In Texas they encourage tiny kids to use goats or bears or armadillos or whatever this beast is, as toddler launch pads. Seeing this, we finally understood the Schwantz riding style once and for all. image by jimola

Thick slices of flat-cut brisket splash into my gullet, alongside mustardy potato salad and BBQ'ed pinto beans - somebody please stop me. The rodeo announcer starts jabbering again; phew, intermission is over. Chin wiped, time to shamble over to the creaky grandstand, grab my seat and ease the belt back a few notches. I dribble arms over the aluminum railing and hang my mule face out into the pen with the rest of the crowd, eyes trained on the gate release. It bangs open, swinging back against the railing, and a sheep scampers out at an even-toed hyperspeed. There is a toddler riding on its back, a fistful of wool and skin in each hand, struggling to hang on as the animal bucks to throw the child off its back. Inevitably, the kid is launched and pinwheels thru the air, executing a Jorge Lorenzo-style inversion before landing headfirst in the soft dirt. The father jogs over, unclasps the sobbing child's special-ed type helmet, hugs then hoists him into the air for the crowd, who cheer the 4 year old until the tears dry up.

Yep, I'm in Texas alright.

Kawasaki rolled the Good Times into Dallas last weekend for their annual dealer show, held at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention center. Dealers came from all over the country to see the 2009 powersports models, hear Kawasaki brass talk about market conditions, and place product orders. Kawi invited some journo-types too, and scheduled the rodeo visit and some other Texas-style extracurricular activities for us (more on that later). I didn't really appreciate the scale of the event until I headed to breakfast on Saturday morning and saw a football-field's worth of tables, with dozens of buffet stations serving an army of lime-green clad attendees, a florescent military operation. The presentation itself was a mix of new product, polite Japanese & congenial American executives, and racing celebrities - for the most part, very rock and roll. Things are tough in the powersports industry right now, as disposable income is redirected to mortgage payments and fuel bills. The cost of raw materials needed to manufacture the products has risen dramatically, steel increasing over 100% in 2008 alone. Shipping fees have skyrocketed; Kawasaki is very wary of passing on all these costs to consumers in such a tight market, but you can expect incremental price increases across their product line.

Luckily, rising fuel costs have increased demand for smaller displacement motorcycles, like the runaway hit 2008 Ninja 250R. So at a time when motorcycle sales across the industry are down, Kawasaki has actually increased their market share. In a guilt ridden quest for "hard news" after a weekend of spoiling, I had breakfast with some dealers, to get a feel for what their market reality is like. "Everything over 900cc is sitting, everything under is selling," said Don Kissinger from Don's Kawasaki in Hallam, PA. His partner Bob Musselman concurred. "People are very concerned about gas mileage, it's a huge selling point. Many of these people buy cheap Chinese scooters from fly-by-night dealers, only to find that after putting on a couple of hundred miles, the bikes break, and the dealers cannot obtain replacement parts. So they eat the purchase, learn their lesson and move to a known brand with a good warranty and parts support." One has to wonder what some European manufacturers, and Harley, who have mostly large displacement motorcycles in their lineup, will deal with this market shift. Asian bike manufacturers have very deep small displacement product selections, machines which, until now, were never really viable for the US. Oh, how a $4 gallon of gas changes things......

...the dealers said that the hype about more women riding motorcycles was overstated; that many of the new female registrants were in fact purchasing sportbikes under their own names for boyfriends who didn't have good credit, or couldn't find affordable insurance. Where the hell were all these fine ladies when I was 18 and washing dishes to fund my first streetbike?

After taking pains to mention how great a company Kawasaki is to work with, dealer Lance Cornell from Moses Lake Powersports in Washington state griped about not getting enough Ninja 250R's, and felt that he could have sold many more bikes if they were available. Kissinger and Musselman agreed: they listed their last 250R on their website, got flooded with calls and emails, and finally sold the machine to a woman 3 states away at a price over MSRP. Getting credit approvals is tougher than ever....the dealers said that the hype about more women riding motorcycles was overstated; that many of the new female registrants were in fact purchasing sportbikes under their own names for boyfriends who didn't have good credit, or couldn't find affordable insurance. Where the hell were all these fine ladies when I was 18 and washing dishes to fund my first streetbike?

