At first I thought Tampa Bay Storm might be one of those NHL expansion hockey teams like the Phoenix Coyotes or the Florida Panthers that play where there’s never been a dollop of ice other than in a mixed drink. Much to my surprise, Tampa Bay Storm is an arena league football team which, frankly, I had forgotten about. Apparently to try and get through to dense people like me, team owner, Dr. Bob Nucci, commissioned a company with a lot of history behind it, but unfortunately now consigned to history to build a theme bike to promote the team and eventually to be raffled off for charity. Oh, I should mention the now defunct company was located in upstate New York and maybe you might remember it as the custom motorcycle industry’s version of an expansion team — V-Force Customs which is now DiMartino Motorsports. Ring a bell? Yup, V-Force is none other than good ol’ Vinnie DiMartino and Cody Connelly of OCC and Paul Jr. Designs fame and this was their company’s first theme bike. All of a sudden I’m starting to remember bits of this historical data that only goes back to 2008, but seems so long ago.

 

   What Vinnie and Cody came up with was not too much of a stretch for them and actually makes perfect sense in the scheme (and time) of things. Their low and long pro street custom came basically at the end of this once-popular style of bike before the total hysteria of bobbers and baggers had completely taken over. Based on a single-sided rigid frame that allows the uber-wide rear wheel to have full visual impact with the brake rotor mounted inboard of the sprocket. A beefy and blingy Mean Street Products (our El Paso homeboys) inverted fork holds up its part of the tough guy design up front no-problemo as they’ve done for many, many custom builders over the years. 

 

  Pro street usually meant pro power and in this case, Vinnie and Cody do not disappoint. I absolutely applaud their choice of a smooth Harley Twin Cam B counterbalanced engine instead of the normal radical custom high-horsepower paint shaker mill most builders used in bikes like this. Yeah, it’s going to take a bit more effort to install one of these as they’re a misunderstood engine in my opinion, but it just makes too much sense. Even more sensible was the way to more power with the 88” Twin Cam by virtue of a ProCharger supercharger mit intercooler that provides power on demand so to speak without all the problems of wicked high compression and radical cam timing and more. Plus it looks mechanically-interesting cool too for the gear freaks among us.

 

   As with any theme bike, paint is almost more important than the bike itself as it’s the shout-out feature that puts the theme front and center. No surprise then that Vinnie and Cody turned to a local fellow you’re sure to remember from years of last-minute TV paintjobs. Nope it’s not the guy who always wears shorts regardless of the temperature, but supremely talented Justin Barnes of JB Grafix fame who laid on the Tampa Bay Storm’s blue and gold team colors in a complex paintjob that gets more involved the more you look at it. Every time I see a finished paintjob like this it only makes me feel a bit more stupid when I think about my own sophomoric attempts at painting. I can always console myself that I’m better than those ancient caveman paintings that pop up every now and then.

 

  After it was finished, the bike called Storm-1 went on tour to promote the Tampa Bay Storm and ramp up the raffle proceeds which went to support the Shriners’ hospitals. It probably has more miles under it being trailered and shown all over the country from Sturgis to the West Coast and back to Daytona, but you might notice it now sports a current license plate and that’s a good thing. Someone, and I’m going to assume it’s Mr. John B. Carter, gets to experience a bit of custom motorcycle history with every turn of that supercharged throttle. Maybe that could be its new theme, an ass kicking pro streeter that lets the new kids see how it was done way back in oh-eight with a bike that’s chock full of custom motorcycle history.