SF209

It’s a race replica with a difference that soaks up the limelight in our centrefold feature this month. It’s a naked Ducati 996, stripped down and reinvented as a supermotard, and finished as a 1970s Formula 1 Ferrari tribute. Elsewhere in our crisp, delicately-scented pages is a gorgeous German Harris, CeeJay’s urban V-Max shot in Banksy’s tunnel at Waterloo, a seriously mint Katana special, action from Daytona Bike Week 2011 and loads, loads more. Combine that with updates from our pet Thunderbike racer Beanie, plus stunt rider news in Section59, reports from ACU and Straightliners drag racing and all the incisive news, product reviews and chauvinistic humour you’ve come to expect from Britain’s most delinquent bike magazine, and you’ve got the general idea.

Soon to be oozing off a shelf near you like some sort of freaky jam, Streetfighters #209 hits the shops on Thursday June 2nd.


Froody!

Main Event 2011

Starting from today, with a Pro Peak Performance test day, the UK's premier drag race venue, Santa Pod, is holding perhaps the most important drag race meeting of the year, as far as European joint car and bike meetings are concerned.
The Main Event, as the name suggests, is the big meeting of the year, with FIA car classes and UEM big classes ensuring an international entry over and above the UK national classes.
Consequently, the international field in Pro Stock bike will be perhaps the most competitive it has ever been, with at least three riders (including Shopshire's Dave Beck) aiming for Europe's first six second Pro Stock run.

Naturally, the earth-shaking, nitro-powered Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars will be top of the bill for most punters - if you've never seen nitro cars, it is one of those things that you must see at least once in your life (although when you've seen them once, you'll want to see them more and more...)


But for us at Streetfighters, the real anticipation is for the Super Street bike class... This season has already seen most of the class setting personal bests, and a seven second field, and the build-up to this meeting is described in detail at Stephen Moon's SSB blog here.


More details on the Main Event at the Santa Pod website and Eurodragster

15 Minutes Of Fame Anyone?

Well, if you consider fame to be starring in a telly ad for shower gel...
The company in question is looking for someone who is in their late thirties (ish), has a wife and nippers, has no previous acting or modelling experience and, vitally, builds their own bikes! The chosen one will be filmed at work and at play (presumably building bikes) during the last couple of weeks in May, so you'll have to be quick and email castingresponses@ogilvy.com as soon as possible. They need to have some pics, contact details and a brief bio...

SF208 Fighting Talk

"For those of you that either didn’t read last month’s Fighting Talk, or have a memory addled by drinks / drugs / chemicals / percussive shock, in our monthly rant at all things rubbish we dragged out the SF Towers communal soap box (it’s a Metric Leather one, we move with the times y’know, none of that Imperial rubbish) and had a good old fashioned British whine about the impending legislation that the unelected numbnuts in the European Commission are set to foist upon us.

These Euro dullards are convinced that there is an issue with vehicles being modified – more accurately, that there is a problem with restricted vehicles being altered in order to go faster and/or make more power. The nasty little side effect of their intentions being that they will, inevitably, make as big an effort as possible to pass their proposed rules and regulations onto all vehicles, neatly crushing the custom bike and car cultures (and aftermarket industries) in the process.

But maybe this Orwellian glimpse of a homogenized and bland future is just out of reach for the dictatorial Brussels buffoons? They’re going to try and justify their actions and, in order to persuade the tax-paying public (and, hence, the people who pay their wages) that their new treaties, laws and additional waffle are actually a Good Thing, they will grasp at any straw that helps them achieve their aim. More often that not this involves twisting survey results and statistics, although it seems that they’ve now stumbled on a far more mercenary way of achieving their depraved aims..."

Read the rest of this Fighting Talk in the new issue of Streetfighters, on sale in newsagents now, and then post your comments here.

First Loser?

While the title of this post may not be considered to be an especially polite way of congratulating someone in attaining a First Runner-Up prize, here at SF Towers we've never been especially polite (except to the cleaners and Paula our office assistant, who keeps us fuelling with butties and ridiculously-strong coffee), and we also consider Lee Workman to be a close-enough friend to take a bit of ribbing.
The pic shows Mr Workman, with his haul of goodies from the London International Custom Show at Alexandra Palace back at the end of February.

Aside from the trophy, he also gained a pair of Pirelli tyres, a pair of Sartso jeans from Wild & Wicked, a token towards an MTC exhaust can and a Streetfighters goodie bag.
To find out who was placed just behind, and just ahead, of Lee, check out the LICS coverage in the current issue...

Straightliners Round 4

The fourth round of the UK's premier drag race series hits Cumbria this weekend, at the airfield at Kirkbride.
Racing is on both Saturday and Sunday, with race entry at just £35 to all comers, and spectator cost a fiver.
A highlight of the Kirkbride track is the crest at about three quarter track, which seems plenty of bikes lifting the front wheel, and many of the faster 9.10 and Top Bike competitors taking off completely!
More details here

SF208

A slightly delayed notification of the publication of Streetfighters 208, due to over-consumption of Easter eggs, sunstroke and procrastination...

Subscribers will have their copies already, so will be aware of the stunningly subtle Extreme Creations ZX-10R turbo that graces the cover, the retro-modern Moto Martin cafe racer CBX, the fifth Mortagua bike, the turbo 'GS750', the predatory Gixer and mean Zed Thou, the display of Roland Sands' creations, the Alexandra Palace London International Custom Show report, the blood-coloured turbo/nitrous Z1000, the long and lean camo GSX-R, the Spondon turbo and the other stuff too... Those of you waiting for the mag to arrive in the shops will know nothing at all about those features...

Gulf Fueller Debuts

We made comment of Ian King's new Top Fuel bike in the News pages a few issues ago, and of the sponsorship that the team had gained from Gulf Oils. Well, last weekend saw the bike's first outing, at Kunmandaras in Hungary, with an impressive showing - a shut-off-at-half track 7.6 first run out of the back of the van, with Kingy posting a 6.573 in the final! Could we be seeing the first five second Brit Top Fueller?