Saturday night, the Kawi staff herded the journos and special guests over to the Elm Fork Shooting Sports to try out some firearms. After more great BBQ, we split into teams of 5, and everyone's performance was scored. There were two sections of the range - a clays area with 5 stations, and a tactical range with paper targets. My team, captained by Supercross star Tim Ferry, started on the tactical range, where we fired a Beretta Storm 9MM carbine, and a 9mm pistol. We then moved to a law enforcement range, supervised by off-duty Texas cops, and rocked a full-auto M-16, and a Mac 10 (or as the officers called it, "spray and pray"). While the Mac 10 seemed toylike, the M-16 felt like a military piece due to the overall action, recoil and purposeful design of the weapon. After burning thru a few clips, we headed to the clays range, firing Beretta 12 gauge shotguns at a total of 40 targets. The scores were then added. I've never been into guns, the last time I shot one was 1989. But I guess the countless hours I spent playing Call Of Duty 4 weren't wasted - I came in 3rd overall, a handful of points behind Greg White, who tried to shark everyone by claiming he had little shooting experience - nice try Greg! It was very cool to shoot with Tim Ferry, who went to England this weekend and won the Motocross Of Nations for the USA, with teammates James Stewart and Ryan Villopoto (congrats Tim!)

Growing up on suburban Long Island, I didn't really have that much exposure to guns, other than via Clint Eastwood movies and videogames. After an immersive night at Elm Fork, I've realized that to ride motorcycles or shoot firearms well requires similar elements: a vigilant focus on safety, respect for the machinery, and mental crispness. Professing to enjoy either guns and bikes as a hobby can often get you the same response from friends & strangers alike - "I'd never let my kid ride/shoot, or have a bike/gun in my house." Doing 90mph wheelies on Main Street is just as anti-social as popping off rounds in a 'Burb backyard; but in the right context, I found shooting at the range to be as enjoyable as riding at a track, which surprised me. The controlled environment of a shooting range feels safer, the same feeling I get when riding a sportbike at a track day.

Soup in a buffet line. Like the Great White, prey is spotted, a gaping maw opens, eyes roll back in head and in a moment of unparalleled violence a life is extinguished. image by jimola

The weekend of sheep riding toddlers, machine guns, barbecue and bikes will stick in my mind for along time. But there are other images that will linger. Kawasaki got us behind the gates, where massive bulls filter thru chutes and are staged, waiting for a rider. Covered by fly swarms, they emit locomotive snorts and bang their blunted horns against the railings, looking for someone to maim. A duded-up rider no more than 20 years old settled down on top of the bull. He smacked the back of the beast with his left hand, each time stirring the flies into a black cloud for a moment before they resettled. Bullriders hold on with one hand - their right, wrapped around a thick cord circling the beast's underbelly. His right wrist was injured, in a brace, and I watched him squeeze and reposition it in order to get a better grip on the rope. He nodded readiness, the gate opened, and the angry one-ton animal bucked out into the pen. The rider held on for a couple of seconds, not long enough to win that night, and was thrown safely away, as the rodeo clowns distracted the bull. The young man jogged behind the chutes, clutching his wrist in unbearable pain, face screwed up in anguish as he tried to walk it off. Clinica Mobile's Doctor Costa fixes up MotoGP riders with broken wrists all the time, providing pain killing injections which enable them to race. Braking from 200 mph on a MotoGP bike with a broken wrist must be excruciating, but riding a bull one handed with a wrist injury redefines the word hardcore. Racers will be racers...

Special thanks to Kawasaki for the Texas-sized Good Times.