Street Bike Challenge kicks off

A vast range of bikes converged on Stratford-Upon-Avon’s Shakespeare County Raceway last weekend for the first of seven AMC Coating Street Bike Challenge drag races.

Classic Triumphs mingled with Hayabusas, but the day belonged to Essex bike enthusiast Chris Boyles who stormed the quarter mile drag strip in 11.037 seconds at 132.76 mph on a KTM RC8.

Second quickest was Tom Warren’s Triumph T595 at 11.674sec/132.76mph, followed by the 1700cc Yamaha VMax of Richard Corbert at 11.717sec/122.05mph.

“The first round of the Street Bike Challenge has been a great success,” said drag strip manager Jeremy Cookson.

“When we reintroduced this concept to AMC we wanted to make it as open as we could so that pure street machines could shine on the drag strip, and it’s pleasing to see that the top three weren’t Suzukis either – even though we had a fantastic turnout of machines from the Bandit Owners Club.”

The next AMC Coating Street Bike Challenge is on Sunday April 22.