ow time flies! As we begin 2008, we’re very proud to say it’s our 15th year of publishing Parts Magazine. What started as a quarterly magazine covering the world of Parts Unlimited has grown through the years into a bi-monthly publication -- as well as Drag Specialties Magazine, a companion bi-monthly title that came along a few years later for the American V-Twin market.
     I’ve spent my entire life in motorcycling and felt that I had a good concept when I proposed to Fred Fox that we publish a magazine for his company. I was fortunate to gain Fred’s support and the rest is history. Through the years, it has been great to watch not only our business grow, but the whole LeMans organization as well. 2008 will be their 40th year and not everyone may realize that LeMans was started with Fred as the only employee working out of his garage. Now all these years later it is the largest motorcycle and related powersports aftermarket distributing company in the world.
     The theme for this issue is about the annual Dealernews Dealer Expo at Indianapolis. We’ll be there, as will most of you I suspect. It’s quite a winter experience for us “weather wimps” from California, but we always look forward to seeing all of our friends and industry colleagues, as well as the many new products that are introduced at the show.
     In this issue we feature the latest from Cobra USA, where “Anything’s possible.” They have, for years, been at the forefront of developing exhaust systems and other great looking bolt-ons for metric cruisers and sportbikes. Check out their story in this issue. And speaking of great looking bikes, also have a look at Roland Sands’ latest creation in this issue. Roland is certainly one of, if not the hottest young custom builder in the industry and his work is seen on both the metric and American V-Twin side of the sport.
     One thing we love about the magazine is the chance we get to work directly with some of the Parts Unlimited vendors to try their products out on some of our machines. Our current project is the “Parts Magazine Project Rhino.” We had it out in the desert a few times over the winter and feature a report in this issue on our latest outing. It’s a fun machine, to be sure, and you or your customers could build one just like it.
     Endurocross is a relatively new segment of motorcycle racing and we’ve got a fun report starting on page __ about the 2007 season finale at Las Vegas. And by now we have AMA Supercross in full swing. Thor and Parts Unlimited are major players in that sport, and it was fun to see Chad Reed win one for the home team at the opening round at Angel Stadium in Anaheim in January. And he backed it up with a win at A2 as well!
     So enjoy the vendor profiles, new products and a wide variety of features on motorcycles, UTVs and ATVs that you need to kickoff 2008. Have a good read, have a good show at Indy, and have a great 2008!