Motorcycle

S teve Christini, 41, runs Christini Technologies, which makes the world's only mechanical all-wheel-drive motorcycles. The AWD delivers power from the transmission to the front wheel through a series of chains and shafts, and works similar to AWD systems on four-wheel vehicles. Christini, of Queen Village, formed the company in 1999 and operates from a loft on 7th Street near Willow, North Philadelphia. Q: You built a prototype of the AWD off-road motorcycle in 2002. What happened next?

Two men were killed instantly when the motorcycle they were riding crashed into a parked backhoe on County Line Road, at a railroad crossing near Heaton Road, late Wednesday night, Lower Moreland police said. Gerald Nolan, 25, of Warrington, and Edward Bowers, 22, of the 600 block of Ardross Avenue, Ambler, were thrown more than 70 feet from the motorcycle and killed on impact, police said. Though investigators had not determined the motorcycle's exact speed, they estimated it to be between 70 and 80 m.p.h.

A Franklin Township man pleaded guilty yesterday to killing a Washington Township man during a dispute over the sale of a motorcycle two years ago. After the state agreed to reduce a first-degree murder charge against him to aggravated manslaughter, Steven Rimkis, 40, told Judge Joseph F. Lisa of Gloucester County Superior Court that he shot Walter Bryant, 41, during a scuffle at the victim's home on April 10, 1997. Under the agreement, Rimkis could be sentenced to between 12 1/2 and 30 years in state prison.

Doug Domokos figures he probably became the world's undisputed Wheelie King in 1984, when he reared back and roared into the Guiness Book of World Records by riding a wheelie 145 consecutive miles on the Talladega Speedway in Alabama. The 39-year-old thrill seeker bolstered his regal reputation when he passed Georgia's motorcycle driver's license test by doing all the necessary maneuvers and parking in one prolonged wheelie - rearing up on one back wheel all the way. Domokos, of Lake Elsinore, Calif.

Chad Alfred Hopkins, 17, a Cherry Hill High School West senior active in charitable causes and the Junior ROTC, died Tuesday at Cooper Hospital-University Medical Center in Camden from injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident. Mr. Hopkins, a Cherry Hill Estates resident, was operating a 1990 Honda motorcycle Tuesday afternoon about 3 p.m. in the northbound lane of Garden State Drive when the motorcycle left the road at a curve and struck a tree. He was wearing a helmet, police said.

Andy Kirby, a driver in NASCAR's Busch Series, was killed yesterday when the motorcycle he was driving ran off a road and hit a tree near White House, Tenn., police said. Kirby, 40, lost control of the motorcycle on a curve about 11:30 p.m. Thursday, according to a report filed by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. In Madison, Ill., Shane Hmiel matched the Busch Series record for poles by a rookie, taking his third top qualifying spot at Gateway International Raceway. Hmiel, who tied the mark set by Kenny Wallace in 1989, averaged 132.080 m.p.h.

KEY WEST, Fla. - Lots of Northerners shake off the last of the cold weather with a trip south this time of year. We decided to head into the Florida sunshine on two wheels, on a motorcycle trip from Miami down through the Keys, where the flat lanes seem to skim you over the blue-and-aquamarine, coral-lined sea before you're vaulted skyward up and over a causeway and on to another island. Swinging back up U.S. 1 to the mainland, we turned west through the Everglades on the Tamiami Trail (Route 41)

A onetime recordholding motorcycle jumper died after plummeting from a ramp while trying to soar 150 feet on an all-terrain vehicle at a motor-car spectacular. Todd Seeley, 35, of Tampa, Fla., missed the ramp during a jump, landing face down in the dirt at Buck Motorsports Park Saturday night. He died in the operating room of Lancaster General Hospital late Saturday, a hospital spokeswoman said. Seeley, who held the Guinness Book of World Record from 1988 to 1991 for jumping 246 feet on a motorcycle, started the evening with a successful 150-foot jump on his stock motorcross cycle.

Mohan Varughese worked hard for his prized Kawasaki motorcycle. The 23-year-old Bustleton native bought the shiny red Ninja with tips earned as a Center City valet. He got it last summer, just in time for his final year at Penn State Abington, where he was set to graduate Friday with a psychology degree. Monday afternoon, someone else wanted it and killed him over it. Varughese was visiting his girlfriend, a Temple University student, at a house on the 2200 block of North Camac Street, a few blocks north of Temple.

Three men were killed and two were injured, one critically, about 10:30 last night when a car collided with a motorcycle at Seventh Street and Packer Avenue in South Philadelphia, police said. Both men on the motorcycle were pronounced dead at the scene, police said, and a passenger in the car was pronounced dead on arrival at Methodist Hospital. The names of the two men on the motorcycle, both of whom were in their 20s, were withheld by police pending notification of relatives.