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| Archives - Custom Motorcycles |
Custom Bike Review: Custom 2002 Honda VTX1800 - From RoadBike June 2005  Mental Case By Sam Whitehead, Photos by Bob Feather Mental. In the eminently redoubtable dictionary that is standard issue here at RoadBike, “mental” is defined as: 1) of or for the mind or intellect, 2) done by, or carried on in, the mind, 3) for the mentally ill, 4) mentally deranged; insane, 5) Vince Faulkner/Wide Open Cycles. What? Something sound amiss? Well, first of all, don’t ever question RoadBike’s dictionary. It’s not our fault that your linguistic prowess isn’t up to scratch. More shameful still is that your nay saying only further proves your ignorance: you have no idea who Vince Faulkner is, what he stands for, and why he will go down in the books. However, because we at the magazine are nothing if not educators, and we fancy our readers worldly, we are going to use this opportunity to give you a little schooling. By every definition of the word — or, at least, by our definition — Vince Faulkner is mental. Now, that isn’t to say the man needs to be committed, nor is he a direct threat to society. Actually, that’s not entirely true. With his hardcore lifestyle and his insane custom motorcycle creations, the less enlightened could very easily view Vince as threatening, or worse. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Fact is, Vince is a wild, witty, and generous character who thoroughly digs a good time and just happens to have a golden touch when it comes to anything two-wheeled. Doubtful souls need only check out the bikes produced by Wide Open Cycles. Less than two years old, and located in Daytona Beach, Florida, Wide Open Cycles is run by Vince and his business partner, the talented fabricator Dale Parker. While the young shop has gained a certain yahoo notoriety for, among other things, its point-blank, splay-legged stripper motif, it’s rapidly gaining respect for its mind-blowing customs. Though the guys have recently been transforming their share of Harleys, they often work on metrics. They’re also true proponents of the ride-what-you-like, multi-lateral motorcycle movement. To drive this point home, Wide Open threw a Biketoberfest bash at which they proudly noted a near-equal split of Asian to American women, a couple of whom they even featured in a poster titled, “One Shop, Both Worlds.” How’s that for globalization? But let’s talk about the bikes, or, actually, the bike: this deep burgundy, massively muscular Honda VTX1800. Though built by Vince and Dale, one could call this VTX an orphan among Wide Open’s big-dollar, highly sculpted gems. That’s because the VTX was wrenched to life two years before Wide Open actually opened. At the time, Vince wasn’t really thinking about beauty — not that the VTX isn’t a looker. “I had a totally different game in mind,” Vince states. “My goal with this bike was to go drag racing and compete in the AMA Pro Star series.” For those unfamiliar with what that entails, your machine has to appear completely stock, like something you could go into the showroom and buy. You can’t cut the tank, run bobbed fenders, or modify the transmission. “The Pro Star class was originally designed for street-legal, license-plate-wearing drag bikes,” Vince explains. “And then all the rules changed.” Changed rules or not, Vince still had one fiery hot rod in his hands. And it was largely all his creation. “I got the bike brand new,” Vince remembers. “They dropped it at my house still in the crate. We immediately pulled the motor and field-dressed the whole bike, took it to pieces.” They then carted the large thumper to Cliff at Street To Strip in Sanford, Florida. Vince asked him if he’d ever worked on a Honda 1800, and what he thought of it. Cliff stared for a second and then muttered, “I think it’s big. Now, let’s open ’er up and see what’s inside.” And with those sage words, the massaging of the monster mill got underway. Meanwhile, back at Vince’s shop, he and Dale reshaped the VTX’s rear fender, and then sent the tin off to be painted by Dave Dininny at Fine Line Designs in St. Augustine. Next came the shaving of the chassis, then the making of the custom handlebars and drag-style rearset pegs. The kickstand was moved to where the forward controls once sat. Then it was time for rewiring, a frustrating and intricate task, given the extremely temperamental nature of Honda’s sealed ECMs. “We ran into trouble with the computer at every turn,” Vince sighs. “If it didn’t see a signal, it wasn’t happy. We screwed up the fuel injection system simply by playing with the position of the sidestand.” Eventually, the guys got it right. At just about the same time, the lushly painted tin came back, as did the juiced motor. A week of final assembly later, and the VTX was ready to conquer. As you already know, Vince’s AMA Pro Star dreams were short lived. But that didn’t stop him from demolishing opponents in other arenas. In fact, all he’s really ever done with this bike is sling rubber, roast tires, and drag race. It wouldn’t be a stretch to measure the VTX’s life in screaming increments of 1,320', considering the thing is four years old and has less than 600 miles on it. One particularly memorable dust up occurred on an otherwise ordinary day in DeLand, Florida. There’s a group in those parts called the Elite Bikers who run four drags a year at an old, abused airstrip. “It’s gotten to be pretty big lately, but it’s still a run-what-you-brung thing,” Vince says. “It’s also largely a sportbike event. Anyway, it turned out I was beating the pants off all these CBR600s and GXS-R600s. Everyone was like, ‘What the hell is that V-twin with a radiator on it?’ Before we knew it, we were getting some serious love. When the racing was all done, I rode the bike into town, went to some local bar that was having a show, wiped the molten rubber off the inside of the fender, and took first place. We did double-duty that day.” Then there was the little upset on the dyno drag during yet another Daytona fiesta. Apparently, Vince and crew thought they’d just throw the VTX up there and run it for laughs. When his turn rolled around, our hero took his place right next to a Harley jacked with lumpy cams, a big tach, and a shift light on the handlebars. Vince tells the tale. “He offered to step aside and let me go alone, saying his bike was especially built for drag racing. He didn’t want to humiliate me. Then he saw me pull the cover off my shift light, and his jaw dropped. He asked why I had that on a Honda, and I said, ‘So I know when to shift on the drag strip’.” On the first run, Vince snapped one of the tie-downs and horrified the guy. “After that, I burned him every run. He didn’t ever come within a second. His friends were teasing him, saying that he’d have to ride in the back because he got beat by a Honda. They told me I could ride with them anytime, anywhere.” Riffing on some other tire-smoking showdowns, his VTX, and Wide Open in general, Vince laughs and then nails it. “The stuff we do is insane — the thoughts, the ideas, the creativity. It’s mental, absolutely mental. But that’s why we get up in the morning.” Now do you understand? RB SOURCES BRIDGESTONE FINE LINE DESIGNS MUZZYS PERFORMANCE EXHAUST MTC Engineering PROGRESSIVE Suspension RC COMPONENTS SPACE COAST PLATING STREET TO STRIP UFO CYCLES WEB CAMS WIDE OPEN CYCLES |
