The Story of the "I-Max" is the most wonderful
Internet-Motorcycle-Story one can dream of.
At Tony Pace's page the whole
story about the I-Max is
published now and everybody should check it out.
It started in summer
'97 by an idea of John Furbur, with the
friends from the Vmax-List, the
VMOA (Club USA), my Sponsors, and lots of
other Vmax-fans/friends from all over the world when they founded the "Vmax
for Ingo Fund".
The bike they collected for was photographed by Tony Pace (Thank you Tony for your hard ride in the winter!)
Until summer '98 it was rebuilt by John and
Jim Furbur,
with different parts and help from friends all over the world.
(Cory F. - The Painting, Dennis B. & Paul B. - Accessories, John F. - Sportmax Seat &
many more goodies..., etc.etc.etc...)
Then the transport across the ocean had to be organised and money had to be collected again for this. The
total amount for getting this bike shipped to Germany was nearly as high as the whole bike...
Again Colin, Jim, Jochen, John, Lee, Mark, Paul and others had many hard days
and nights to find and arrange a way to get this Max ready for transport.
In April '99 it looked like the I-Max would start it's journey to Germany and it was brought to New York.
After standing at the JFK airport in New York until June (because only a few last papers were
missing) it started it's final trip across the water on June, 22nd !!!
On June 25th it arrived at Bad Max Racing here in Cologne...!!!
The first time I could see and touch her :-)
Now work on this side of the ocean could start.
Put everything together again, add an exhaust, modify it for the
technical checkup at the german TUEV, add some accessories, etc. etc.. a lot of
work for the Bad Maxers and they always knew a way and had some great
ideas/solutions to go forward (At this place I want to send a special THANK YOU
to all of them for your great work on this!). At the same time Henry Doyle
(Exactrep) added a very special surprise to the I-Max - a Billet 6 front
brake incl. pads!!! Wow... so my thoughts of changing the front-brakes one day
have become history. And even some more parts from Yamaha of Cucamonga and lots
of stuff from the Bad Maxers will be mounted too soon.
But one thing was missing (again) - The title...
Without the title I couldn't go on my way to get this baby licensed. After lots of telephone calls and tons of emails
there was still no solution and nobody could tell me where this damn title was
lost...
Between all this I received the plaque that was made. Colin has
built a huuuuge package and it was a real surprise when it arrived here. It
looks really wonderful and it will be an honour to me to present it at the
meetings in the future (pictures will follow soon...).
Again - Thank you all very much !!!
September started and I still couldn't license the Max.
Many friends tried to help. To mention some of them: John Baltera, Patrick
Ahearn, Colin Cunningham, Jochen Foth (again and again :-) ), Henry Jackson,
David Beyer and especially Ivonne Fernandez! And then one day Colin and Jochen
sent me the final email I have been waiting for so long - the title was found!
It was still lying at the german customs... :-(
The following week Jochen forward the title to me. After months of searching I could hold this
peace of paper in my hands... Hurray!!!!
Then I had to order a new copy of some german papers and I had to wait again...
But then Sep. 14th came. The friendly post office woman rang on my door and she handed over the
last missing papers to me! About half an hour later I was sitting at the local
traffic office to get the I-Max licensed...! And everything really worked!!!
The I-Max is running!!!
It's really licensed and it is at it's new home now!
And I had the pleasure to finally ride it... Jipppiiiiiaaaeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cologne watch out - here I come again! :-)
Do you like to know who made all this come true?
Colin
C. published a list of all the friends that are part of this story.
You
can find it here...:
http://www.nmia.com/~zippy/imaxpaid.htm
And
here is the plaque:
These first I-Max-Photos were made by Tony Pace in Dec.'97...
The following pics were made in Summer '98 and they already show the new Viper-blue painting, the SportMax Seat, etc....
And here it is now!!!
The first pics of the I-Max
made in Cologne about an hour after delivery at Bad Max.
Just out of the
box...
Side by side with the Silver Surfer... :-)
Thank you all so much for making this dream come true!!!!
And here is Ger Peters from the Netherlands (and me on the back) who came around on Saturday (03. July) to meet me and see the I-Max...
... and many greetings to Wolfgang, Holger, Helmut, Carlos, Tino, Bernd and all the others I met that day at Bad Max...
And then September 14th came - the day I received the
last missing papers and I could license the I-Max...
Now the I-Max
looked like this... :-)
Until December 1999 some more modifications followed:
The
whole front-fork-setup was exchanged against a 97-Vmax-front (polished of
course), different brake discs (the newer style) were added, steel brake lines
by Spiegler, a pair of Billet 6 Alu front brake calipers (sponsored
by Exactrep), EBC racing brake pads (blue, 12 all in all, one single pad for
each caliper!), a set of blue alu srews for the carbs and some other parts, a
blue Alu Superbike-Bar, etc...
Many thanx here for all their help to
Randy Nial, Lawrence McCoy, Henry Doyle (Exactrep) and the whole Bad Max-Crew to realize all this!!!
And here
you can see these mods now:
In June 2000 the tires had to be exchanged - front and rear. The perfect time for another modification. A new rear wheel to wear a modern tire would be nice...
My choice fell on Georg Deget's 6 x 17". Perfect finish and still a bit of the stock Vmax-look. While the wheel was off it was polished and because it looked so great I told him to polish the front wheel too...
Then 2 new Pirellis were put on (180/55 ZR 17 rear - 110/80 ZR 18 front) and "Voila!"- Surprise, surprise - a new bike was born. It now handles completely different than before on it's stock feet.
And then Okt. 23rd in 2000 came... I just wanted to go to work on one of the last nice days of the year...
When I stopped at a "STOP"-sign a woman killed my beloved Max...
I didn't think that the bike would ever run again... and it really didn't look like this... but... a bike can be fixed and the I-Max will rise again..!!!
- - -
And here it is again - The I-Max is back!!!
In spring 2001 my Max was reborn again and see how nice it is now... :-)
New on the bike now:
Straightened, sanded and silver coated frame, many new polished parts all over the engine, blue turn-signals with white glasses, a new polished cover for the cooler and some more smaller extras. The speedo has been exchanged against a Km/h-speedo (many thanx to RMSportMax here!). I added a set of stickers (blue) from Graphic Image to the scoops. All damaged parts (widened rear wheel, swing arm, exhaust, rear fender incl. rear light, rear brake, etc.etc...) were exchanged or fixed. The body parts have been painted new in Viper-blue - and my helmet has the same colour now too!
And I think that it looks and runs really great again...
My very special "Thank you" here belongs to the "Tout Terrain Motos"-Team. Thank you for your great work and ideas, your help, your patience in answering all my questions and handling all my visits! And thank you for always offering a cup of hot coffee! :-)
The only frustrating point here at the moment is:
After I rode the bike three days I parked it nearby a playground and some kids must have had a lot of fun on throwing tons of sand and stones onto the bike... :-(
Well, the new painting is scrap now...
©
1997-2002
