The second annual AMD World Championship of Custom Bike Building reached a crescendo Saturday, November 19th with a remarkable results.
The winner, for the second year running, was Canadian custom engineer and parts specialist Roger Goldammer. That was a remarkable Achievement.
However, second place was again scooped by Michael Prugh of Independent Cycle,Rapid City,South Dakota,and third place again taken by Bertrand ‘Freddie’ Krugger from Belgium!
Judging was by ‘peer group-review’ which is to say that the competitors themselves were given the hard task of selecting the World Champion from among the 111 competitors and 166 top class custom bikes that had entered the event by the time it started on Friday November 18th.
They were invited to select their twelve favorite bikes from the entirely open ‘Freestyle’ class, from which the Champion is chosen, and rank them in order. Points were then allocated to their choices in a system that gives some advantage to first and second choices, but in a way that avoids undue influence on the overall outcome.
The competitors’ own judging was then ‘topped-off’ by votes from a small number of selected and experienced custom magazine journalists, and representatives from the parts and exhibitor community at the event.
In total 94 judging forms were returned, making the World Championship one of the most comprehensively judged bike competitions ever seen (public voting systems aside).
The first World Championship saw five ‘international’ builders and five domestic US competitors placed in the top ten, and with this second annual event pulling entries from thirteen different countries in addition to the United States, the World Championship’s credentials as a truly global competition, was further confirmed and reinforced with six out of the top-ten competitors coming from outside the United States this year.
Fourth place was taken by Brian Fuller of Fuller Hot Rods, Atlanta, Georgia, with qualified medical doctor turned bike builder Vaclav Vavra of VAV Tuning from the Czech Republic taking fifth place on behalf of the fast emerging custom v-twin scene in the former Soviet controlled and rapidly developing Central and Eastern European markets. Mika Nieminen of Mr Moore Custom Craft fame in Finland took a sixth place that follows the third spot he won at the European competition.
Popular ‘Biker Build-Off’ finalist Scott Cox of Scotty’s Choppers in New South Wales, Australia, took seventh place. Piet Hofman of Violator Motorcycles in the Netherlands backed-up his European Championship second place with eighth place in the World Championship, and ninth spot went to Mark Warrick of Soncy Road Speed and Custom of Amarillo,Texas.
Master builder Bob Phillip (Wizard Cycle Creations, Scottsdale, Arizona) tied for tenth place with Rick Krost (US Chopper, Santa Ana, California) and Mike Pruss (South Florida Choppers, West Palm Beach, Florida) completed the top twelve that were honored in the stage presentation at the Saturday evening awards ceremony.
The staff of AMD is proud to report that this second annual World Championship saw the highest standard of custom v- twins ever assembled in any one place.
”Whilst we are of course very proud of this,” Robin Bradley, AMD Publisher, said, “our role is simply as facilitator. The real praise must be reserved for the enthusiasm, creativity and excellence of the market itself. That such a fine display can be staged is testament to the depth of quality that this market has in engineering and design terms
Four sub-classes were also voted on by the competitors. These saw John Franco and Sallie Dinkler’s Wicked Bros (Phoenix, Arizona) take the ‘Licensed Manufacturer’ class; with Mike Kamalian (Revolution Manufacturing, Marietta, Georgia) second, and father and son team Steve Broyles Snr & Jnr (Stevensons Cycle, Wayne, Michigan) voted third.
The ‘Modified Harley’ class was taken by Warren Lane (The Neighbourhood King, Miami, Florida) with the rapidly emerging talent of Roland Sands taking second and third place with two out of the three entries that he had in the competition.
The ‘Custom Chrome Motorcycle’ class (formerly HR3 kit bikes) was taken by leading kit bike specialist The Hog Farm, of Hamersville, Ohio, with Californians Binford Custom Cycles (Manteca) and Central Valley Choppers (Chowchilla) second and third respectively.
Newly added to the World Championship this year, the ‘Metric’ class was scooped by Jim Giuffra (AFT Customs,Martell,California) with Roger Allmond of the United Kingdom second, and Michael Brandtner (Brandy’s Biker Store) of Germany third.
