Triumph Roadster launched on a drag strip

Triumph Australia chose a novel way to officially launch its new Rocket Roadster this week - on a dragstrip.

After a leisurley ride from Triumph headquarters in Melbourne to Heathcote Park Dragway in regional Victoria, six journalists then locked horns in the 'Triumph Rocket Roadster World Cup Challenge', which was an elimination shootout.

The Bikesales Network, represented by veteran scribe Ken Wootton, was eliminated in the first round, although he's already come up with a 'corrective' formula based on such parameters as power-to-weight, which has him as the overall winner ahead of Heavy Duty magazine's Neale Brumby.

I'm sure you'll hear a lot more that in Ken's full launch report, but on the day it was AMCN's diminutive news editor Kellie Buckley who took out the trophy, defeating Rapid Magazine editor Jeff Ware in the final.

Kellie's quarter-mile pass was 12.14 seconds on the 2.5-metre long behemoth, which has a wet weight of 367kg and produces a whopping 221NM of torque our of the in-line three-cylinder mill.

Triumph's stunt guru Lukey Luke was also on hand to perform some stunts on the Roadster, the likes of which you can see at the end of this hilarious video. The Roadster is now available from Triumph dealers for $22,990.