The Carolinas’ Full Throttle Magazine 22 nd Anniversary Bike Night

By: Lincoln Infield

lot of things have

changed in the world since August of 1998, when we published the first issue of Full Throttle Magazine in the Carolinas. Hell, I guess damn near everything has changed since then! One thing that I can say that has remained the same is the Full Throttle crew’s ability to have a good time and on August 11nd we proved it!

The Carolinas’ Full Throttle Magazine HQ is located in a shopping center in Jamestown, NC with plenty of parking and most of our neighbors close up early in the evening, leaving us the ability to take over the lot. just as We began to set up our vending tents and icing down the beer coolers the bottom dropped out and unleashed a typical August thunderstorm. As we all know, monsoon weather does not tempt folks to go riding. As the vendors stood under their respective tents with their fingers crossed for the rain to pass quickly (or was that just me?) others took the glass half full approach. Shannon Rights of the McGrath Motorcycle Law Group kicked off her shoes and had a stroll through the parking lot river. A few riders rolled in mid typhoon, including our triad area reps, Rose and Lloyd. Two Chrome Angelz rolled in as well one of which is 6 months pregnant, at this point, I stopped taking excuses for absences for the evening! The good news is the rain subsided before official kick off time and vendor set up continued.

We had 8 stellar vendors set up for the evening. Shannon & Dexter Rights along with Tyler and Bailey Styles were representing The McGrath Motorcycle Law Firm – The Firm

That Rides. Huge thanks to them as they sponsored the soft drinks and hot dogs that evening! They rolled nearly 150 hot dogs on the grill and passed them off to the Chrome Angelz RC (set up next to the McGrath tent) who served em up for us! Shannon was registering folks for McGraths Moto Excursion Giveaway and raffling off tickets to the June Jam (rescheduled to August!) every hour! The Chrome Angelz were a huge help and brought in around 10 ladies who weren’t scared of a little cloud sweat.

We also had Paul Watson of Lumbee Racing and Brannon White of Mad Monkey Motorsports set up with 2 drag bikes and “little Nasty” the V-Twin powered barstool racer! Paul and Brannon were hanging out and talking up the upcoming (August 22-23) All Harley World Shootout at the 710 Dragstrip. My friend Patrice was set up with some good smelling

candles. Vicky Crib had a booth with awesome biker jewelry for the ladies to check out. Ray Spencer of Universal Custom Pinstriping was set up with some of his awesome art pieces. He dropped some sweet pinstripes on the Full Throttle ServiCar last year, but with the threat of rain, didn’t bring his paint to this year’s shindig. The Featured Bike Shop of the night was Pandemonium Performance Custom Cycles from Lexington, NC. Kary and his crew brought out 2 of their “Down & Dirty Racing” Drag Bikes, some Pandemonium Merchandise and were ready to have a great time. Ink Lab Tattoo from Kernersville, NC was on site as well. Lucas was talking tattoos and had a mini craps table set up allowing you a chance to win $25 gift cards! We also had the lovely Tracey Carver, who was our July issue #264, Women Who Ride feature on site signing autographs. I know I got a signed copy of her on her custom ’82 Gold Wing to hang up in the office!

There were a ton of familiar faces that showed up to help us celebrate and it was awesome to see the lot FULL of motorcycles by 6:30pm. We had a 1000w speaker set up with a Bike Night mix of tunes rolling all night other than breaks in the evening to make announcements. Bob Seager, Tom Petty, GNR, AC/DC, Zeppelin, Skynyrd and other solid rock bands were tryin to drown out the sound of bikes coming and going. As hosts we were obliged to keep our friends hydrated with adult beverages, on the house of course. We started off the night with 7 cases of various domestics but had to make a few beer runs to keep up with the demand. Let’s just say the Dollar General made some coin off of us that night! The final tally says we drained 18 cases beer in the 2.5 hour span of time!

We were having a large time when we realized it was 8pm and it was time to select the best bike on the lot. Carolinas’ Full Throttle Magazine Editor & HMFWHIC Mark Infield and I perused the lot in search of something that stood out from

the rest. Although there were a ton of sweet rides

still there, Dexter Jackson’s 1970 Honda CB 750 Chopper took home the top honors and a crispy $50 bill. Dexter’s chopper was a family heirloom that his dad built in 1981 and got passed down. It was everything you want to see in a CB chopper. Chico Frame, raked out girder front end and black paint job. Congrats Dexter, and thanks for bringing out that sweet ride. Continues On Page #36

Continues From Page #35

The night was getting on, but we still had some fun to be had. We had a beautiful chocolate sheet cake that was deco- rated with our 22nd Anniversary logo waiting in our office lobby. I made the announcement and a line formed! Man, that cake was good! Thanks to our good friend Veronica Serna for stepping in and carving up that bad boy! This year we even had some solid forks to use! As we approached 9pm it was time it was time to wrap the evening up with some Taiwanese

Sky Candy. I handed over the DJ stand to The Carolinas’ Full

Throttle Magazine CFO, Molly Infield so she could switch the tunes over to Jimi Hendrix’s Star Spangle Banner from

Woodstock while Lucas and I lit up the sky! It was a great way to end a fun night.

Thanks to everyone who came out to party with us, to our vendors who waited out the rain, and to all of our fans, adver- tisers, readers and family who have stuck with us through the past 22 years! We’ve recorded the history of motorcycling in the Carolinas for 265 consecutive months, and don’t plan on stopping, ever. See ya out there!