Been riding the V8 bikes for 8 years and know over 50 other V8 riders. I hear most all the news about these bikes. I will try to straighten you out on a couple of things if you want to believe me. ALL the loss of control crashes that I have heard about have been while the rider was doing a burnout. The bikes can do burnouts easily and mix that with some alcohol and a guy that has a crowd he feels he needs to impress and sometimes it ends badly, even death. As far as the rear axles breaking I heard of that also but it was on the early kit bikes, I've never heard of it on any bike since I been involved and they have lots more power now. LAWSUITS-- pretty much every manufacturer has lawsuits, unfortunately its the American way. You get a little different type of rider on V8 bikes than most other bikes, many like to be the center of attention and like to drink, its a bad combination when the bike is heavy and has huge horsepower. The bikes are actually good bikes, dependable, fast, fun, but as usual most of the bad press comes from guys that never rode one but have an opinion anyway. I am used to it, even on my Rocket I get guys that want to say its a ridiculous bike, to heavy, can't handle, just an oddity, etc. Its also a good bike, ride one and you'll like it. The bigger they are the harder it is to be a great road racer, who cares, they do just fine. No bike can excel at everything, thats a fact.