Sport Rider Covers From 1993

In August 1992, Nick Ienatsch and Brian Smith were waiting for Art Friedman to announce the thumbs-up from Petersen Publishing executives on a new magazine proposal. Once that was given, Sport Rider was born and thus the April 1993 issue was the maiden magazine that started the 24-year run of the publication. At the time when Friedman proposed the magazine to Petersen Motorcycle Group's publisher Dick Lague, he thought it would be an annual one-shot, but Lague saw more potential in the performance-motorcycle-focused idea and decided to run it bi-monthly. Ienatsch stated that the magazine "would focus on the what, how and why of sporting street bikes and be a step beyond what is currently available."

Right off the bat, editors Nick Ienatsch, Lance Holst, Siobhan Burns, and other Petersen Publishing staff tackled 1993 with a comparison of the '93 Honda CBR900RR, Kawasaki ZX-11, Suzuki GSXR1100, and Yamaha FZR1000, taking the four machines on a test ride from LA to Monterrey. A shoot-out between the 600-class warriors was featured in the June issue, where the August issue upped the ante with a 750 face-off. The staff's end-of-the year comparison in the December issue consisted of an exciting head-to-head battle between an Acura NSX and a CBR900RR to find out which machine would come out on top, two wheels or four.

We have put most of the articles within the magazines up on the website which you can find HERE. Otherwise, we hope you enjoy looking back at the first year of Sport Rider through this gallery of covers.