Jeremy Cupp wins Championship of the Americas
The inaugural AIMExpo Championship of the America’s featured a slew of radically designed, hand built bikes by North America's top custom builders. These bikes and builders were met with a standing ovation during the award ceremony that crowned builders in four unique classes and culminated in the choosing of a Free Style champion to represent AIMExpo at the AMD World Championship of Custom Bike Building in Cologne, Germany.
Among the winners was Bill Dodge from Bling Cycles who won the Retro Custom Class, Jim “Preacher” Goodrich from Preachers Hot Rod Cycles won the Performance Custom Class and Dell Battle from Dangerous Dezigns won the Street Custom Class. The Free Style winner who was selected by his peers and AIMExpo judges alike was Jeremy Cupp from LC Fabrications. A masterpiece of craftsmanship, Jeremy built a flawless chassis from raw metal to house a motor constructed with a Ducati head mated to a Buell bottom end. Congratulations to Jeremy and good luck in Cologne!
AMA Hall of Fame
Returning as a featured event at AIMExpo, the AMA hosted its 2015 Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony inside the convention center on Saturday night. Kicking off the night was a VIP reception leading into the awards ceremony. Emotional acceptance speeches highlighted the night, and the evening came to a close with a particularly heart-felt speech from Legend Award Winner Wayne Rainey. The class of 2015 included Alex Jorgensen, John Kocinski, Keith McCarty, John Parham, Rodney Smith and Richard Teerlink.
Booth Winners
For the second year, AIMExpo handed out booth awards to exhibitors that went above and beyond with the design of their respective booth area. Four different awards were given – a rookie award for a large and small booth and a veteran award for a large and small booth – with exhibitors being scored on booth design, branding, creative design, interactive experience, social media, staffing and overall appearance. This year’s rookie winner for a booth under 400 sq. ft. was Standard Motorcycle Co., while the rookie winner for a booth 400 sq. ft. or larger was Bates Footwear. In the returning exhibitor class, the booth under 400 sq. ft. winner went to Forma Boots, and the 400 sq. ft. or larger booth taking the top honors was BMW Motorcycle Owners of America.
