Born To Ride News

Posted on November 15, 2010 at 5:22pm by Meredith Jessup 

After his Denair, Calif., school told him to remove the American flag from his bicycle, Cody Alicea, 13, received an amazing surprise when hundreds of patriotic bikers — many of them veterans — showed up to escort him to school Monday morning.

Click the link to see footage:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/bikers-rally-to-ride-with-boy-after-school-banned-american-flag/

Rogue

Sturgis Freedom Fighters

Motorcycle Hall Of Fame Member 2005

www.bikerrogue.com

Hines Loses Shot at Championship with Round One Red Light

POMONA, Calif. (November 14, 2010) – Screamin’ Eagle^®/Vance & Hines rider Eddie Krawiec set a new NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle elapsed-time record on the way to winning the final round of the Automobile Club of Southern California NHRA Finals at the Auto Club Raceway. Lucas Oil Buell rider Hector Arana fouled at the start of the final round to give Krawiec an automatic win and his second victory of the season on his Harley-Davidson® V-Rod®. It was the final race of the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle Countdown to the Championship.

Earlier on Sunday, Screamin’ Eagle/Vance & Hines rider Andrew Hines saw his chance to win a fourth NHRA world championship slip away when he fouled by 0.016 seconds at the start line in the first round of eliminations against Suzuki rider Steve Johnson. Hines had a 36-point lead over Nitrofish Suzuki rider LE Tonglet at the beginning of the day, but the rookie rider scored wins in the first and second rounds to take the NHRA Full Throttle Countdown to the Championship by just four points over Hines.

“We’ve been struggling with the clutch set-up on my bike since Las Vegas, and went to the same setting we are using on Eddie’s bike for Sunday,” said Hines. “This was the first run at speed with that clutch, and it hit too hard and lifted the front wheel and that caused us to go red.”

Hines was the number-one seed for the Countdown, and battled Tonglet through the entire six-race playoff, holding the lead until Sunday’s finals.

“I think this was probably the best season of my career,” said Hines. “I had a string of seven-straight final rounds, a new national record, and five wins. I’ve got nothing to hang my head about.”

For Krawiec, the win at Pomona is a bookend to a season that also saw the 2008 World Champion win the opening event of the series at Gainesville, Fla., in March. Riding a special military-themed Harley-Davidson V-Rod (which was voted NHRA’s Best Appearing Vehicle at Pomona) as part of Harley-Davidson Military Appreciation Month, Krawiec was the top qualifier at Pomona with a 6.847-second run on Saturday, and got wins over Dirty Banana Mix/LAT Suzuki rider Freddie Camarena in the first round, and Racer’s Edge Suzuki rider Michael Phillips in round two. In semi-finals, Krawiec faced off against Tonglet, but got the automatic win when the new champion went red at the start line. That put Krawiec in the finals for the first time this season since Gainesville. Arana went red, but Krawiec poured on the power and ended the season in style, riding the Screamin’ Eagle V-Rod to a 6.811-second ET that broke the 6.815 class record set by Hines on Sept. 4 at Indianapolis.

“I had a really awesome bike all weekend, and we didn’t make a tuning change to it until before the final round,” said Krawiec. “I saw Hector go red and just made my run, and the V-Rod flew fast and straight into the record books. It’s really cool to get a win and the record with the military paint on this bike right after Veteran’s Day, and it’s a great way to end a season that was a real struggle for me at times.”

During the 17-race 2010 NHRA Full Throttle drag racing season, Screamin’ Eagle/Vance & Hines riders Hines and Krawiec combined for seven event wins, 11 final-round appearances, and two national ET records. Hines appeared in the finals nine times and scored wins at Houston, Atlanta, Denver, Brainerd, and Reading. Krawiec had wins at Gainesville and Pomona.

In the final Pro Stock Motorcycle point standings for NHRA Full Throttle Countdown, Tonglet finished first with 2,681 points. Hines is second with 2,677. Krawiec finished third with 2,599 points. 

Screamin’ Eagle Performance Parts are inspired by and built in the spirit of the raw adrenaline and power of motorcycle racing. Screamin’ Eagle Pro parts are specifically designed for race-use applications, while Screamin’ Eagle parts offer street-use performance options for the Harley-Davidson motorcycle owner. Visit www.harley-davidson.com for more information.

The Screamin’ Eagle/Vance & Hines Pro Stock Motorcycle team is sponsored by Matco Tools, Dunlop and S100.

The Motorcycle Riders Foundation reports that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is calling on all States that do not have a mandatory helmet law to adopt one. The NTSB has a “top ten most wanted” list that has never before addressed motorcycle helmet law, but does now. They are asking for every State to enact mandatory helmet law for every rider and passenger on every motorcycle. 

This is a disturbing, but not surprising, recommendation by the NTSB. They had a forum in 2007 where they brought in some motorcycle safety professionals and asked them a few questions, they then relied on their motorcycle crash investigations, a whopping six in total crash investigations to issue some safety recommendations. This pales in comparison to the over 150,000 airline incident investigations, over 90,000 other surface transportation investigations, which does more than qualify them to issue such recommendations. But investigating just six motorcycle accidents and now they are the experts? 

What’s also surprising is the fact that motorcycle deaths declined last year. For the first time in 11 years motorcycle fatalities went down, and not just a few percentage points. Motorcycle fatalities were down 16 percent last year. And it is not because people were riding less, vehicle miles traveled for motorcycles was down just a half a percent over the previous year, according to the US DOT. 

The NTSB has no regulatory ability and no law making ability, just the power to issue recommendations to the States, industry and the Federal government. We at the MRF are troubled by the NTSB issuing recommendations about anything motorcycle, with such a lack of expertise in the arena of motorcycling and a seemingly nonchalant attitude towards the motorcyclists of this country. 

The MRF will keep up you updated on this and every other issue facing the Motorcyclists of America. 

Read the NTSB “most wanted list” here: MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from “r20.rs6.net” claiming to be http://www.ntsb.gov/recs/brochures/MostWanted_2010_2011.pdf 

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Rogue

Sturgis Freedom Fighters

 Motorcycle Hall Of Fame Member 2005

www.bikerrogue.com