Best of Dealer Expo 2010
- Updated: February 16, 2010
It was really great to see many of our friends at the 42nd Annual Dealer Expo in Indianapolis, but not so great to learn that, like many Americans, many are either looking for a new job or trying to keep afloat during these hard times.
Enough with the doom and gloom, the people that make up the motorcycle and ATV industry don’t mope around when times get a little challenging. Although attendee and exhibitor traffic was about half the size it was when it was thriving a few years ago, those that were in attendance were optimistic about the future.
Since two of our three man Scene Team, Brandon Corbett and Brent Deen, couldn’t get out of snowed-in Dallas, Texas until Friday afternoon we arrived a day late, giving us about a day and a half to work with. Not counting all the reminiscing and bench racing with old friends, practical jokes, partying at several of Indy’s cool hang outs and the four hours of sleep we got, we ended up with about a half hour to cover the floor, – plenty of time…
Here’s this year’s stand outs…
Best of Show
Houser Racing’s Footpeg Suspension
Houser’s new (yet to be named) shock absorbing foot pegs really got our attention. Jeff Houser has been working on this little gem for several years. Houser isn’t using a simple piece of rubber mounted under the peg, nothing of the sort. This is a patented pivoting system similar to how a swingarm works. Jeff says he’s been working on getting this design dialed in perfect for several years. A rubber ball is used at the end opposite of the pivot and allows 5/8 of an inch of suspension travel. You can even choose different compound rubber balls. The pegs are mounted to steel “trees” that come on Houser’s nerf bars. Not settling for peg suspension alone, Houser’s system also allows for anti vibration dampening at the pivot end. The best part for last, the nerfs, nets and shock absorbing pegs retail for just $399, and are available for sale now.
houser-racing.com
Best New Product
Precision Racing’s Shock and Vibe Handlebar Clamp
Meeting up with George Anthanasiou of Precision Racing was great and seeing Precision’s hot new product was just as cool. Based on what we’ve heard from a few of the pro riders already running these new clamps we think Precision has another hit to go with its impressive must-have Precision Steering Stabilizer.
Precision’s Shock and Vibe Clamps allow you to use whatever bars you like. The bars angle never changes and the bars stay straight. Dampening is adjustable with shims that come with the clamps. George tells us the Shock and Vibe Clamps eliminate three times the vibration than that of using just an anti-vibe steering stem alone.
Retail price is an affordable $189, and they’re available in standard or oversize bar sizes.
precision-rp.com
Best Quad
The Mike Cafro built WORCS Championship Winning Honda 450R of Beau Baron
Beau is humble, easy going, down to earth and great fun to talk with, but his Honda is down right rude and all about business.
Beau’s Honda performs as well as it looks, his recent success is proof of that. Beau won the WORCS Championship with the same set up as you see here. He also won this year’s WORCS opener. And if that’s not enough Mike Cafro, Beau’s desert racing teammate, finished third at the WORCS opener on an identical version of this machine.
Besides West coast cross country the duo have moto and desert racing plans for 2010.
Best SxS
Kolpin Polaris RZR 4
The well-designed Kolpin front and rear storage compartments mounted on this sharp Polaris got our attention.
The thought of its ability to allow four people and their gear to cruise ride spots, beaches race pits and maybe even to the corner store to pack more beverages in its Kolpin containers made us wish it were ours.
Check out the many Kolpin accessories at their website.
kolpinpowersports.com
Hardest Partier
Everyone in and around the Maxxis Booth
The Maxxis booth always attracts a big gathering of ATV enthusiasts, not to mention some of the friendliest pro racers in the scene.
This year was no different, as usual parties were once again planned on its padded carpet and talked about the following day on its black leather furniture.
maxxis.com
Cutest Girl
Jamie Jones
Check out Jamie’s cute southern-girl-smile, enough said.
Worst of Show
Lack of Quad Mag VIP Party and the Lack of a Doug Gust Race Program
We didn’t see any cheap Chinese knock off products, like we have in year’s past to rag on, so since Quad Magazine is no longer, the lack of their annual Quad Magazine ATV VIP Party gets Worst of Show mention this year. Another bummer is hearing the words retirement come out of Doug Gust’s mouth. We’ll miss seeing him and the yellow #55 Suzuki passing their way through the pack.
Check out the video section for more of what we learned at Indy. Special thanks to Brandon Corbett and Brent Deen for help with this year’s Dealer Expo coverage.
Ryan Everman
February 16, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Hardest Partier… Maxxis? It appears this site and the writer are sucking up to advertisers or has totally no feel on the pulse of the atv world. The Exposed people put the EXPO in Indy this year. A couple of the maxxis people were spotted with the Exposed people of Friday. And even Pellen was at their party for hours on Sat. And they were there sat at the exposed party too. So I guess the parties planned were to attend the only real one over the whole weeekned. Atv rider mag, dirt wheels, atv illustrated, famous photographers, racer productions, several websites, nearly all the major vendors were at the exposed party. Even Pellan, yes you, the owner of atv scene was at the Exposed party. So explain again why the quad party got mentioned but didnt even happen and the ONLY ONLY ONLY atv party got ignored? gotta be money. we all know this site isnt conservative…. serious. and thats why these kind of revues are always a joke.
admin
February 16, 2010 at 6:47 pm
This is John..
I think we have a misunderstanding here…
Maxxis is not an advertiser… we simply felt like that was the “party” since every year it seems to be the place where ATVers hang out and socialize more so than any other booth… Because of that we called them “Hardest Partier” since that’s the term we used in past Dealer Expo Best of Show features. It had nothing to do with money.
Quad Mag got mentioned as the “Worst of Show” (along with Doug Gust’s retirement news) because these were the two things that were the worst of show in our opinion, we missed Quad’s open bar parties and we’re going to miss seeing Digger on the track..
I got a text that said “everyone’s at Champions” so we went there. I didn’t even know it was an ATV Exposed party until I read what you wrote, I thought it was just where ATVers gathered.
If I was shunning ATV Exposed at all like your implying, why would we run this feature, which plugged their new publication? https://www.atvscene.com/atv_interviews/chuck-debault-10-04-06 Name another website that goes out of their way to run a feature about a competitor.