American Motorcycle Dealer AMD 234 January 2019 | Page 64

Royal Enfield, S&S, Cayla Revas
BRIEFS Set New Bonneville Record
NEWS
In a move that is reminiscent of the
Anglo-German ‘Tire Wars’ of the ‘Fat
Rear End’ boom of 20 years ago,
Metzeler has responded to the
fanfare that has greeted Avon’s new
‘Cobra Chrome’ custom tire launch
with the addition of the ‘CruiseTec’
to its own custom tire line-up.
Tucker Powersports has
announced a Dealer Workshop
schedule to run at its January
24/25 Fort Worth show. Topics
include the changes affecting
the dealer advertising
landscape, merchandising a
store to maximize wallet share,
leveraging the used market and
capturing a share of the
growing UTV market.
Harley-Davidson has declared a cash
dividend of $0.37 per share for the
fourth quarter of 2018. The dividend
is payable December 28, 2018 to the
shareholders of record of the
Company's common stock as of
December 14, 2018.
If anybody is still in any doubt about
Royal Enfield’s domestic U.S.
middleweight ambitions, then they
simply aren’t paying attention. With
their new air-cooled 650 Parallel Twins
about to start hitting dealerships at a
sub $6k price-point sweet spot,
neither should anybody be in any
doubt about whether or not the
machines are going to actually be, you
know, “any good”!
Royal Enfield teamed up with 18-year-
old motorcycle racer Cayla Rivas
(Fresno, California) to set a new land
speed record at the Bonneville Salt
Flats at the end of August. The fully
custom-built bike showcased the new
Continental GT 650cc twin engine,
which was tuned and designed by U.S.
based S&S Cycle.
The chassis was developed by
Superbike chassis manufacturer Harris
Performance in the UK. Harris is one of
the most successful race and
performance chassis businesses in the
history of the motorcycle industry, and
Royal Enfield bought them three years
ago as a first stage in realizing its
ambitions to be able to produce
convincing new models and more
powerful models.
By the end of the week-long speed
trials, Cayla, the daughter of former
NHRA motorcycle racer Chris Rivas, hit
a jaw dropping speed of 159 miles per
hour on the measured mile, setting a
new record for the class with a record
return run of 157.03 mph (pending
FIM certification). This will be the 13th
record Cayla has set since the age of
12, and her new top speed.
Backed up by team Royal Enfield,
Harris Performance and S&S Racing,
Cayla entered the naturally aspirated
750cc class, initially in a bid to reach
130 mph. By the end of the week she
had set a 157.145 mph record (after
blowing the engine twice).
With S&S Cycle backing the
engineering team at the Royal Enfield
Technology Center in the UK, expect to
see Royal Enfield stake an early claim
to leadership of the burgeoning
“Battle of the Middleweights” that is
destined to play out in the next
decade; and remember, the GT 650
and the even lower priced retro styled
Interceptor 650 are likely just a market
entry start-point for the world’s oldest
and highest unit volume continuously
produced motorcycle brand.
The 2019 (41st) Dakar Rally will
be wholly staged in a single
country for the first time -
departing from the Peruvian
capital Lima on January 6 and
returning to finish there on
January 17 after 10 stages and
5,000 km, 70% of which will be
across sandy dunes.
Own a Kalashnikov? Would you like
to? Best known as an armaments
company, the Russian manufacturer
is in several other industries,
including the motorcycle market - the
Moscow Police Force has announced
that it is soon to go emissions-free
with Kalashnikov E-bikes.
64
AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE DEALER - JANUARY 2019
www.AMDchampionship.com