Monster Challenge Photos

[Byron Kauffman]

The finals for the Ducati North America Monster Challenge is in Daytona this week. Bikes were picked by Ducati from all over North America for 8 shows. The winner from each of these shows and 4 wild card picks were given a trip to Daytona for the finals. These are the 12 final bikes and one will be chosen the best. The owner will get a new S4R monster.
Yesterday was the first day so I rode out and shot a few photos.
It was raining and cold all day so it was tough to get a decent shot. I will add better ones tomorrow when they are out in the light.
Photos are in the Day-Monster file. Photos from the Atlanta round of this tour are also on this photo site.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/staringblankly/my_photos

[Byron Kauffman]

The final winner of the Monster Challenge was the blue and white 750 Cafe looking Monster with the rounded tail. It is owned by Stuart Baker of Pasadena CA. His prize was a new S4R from Ducati. A real nice guy and it was good to see a handbuilt bike win over money is on object "Catalog Parts" machines.
Second place was the red low slung "drag/custom" style bike and third was the Black all carbon bike.
The other cafe bike that looked like something "OGRI" would build was also one of my favorites but looked near impossible to ride longer than a few miles.

The weather improved after Wednesday so riding was better through the weekend. The racing rules and Speedway layout were new for this year so it was not as good as years past. Hopefully they will get things fixed for next year.