"Hey, camera dude! How do I get my bike in the magazine?"
This is an almost-constant refrain anytime we venture out at a bike event wearing a Super Streetbike T-shirt and carrying a camera with an obscenely phallic lens attached. Everywhere we go, bike owners want to know the same thing, and they're not afraid to ask. Repeatedly. Want instant attention from bike builders? Just strap on a big camera and don the right T-shirt and you'll have to beat them off with an exhaust can (this strategy, it's worth noting, also applies to the wannabe bike models, which almost makes up for all the awkward conversations with dullard dudes who think their GSX-R600 with a slip-on and chromed windscreen should be our next cover bike).
It's a fair question, though--how do you get your custom sportbike featured in the magazine? Many of the big-name bike builders who are established players in the aftermarket already have the contacts and know-how to get their latest creations in front of our eyeballs, but what about the little guys who are just starting out? They don't have the golden Rolodex, even if they do have just as much blood, sweat and tears invested in their bikes--and they often have more creative ideas than the big players to show off. Well, for these guys, bribery is a good place to start. Large wads of nonconsecutive bills. Expensive hotel suites with Cristal in the minibar. A nice watch, maybe, or expensive electronics. Or they could just luck out and be in the right place at the right time, which is how we came across this wild, retina-searing CBR1000RR built by Jeepers Racing (www.jeepersracing.com), a custom sportbike shop on the come-up in Thomasville, North Carolina.
We first saw this bike parked at the Hess station on International Speedway Boulevard during Bike Week 2006. Even in that sea of properly chromed-out and customized sportbikes, this candy-coated CBR stood out like a poorly hidden Easter egg. And that's not just because of the paint--it's not often that we see a stretched and slammed Honda sportbike, especially not a modern CBR with the complicated HMAS Pro-Link rear suspension. For all those reasons, this bike stopped us in our tracks, and it made us actually turn on our ears when a modest man named Scott Stout from Jeepers Racing asked us the old "How do we get our bike in the magazine?" question.
Stout told us a little bit about Jeepers Racing, a five-man team that specializes in customizing sportbikes, designing outrageous paint jobs, and turning out chrome and polished metal by the acre. Jeepers had a brace of hot bikes with them at Bike Week, but by far the brightest was this '04 CBR1000RR owned by customer Travon Barrino. Jeeper's worked hand-in-hand with Barrino to create a bike that was unique, eye-grabbing and unlike any other out there on the road. The guys started with a shiny dip--the bike was completely disassembled and most of the metal parts, including the triple clamps, forks, brake components and a handful of visible engine covers, were given some shine. The frame is polished.
At the same time the chrome was being applied, the bodywork was being prepped for painting. Before the body panels were shipped off to the appropriately named Neyon Paint and Body in nearby Trinity, North Carolina, the Jeepers team added some clever custom cues like the four portholes on the fairing sides--reminiscent of a vintage Buick LeSabre--for a nice old-school hot rod touch. The base paint is House of Kolor yellow; this fades into orange flames, which then intrude onto the purple panel covering the middle of the bike. Multicolor graphic lines (including one that is a green reptile pattern) break up the purple expanse, and the graphic pattern is carried over onto the vinyl seats that were custom-made by Shawn's Custom Seats in High Point, North Carolina. Choice few plastic body panels (including the ram air ducts and lower tank panels) were also chromed to accent the paint, and chromed mesh filling all the fairing openings finishes off the body mods on this bike.
Although the eye-bleeding paint is the first thing you notice, for our money the coolest bit on Barrino's bike has to be the one-off extended swingarm, which was hand-fabricated from tubular steel by a chopper builder named Hardcore in Charlotte, North Carolina. Extended a whopping 14 inches over stock with elegant, swooping tips that remind the eye of a samurai sword, this arm's tubular construction gives it a light, airy look that is radically different than the braced, box-section aluminum arms you see on most custom sportbikes and really sets this one apart. The rear tire is a 240mm width, mounted on an RC Components Starfighter spinner rim, and at the other end of the swingarm is a remote-control air-ride rear suspension that allows the back of the bike to be raised or lowered over a six-inch range at the push of a button.
Also on remote control is the bike's starter circuit as well as the nitrous purge--that's a chrome nitrous bottle tucked into the swingarm, good for an extra 40 hp at the push of a button with the purge valve exiting from under the front running light. A Power Commander PC-III makes sure the mixture of fuel, air and nitrous is always combined in just the right ratios for maximum bang, and a dual exhaust setup from Laser exits spent gases at the other end. And Jeepers didn't stop there--look under the windscreen and you'll notice the six-inch monitor connected to a rear-view camera, to complement the billet mirrors mounted to the upper fairing. The stock mirror mounts have been capped with block-off plates and the replacement mirrors were moved up higher on the fairing for a cleaner, less deer-eared look. Custom, chromed billet grips were made by Jeepers and are capped with Six Shooter bullet bar ends.
When all was said and done, Stout, Barrino and Jeepers Racing landed this bike in the mag the old-fashioned way. No wads of cash changed hands and no Cristal was spilled; instead, they just showed up in the right place at the right time, with an eye-catching, innovative and original custom sportbike that really knocked our socks off. Now what could be any easier than that?