As World Champion, Roger Goldammer took away the first prize of $25,000 with $10,000 again going to Michael Prugh for his second place and $5,000 to ‘Freddie’ Krugger for his third. Each of the sub-class winner won $2,500,with $1,000 to the second placed builder,and $500 each to those who were third.
With the exception of the ‘Metric’ class this year’s prize fund was generously put-up by Advanstar, who staged the Custom Chrome presented competition at their Big Twin West Dealer Expo at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas.
The prize fund for the new ‘Metric’ class was put up by AMD’s own publishing company, Dealer-World, on behalf of their all-new soon to be launched domestic US ‘street and dirt’ sector dealer magazine of the same name, and their established and internationally respected European industry journal International Dealer News (IDN).
Commenting on the outcome,AMD publisher Robin Bradley said: “I’d like to pay tribute to Advanstar for providing the prize fund and a magnificent setting for the World Championship. Above all, though, all credit must go to the competitors themselves. They have allowed us to stage a true custom bike spectacular. As a focus for industry excellence,it doesn’t get much better than this.”
Because of a calendar clash with the ‘Milan Show’ in Italy (the world’s single largest motorcycle show of any kind) AMD will be unable to hold its next World Championship at the same event next year, and will be exploring several alternate options in the coming weeks and months.
Bradley went on to say that “while keeping the event in Las Vegas would provide continuity, it is an expensive city for an event such as this. Though the venue and location worked well for us this year, and appears to have been popular with most of the competitors, we have to respect the needs of the builder community for an easily accessible venue and user-friendly facility that can be embraced at sensible cost.”
“On average our competitors will have invested at least $5,000.00 each in hard cash terms just to take part, many will have spent much more. That is without taking account of lost workshop hours and the value of the bikes. As near as we can estimate it, our readers have made an off-balance sheet investment of between $10m and $15m into Big Twin West, and when that kind of money is involved, the interests of the competitors ,the vendors they buy from, and the public who fund both have to come first. The needs of those traveling from overseas are particularly sensitive and we have a responsibility to all concerned to ensure that this great event is nurtured and handled appropriately. Anybody we partner with moving forward will have to demonstrate that they are on the same page as us in these respects.”
In addition to keeping the event in Las Vegas, on an alternate (earlier) Fall date, other U.S. cities are being considered, in addition to the possibility of moving the event to an annual Spring slot.
ADDITIONAL JUDGES
Inaddition to the competitors themselves voting in the World Championship, the 95 completed voting forms that the results were based on included a selection of custom motorcycle magazine journalists and representatives from the parts and accessories exhibitor community at the Big Twin West Dealer Expo.
Everybody concerned commented that they thought the task of judging the World Championship was extraordinarily difficult, and it certainly was time-consuming. AMD would lik eto express its formal thanks to all those competitors who did act as judges and to the additional following industry professionals for their assistance:
Kenny Price (Samson Exhausts)
Walter Clarke (Biker’s Choice)
James Simonelli (S&S Cycle)
Ed Martin (Jammer)
Ted Doering (Tedd Cycle/V-Twin Manufacturing)
Chris Maida (American Iron)
Totte Wiman (MCN Sweden)
‘Blue’ (Backstreet Heroes UK)
T-Bear (The Horse, Bikernet.com &Kopteri magazine,Finland)
Zed (Freeway magazine,France) BertrandDubet (France)
“BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS”
Going into this year’s World Championship we had decided that in addition to the high level of electronic and postal communications that we undertake throughout the year with the competitor community, we would create at least one (ideally two) occasion(s) at which builders could meet personally with the AMD team to discuss event progress, policy and news.
Plans are therefore being made to host a ‘Breakfast of Champions’ on the morning of Saturday February 4th 2006 in Cincinnati, Ohio, beforethe V-Twin Expo opens for business.
Subject to World Championship timing it is hoped to be able to make arrangements for a similar second such event during Sturgis.
