2012 Biker Build Off, American Chopper “The The Revenge”
By The Mag Man, Randy Gracy
T
he Discovery Channel wanted to boost their ratings and do their version of the biker build off #2 in front of the Discovery Channel’s fans who watch American Chopper and the Fast N’ Loud shows. The new build off also drew in several thousand other motorcycle and gear head watchers from around the world. The competition in Las Vegas this year included Discovery Channel’s show stars Paul Teutul, Sr. of Orange County Choppers, Paul Teutul, Jr. of Paul Jr. Designs, Jesse James of Outlaw Garage and the Fast N’ Loud dudes, Richard Rawlings and Aaron Kaufmann. Now to start off, everyone knows the building capacity of the first three in the group, but the Fast N’ Loud guys, they buy old cars, fix them up and flip them or if it’s too much work, call some buddies to come buy what they found, so they were an unknown for the event. Let’s understand something first, a “Bike Build Off”, that would seem to state, you build the bike, not restore one or tear one apart and rebuild it to something else. A bike build competition is just what it says, build your best bike and bring it to the competition. That being said, the Fast N’ Loud guys should have been disqualified from the get go. They didn’t make their bike, they took an old Harley Davidson touring bike, tore it down and made some semblance of a Sportster out of it. In this writer’s opinion, they destroyed a really nice antique Harley and as Paul Sr. stated, “They should have just did a restoration on the old guy.” There’s more to this and we’ll get back to that at the end of this article. Jesse James went out of his comfort zone and built a HOG inside of the body
18 - Southern Biker Magazine
of a sport bike. With all the extras that he added and hand built parts that were on the bike, he truly built his bike and brought his best to the show. But he was late getting it completed, weeks late. That played in part to the voting of the fans. Paul Sr. and his crew brought their creation to the floor and it was a heck of a lot more impressive this year. Bringing that bike and with the new tech that was put into it, they definitely built a bike that was in the running for the top spot. Lastly, Paul Jr. and his crew brought their A-Game to the table this year. I thought they lost the competition last year and Jesse won it. But this year, they went out of their way to build a bike to not only pleased the voting motorcycle fans, but the hot rod fans that would be watching from the Outlaw Garage and Fast N’ Loud fans. The voting went as follows: Jr. 58%, Fast N’ Loud 20%, Jesse 13% and Sr. 9%. (One poll source)
Several reasons went into the voting or not getting the votes; Jesse being late, Sr. being a little late himself, the majority of the people voting were American Chopper show fans, many new voters were Fast N’ Loud show fans, popularity of the builders and many more. During the final show where the votes were counted, several altercations between Jesse James and Richard Rawlings nearly rolled over into a brawl (if not for the security folks) and even prior at their Hard Rock Hotel. The show had to be bleeped during several verbal exchanges between the two which made from some great prefight trash talk. But I had my money on Jesse if it ever broke out. The show ended with Paul Jr. Designs defending their title and staying true to my word, the winner would make the cover of the January edition. I give big ups to Paul Jr. and his crew. You guys brought out a great build. And now, the rest of the story: Here’s
January, 2013