MOONEYES Staff Steve's USA Trip Report: Born Free 6 & more... Date: June 26 - July 1, 2014 THURSDAY JUNE 26, 2014 - ARRIVAL & Orange County Harley-Davidson I arrived in California on Thursday June 26, 2014. First stop was MOONEYES USA in Santa Fe Springs. My main objective for this trip was to attend Born Free 6 held at Oak Canyon Ranch. A big thank you to Mike Davis (left) & Grant Peterson (right) pictured above as well as the rest of the Born Free staff for making this event possible. In the evening, we headed over to Irvine where there was a special get together party featuring all the invited builder bikes on display at Orange County Harley-Davidson. FRIDAY JUNE 27, 2014 - BORN FREE 6 SET UP DAY Morning traffic on California freeways wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. (photo right) Getting close to Irvine Lake, the event was just over the hill. We arrived at the site and started to setup the MOONEYES Booth. We seen Kiyo from Kiyo's Garage pushing his turbo charged HONDA CB. He was also unloading a couple other nice looking bikes. The Honda CB750 is going to be here in December as a guest bike at HCS2014. Sumi just posted photos of this bike in his report from last week. (check it out) Once the booth was initially setup, I headed over to check all the Invited Builder Bikes. This area will be packed with people tomorrow so I decided to get photos of each bike on display. The first two bikes shown above were Hawg Holic & Brat Style, invited builders brought over from Japan. There were 26 builders in total. From these bikes, the 1st place Builder's Choice winner would be the MOONEYES PICK and would be coming to Japan in December for HCS2014! This year, the Best in Show award would be selected from everything in the show excluding the builder's bikes so Mike & Grant had their work cut out from them this weekend. Born Free 6 Raffle "Giveaway Bike" built by Todd Asin from Small City Cycles Bikes brought over from Japan as special guests included (from left) Love Ear Art, Deluxie, Luck Motorcycle, Duas Caras and Jurassic Customs. You might not recognize this bike. It was brought to Japan for HCS2009. It's Harpoon's Panhead completely redone into a full-on show bike. Big Scott Stopnik's Knucklehead (HCS2013); Mike Davis' Triumph (HCS2012); Yaniv Evan's Panhead (HCS2013) Cook's Corner located close to the event location is where the parties go down. Friday night was Show Class Magazine's Peoples Champ Party. A narrowed down group of motorcycles, after several stages of voting, were sorted on display. The winner from this would be included in the Builder's Invite area of Born Free 6. There were so many bikes parked outside of Cook's Corner. At least half (maybe more) had out of state plates. It just goes to show how awesome the Born Free show is as so many people ride from all over the country just to be here for the weekend. After dark, the voting was complete and we headed home for the night. SATURDAY JUNE 28, 2014 - BORN FREE 6 (Day 1) AWARDS TIME WINNER: Invited Builder 1st Place/MOONEYES PICK was Sunrise Cycles Kosuke Saito. Build: 1936 Harley-Davidson Knucklehead. This will be at HCS2014 on December 7, 2014 at Pacifico Yokohama! Winner of the first raffle drawing chose The Tiger Shacks amazing gold Triumph trike! He went home a happy camper for scoring a new bike for $25! SUNDAY JUNE 29, 2014 - BORN FREE 6 (Day 2) The morning was calm and quite. The night air still lingered with cool temperatures. ART & FUEL Throttle Addiction, Chop Cult, Dice Magazine and Paint Huffer featured eight painters in a spacial motorcycle tank paint gallery. Very nicely done. I managed to get there in the morning before the crowd set in. DB Custom Leather - Duane Ballard's Kawasaki Digger. It will be coming this December to HCS2014! Joe King Helmets; Cycle Zombies; Noise Cycles; Tom Fugle Sonny Boy was Pinstriping the entire weekend; Hippy Killer Garage and his current project Kiyo's Garage with two Honda CBs on display; Sunrise Cycles with a H-D Panhead. Dynamite Joe (HCS2013) made special Born Free skate decks. Cole Foster & Aaron Elliott both had booths. Cole's latest build was this H-D. Michael Barragan's yellow Knucklehead (HCS2012); DC Choppers rode all the way from Austin, TX Yaniv Evan; Roland Sands; Suavecito Pomade; and a ton of other vendors were here. Chopper Dave and his two bikes, HCS2004 & HCS2013 There were so many bikes, it was hard to believe. Harley-Davidson had a display and the most impressive transporter truck I have ever seen (shown above). This was maybe half of the bikes as there was a separate parking lot in the distance (see below). All day long bikes were coming and going. It was never ending. Vans