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Kenji Nagai 's "Velvet Hammer " 1st Place Pro Builder The 17th annual edition of Calendar Bike Building Championship of the 2008 LA Calendar Motorcycle Show Weekend again features many of the world's top Pro and Amateur street bike builders in attendance to compete in the Performance Machine Calendar Show Bike Building Championship with a bulging purse of $86,000 in cash and awards. There are 10 individual classes for American V-Twin and Metric Street Custom, Performance, Classic, Bobber, Chopper and Sportbike motorcycles The coveted Performance Machine Best of Show Trophy is awarded for the top overall bike at the Show and includes a $3,000 cash prize, an additional $7,000 in product awards bringing the total awards to $10,000 overall, plus the winning bike and builder receives an editorial bike feature in Iron Works magazine and the Iron & Lace Calendar photographed by Show producer Jim Gianatsis. In the premier Iron Works magazine sponsored Radical Pro Builder class, which again this year was extremely competitive, the coveted 1st Place trophy went to Japanese builder Kenji Nagal from Ken’s Factory (Kens-Factory.com) who flew in just for the Calendar Bike Building Championship with his blown V-Twin powered polished aluminum custom from Nagoya City, Japan. Taking 1st and 2nd runner-up spots among many many incredible all-new machines premiering at the Show were Todd Silicato, and last year’s Best of Show winner Greg Westbury of Westbury Hardcore. What the Show judges like about Ken's "Velvet Hammer was its clean and fairly simple design on first impression, which was carried throughout the bike. It encompassed our preference for a 'balanced bike" with functional monoshock front and rear suspension , a good braking system on both wheels, and sportbike style wheels and tires. Where it excelled was in the details once you started looking closer and noticed the mono airshock rear suspension with and intricate actuation linkage. The fully polished Twin-cam engine features a Magna Supercharger pulling through a Mikuni HSR carburetor. Tribal paint graphics on the hand built frame and rear fender. With the clincher being the beautiful hand formed aluminum gas tank with a clear polished area featuring the Ken's Factory logo in gold hand lettering, with custom designed rubber knee pads on the sides of the tank that look like they came from production molds. Kenji Nagal has elevated by another notch, the art form of street chopper building with a realistically functional and rideable bike.
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