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  Owner Nigel Patrick shows off one of Patrick Racing’s many popular products. They offer a wide variety of performance products and services for Harleys and Metric Cruisers, from complete engines and transmissions to porting and precision machining and everything in between.  t Patrick Racing they believe that every motorcycle first and foremost is a performance machine and should be given the right to reach its full horsepower potential. Patrick Racing offers many performance products and services for Harley-Davidson’s and Metric Cruisers. Complete engines, billet heads & cylinders, piston kits, complete transmissions, high performance cams, oversize valves, valve springs, titanium retainers, boring, porting, precision machining…you name it, Patrick Racing does it all.Drag Specialties Magazine had a chance to talk with Nigel Patrick, owner and founder of Patrick Racing, about why performance is so important to his company. Drag Specialties Magazine: How did Patrick Racing get started and how long has Patrick Racing been around and building product for Harley’s and V-twins? Nigel Patrick: “Patrick Racing opened in 1984 mainly building race engines and specializing in cylinder head modification. At that time I had been in the motorcycle industry for 10 years and was drag racing Top Fuel and Funny Bike. That year we won both national championships. Just like anything timing is everything and 1984 was the year Harley-Davidson introduced the Evolution engine and soon we were very busy porting stock cylinder heads. One day in 1989 a customer walked in with a pair of aftermarket cast heads that he had paid $1200 for and needed them ported. We installed guides and valve jobbed them also for around $700.00. When the customer picked them up he wanted them unassembled so he could take them to get polished and returned three weeks later to have them assembled with another $600.00 bill from the polish shop. That night it hit me that this guy had over two thousand dollars in his cast cylinder heads and I thought we could make a billet cylinder head for that kind of money, again timing was right as CNC head porting techniques were starting to show up on the market. We bought our first CNC machine and in 1999 we took the first production fully CNC ported billet cylinder head to the Cincinnati dealer show. The next year we had cylinders and the next year we were selling complete motors.” DS: Why is your product line unique? NP: “We were the first in the industry to produce billet CNC ported cylinder heads with matching billet cylinders. We have recently moved to a larger facility to enable us to better serve our customers. Huge investments in CNC machines and a state of the art “Dyno” room will keep us at the forefront of the performance industry. We maintain close contact with the customer by attending many races, rallies and shows. Look for our truck at these events, stop by and see the latest performance parts we are developing. Patrick Racing is dedicated to performance!” DS: What sets Patrick Racing apart from other motor and component companies? NP: “We specialize in just motors and related hop-up parts and our quality is the highest in the industry. What we have achieved is a product that has a stunning visual appearance with low maintenance billet material but runs well. And that every head is CNC ported, every engine is the same. Also we do a full dynamic computer balance resulting in a very smooth running engine. Experienced builders really like this feature as a smooth engine is more reliable and you do not have to worry about a fender falling off after the customer picks up his bike.” DS: How long have you been selling to Drag Specialties? NP: “We started our relationship with Drag in 2003 and for our company we believed that having one distributor was the right way to go rather than having multiple distributors. This way we both know our commitment level is at its highest. Also we believe that the Drag Specialties’ distribution system and stock levels are the best out there. We enjoy our relationship with them and their professionalism.” DS: What are your best selling products? NP: “Our best selling products are our complete billet motors, but now that Drag has taken our new billet heads and cylinders to fit Twin Cam style motors we expect to see a lot of interest in those part numbers. Also we have a line of parts for metric cruisers in the Parts Unlimited catalog.” DS: How does racing play a role in your company? NP: “Racing has always been at the core of Patrick Racing even though I officially retired from racing in 1996. We are still actively involved with many forms of racing; we ran Yamaha’s factory Drag Racing team from 2001 through 2006 resulting in five straight championships and 27 records. We still support a few drag racers and have some roadracing projects at the moment. We feel this keeps our company ahead of the competition as we never stop working to make our product better.” DS: What can we expect from Patrick Racing in 2008? NP: “In the next few years the industry is facing many new challenges with emissions and such. Patrick Racing is currently working on future products to meet these challenges.” DS: Thanks Nigel! |