Shoes had their famous driving Sk8-Hi and a private area for VIPS. MORE BIKES - MORE VENDORS AWARDS TIME Speed Merchant built H-D on display featuring a 120" motor supplied by Harley-Davidson. Mike and Born Free staff loading the raffle tickets into the mixer. Grant was busy on the mic with all the awards. It went by very fast as everyone was waiting for the main event, the raffle drawing! They were ready to announce the name... unfortunately the first name called was not there! They gave the person five minutes to come to the stage... During the long five minutes, they entertained the audience with T-shirt and hat tosses. Five minutes was up and it was time for another name... This time, the person called was in the audience and made his way to the stage. Another happy winner courtesy of BORN FREE! This lucky guy won the 1947 Knucklehead built by Todd Asin! Best in Show award went to Brent Rogers and his 1946 Harley-Davidson Knucklehead built by Kiyo's Garage. BORN FREE 6 was over and people made their way home. Already looking forward to BF7! See you next year. Be sure to follow BORN FREE on their official website for all the details. http://bornfreeshow.blogspot.com MONDAY JUNE 30, 2014 - Gene Winfield's Custom Shop - Mohave, Ca. The next morning we headed out to Mohave, California to visit legendary custom car builder Gene Winfield. He will be coming to HCS2014 with his 1962 Ford Econoline Pickup "PACIFICA". Sumi posted about it in his report from last week (check it out). After driving a couple hours we arrived at this shop. Gene gave us a awesome tour showing us old blueprints and drawings of movie cars, his current projects, the magical paint booth as well as his remake of Windy's Service which is the name of his first shop he opened in the '40s. Inside will feature several rooms each with its own theme. Be sure to visit his upcoming event Winfield & Watson on October 11, 2014 to see it completed. After showing us his collection of custom cars, Gene made his way to this container. Inside was the PACIFICA. He uncovered it, started it right up and drove it out. Look at his smile as he drives! See this live and in person along with Gene Winfield at HCS2014 on Dec. 7, 2014! MONDAY JULY 1, 2014 - Born Free 6 Award Winners SUNRISE CYCLES - CHOPPER FEVER - LOS ANGELES, CA Our first stop was Sunrise Cycles. Kosuke Saito, although a native of Nagoya, Japan has been living and buildling custom choppers in Los Angeles for the past nine years. His shop is located on Sunsut Blvd. and faetures a retail vintage clothing shop and custom workshop. Although he admits having limited machines to built the bikes he wants, the results are amazing and the more you look at his creations, the more you are mind blown. Kosuke won the Invited Builders 1st place award as well as the MOONEYES Pick Award for his 1936 Harley-Davidson Knucklehead long bike with an extended springer front fork, pullback handlebars, king & queen seat and sissy bar. So many handcrafted parts and small details you don't see at first until you really get close up. To really appreciate this chopper, come see it live and in person at HCS2014 on Dec. 7, 2014 at Pacifico Yokohama! BRENT ROGERS - KIYO'S GARAGE - GARDENA, CA Our next stop was at Kiyo's Garage to check out Brent Rogers' 1946 Harley-Davidson Knucklehead built by Kiyo's Garage. Brent began this project over seven years ago. Over the years he had it in different shops, changed the color scheme several times and overall style many times as well. In the end, he brought it to Kiyo's Garage where the finished result was perfection. Brent also met up with legendary drag race painter Bill Carter for the paint work with lace paint, fades, gradation and more. When we arrived at Kiyo's Garage, Bill Carter was there to greet us. Subtle modifications and custom touches were worked into the build from the relocated rear brake master cylinder, ripple pipes and even the headlight mount. Worth the wait, the finished chopper received top honors at Born Free 6 with the Best in Show award. See and hear this beautiful Knucklehead live and in person on Dec. 7, 2014 at HCS2014! The next day, my trip was over and I was heading home. Thank you for reading and viewing my report. Don't forget Sunday December 7, 2014 at Pacifico Yokohama for the 23rd Annual Yokohama Hot Rod Custom Show 2014! http://yokohamahotrodcustomshow.com #SHIZUKANI #HCS2014 is MOONEYES' effort to tone down the noise pollution outside of the event area of Pacifico Yokohama. For those that understand, we thank you for your support and helping us spread the word on Instagram. Although we are now faced with heavy restrictions, this will not be the last HCS! Go with MOON!