Wintertime Blues Yield Summertime Dreams
Written by Allan Brewer · February 22, 2007
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Photo: Allan Brewer
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Boats, Jet-Ski’s, and Choppers Highlight a Fast Crowd at Indianapolis Show
A Bike so Fast the Speedo Can’t Keep Up!
by Allan Brewer
allan@fastmachines.com
The snow is melting as temperatures finally return to seasonal norms in Indiana, and with the promise of springtime comes one of the time-honored traditions home-bound Hoosiers love to savor: the 53rd Annual Indianapolis Boat Sport and Travel Show at the Indiana Fairgrounds.
“If you love sports, the outdoors, travel and recreation you’ll find what you want at one of these shows,” said Dan Renfro, the man who’s been putting this wintertime extravaganza of speedboats, runabouts, personal watercraft and other sun-time fun-toys together now for twenty-three years.
Spread out over more than six hundred thousand square feet of exhibition space and featuring over six hundred exhibitors from all over the Western hemisphere, the show is a labor of love for participants from twenty-three states, Canada, Costa Rico and Venezuela.
One of the highlights of this year’s show is an impressive lineup of Baja speedboats, including the Boss 275 (pictured above) that can be outfitted with as much as 525 eager horses to slice through the chop and surf along your way.
Baja’s performance boats are renowned for high tech materials similar to those found in racing’s best automotive thoroughbreds, including carbon fiber reinforcement in critical structural elements and aftermarket performance enhancements (including supercharger units) to enhance the already-spectacular power of these sleek watercraft.
On a smaller scale, you can’t beat the Kawasaki Jet-Ski Ultra 250X personal watercraft on display at this year’s SportShow.
Just as the Japanese manufacturer did with its Ninja ZX14 motorcycle, the Ultra 250X looks to dominate anything on the waves foolish enough to challenge. With a 1500cc marine powerplant blown by a high volume direct-drive supercharger this outrageous water bug produces instantaneous power by the bucketful.
Randy Wooldridge of Indianapolis can hardly suppress a grin when he describes the go-power of this 250 horsepower blazing saddle that can top sixty waterborne miles an hour! “Lots and lots of torque means you have plenty of acceleration on this watercraft. You’ve got to really hold on tight,” he says with a smile that belies the punch this potent Jet-Ski packs.
The Boat Sport and Travel Show runs concurrently with the 16th Annual Indiana Motorcycle Expo and the 10th Annual Indiana Deer and Turkey Expo.
A featured exhibit of the Motorcycle Expo is a bevy of custom chopper bikes produced by manufacturers like HBS, Big Bear Choppers and Big Dog Motorcycles. These sleek road warriors generate over one hundred horsepower and one hundred pound/feet of torque. As Rolls says, “Power is adequate, sir”.
With their artistic paint styling and graphics that would put Picasso to shame, punctuated by bright chrome engine parts and exhaust, these two-wheeled pieces of art look almost too gorgeous to put on a street amongst the commoners of the motorized world at large.
Mike Eichenberg of Steel Customs in Indianapolis, standing among bikes that range from twenty-eight to thirty-six thousand dollars in price, said top end speed for these exotic-looking beauties exceeds the capacity of the one hundred twenty mile per hour speedometers mounted between their handlebars. “We really don’t know how fast they can go, to be quite honest,” he said, “because they keep on pulling after the gauge stops!”
The lower center of gravity of the chopper bikes makes them surprisingly maneuverable as well. And just in case your biking skills are outmatched by the performance of these factory-built models, Mike and his colleagues at Steel Customs can put together something more fitting to your taste, in as little as three short days if necessary.
“We can build any bike you like,” he said. “Anytime anything happens to a motorcycle that needs to be torn down and rebuilt, we absolutely can do that,” he says. “I’ve built quite a few bikes in my career since graduating from Motorcycle Mechanics Institute in 1998.”
The combined shows continue through the twenty-fifth of February at Indiana Fairgrounds, approximately five miles northeast of downtown Indianapolis. Hours and ticket prices are available at the Indy SportShow website. Tickets may also be purchased at local Marsh Supermarkets and through Renfro Productions online.
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A February boat show in Indianapolis … you just got to love it. I’ve been doing business with eastern based companies for a long time and as a California native, I never get tired of hearing the excitement you get out of anything that doesn’t have to do with the cold weather.
And the fact it’s running with the Deer and Turkey Expo? Priceless.
Alright, I have to go back to my pool and catch some more rays. :-) BTW, I do have a complaint about the 4 inches of rain we’ve had since last Summer.