Newcomer scoops win at first World Champs Affiliate event in Australia

Gold Coast Bike Week, August 30th 2008

JOE Schembri, a drag racer and custom drag race car fabricator and parts machinist from Glenmore Park, New South Wales, scooped top honors with his first ever custom bike build at the 10th Anniversary Gold Coast Bike Week event, an hour south of Brisbane on Australia’s East Coast.

This was the first year that the Australian custom industry had staged a World Championship Affiliate event. AMD would like to express its thanks to the event organizers, their sponsors, the Championship program’s Official Partners and the Australian custom bike building community itself for helping to make this latest extension of the Affiliate network a success.

The warm welcome with which integration of the Australian custom industry into the World Championship network was received is greatly appreciated and we are delighted to be able to help provide a global showcase opportunity for the outstanding craftsmanship and practical design and engineering thinking that Australia’s builders are already noted for.

The win scores Schembri an AU $10,000.00 expenses contribution towards competing at the 2009 Official World Championship of Custom Bike Building at next year’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally (Champions Park, Lazelle/3trd, Sturgis, August 2nd through 5th 2009) from Championship Affiliate sponsor and Official Partner Australian Motorcycle Imports.

Event judging was conducted under Official World Championship rules with the competitors themselves choosing their winner. Independent scrutiny of the judging process and results oversight was provided for AMD and the event organizers by visiting VIP guest Paul Yaffe and representatives from Heavy Duty and Ozbike, two of Australia’s internationally recognized custom bike magazines.

Called ‘Hide & Seek’, Schembri’s Ultima 100 inch engined rigid features an advanced one-off own design and made front end and a level of finish and attention to detail that is characteristic of the standards that Australian customizers seek.

Schembri’s win was by the narrowest of margins (one point!) from Dylan Goldfinch (DG Design, www.dgdesigninc.com) whose 125 inch Patrick engined, modified Independent Cycle ‘LowLife’ framed softail called ‘Spank’ won many admirers.

This entry was posted on 09/09/2008 at 09:02 am and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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