s what.
Desert rat pal Steven Soto paired up with buddy Ryan Hanna and his feel good team of sand hogs for the last minute start swap March 9-11 Baja 250. And even though the 13th place finish out of 16 Pro class starters wasn’t in the single digits, it was a success nonetheless for the XR650R mounted duo.
Steven’s site is up, still a work in progress. Check out soto-racing.com for a super-sano look at off-road bike prep.
The KTM Adventure Tour crew of Scot Harden, 2006 third place Dakar podium finisher Chris Blais and Mike Lafferty graced the Techmount booth with a bike and plenty of stories about adventures past and yet to come.
Chris is a tremendously gifted athlete whose representation of the United States in the recently concluded Dakar is a credit to his country and his sport. Chris plans for ’07 include the SCORE Baja 250, next month, and a pretty active race schedule throughout the rest of the year.
A winter wonderland welcomed over 20,000 attendees to the 39th Annual Dealernews Powersports Dealer Expo in Indianapolis February 16th-19th. Winter wonderland? Winter deepfreeze, which earlier in the week virtually shut down surface transportation throughout the area.
That was the message displayed on one t-shirt as the 7th Annual V-Twin Expo hit Cincy February 3-5, and the forecast was pretty obvious. It’s back to baggers as booth after booth featured what it takes to get Granpa’s sled past the rope line. Paint, pipes, bags, fairings, seats. Even talk of open belt primarys — of course with floorboards — all with one goal in mind. Reclaiming some degree of practicality without sacrificing style. And with all the additional real estate, paint’s got a lot bigger canvas to take advantage of.
Every year in Orlando for the past two the Performance Racing Industry’s brought their Ringling Brothers behemoth of a trade show circus to the Orange County Convention Center. The exhibits stretch from wall to wall, north to south, east to west. Over five miles — MILES!, thank you — of aisles lined with every imaginable product and service dedicated to the science/hunch of speed.
This year, in somewhat timid defiance of the rather inane prohibition on photos and videos, I snapped a few pix which will show up in a web site combo roundup of SEMA and PRI. But as usual, even more so, visuals alone don’t bring home the total experience of walking row after row of automated grinders and state-of-the-art cncs, booths dedicated to the art of forced induction, endless tables of the latest in valve technology, and the race trailers. Oh the trailers. Yeah boy, if I only had a spare half-mil or three laying around.
I came away with a clear understanding of the importance of linear suspension measurement. A handful of really useful Oil-Dri mats that decorate the delicate space under my Shovel. And an eye-opening education in how the mundane task of header fabrication can be transformed into a predictable, repeatable and accurate process by using a brand new product from icengineworks that looks like Legos and works like a million bucks. See it to believe it — and say so long to coat hanger templates.
It was a great three days of basking in Mickey’s shadow, learning new twists on old technologies and taking in the latest and greatest on the performance scene. Attending both SEMA shines in the desert and PRI back-to-back is an experience to be savored leisurely. Until next year.