Sport Bike Drag Racer and Stunt Rider Karme Cannon Promotes Motorcycle Safety

Apr 15, 2009

Karme drag racing on her Kawasaki ZX12R

Karme Cannon, sport bike drag racer and stunt rider, became interested in motorcycles because of her mother. "My mom had a Harley and I thought that was so cool," says Karme. Since then, Karme has become a celebrated female racer and stunt rider, as well as a spokesperson for women's issues.

Sport bike drag racer and stunt rider Karme Cannon.

One of Karme Cannon's customized bikes

She is a motorcycle safety advocate and a huge supporter of breast cancer awareness and autism awareness. "I have organized The CHAOS Ride for The Cure for the past 5 years, and I support this because I lost someone very close to my heart to breast cancer. I am also currently working on an autism charity ride."

Karme also spreads the word that women need to take their bikes very seriously. She teamed up with the president of WominX LLC in 2003 and helped start WominX.net, a website that caters to the riding lifestyle, as well as a motorcycle club, Loonatix & Loonachix in 2000 which now has chapters all over the country. "I have a reputation of being the chic always pushing that female passenger to learn to ride and buy their own bike. I mean, why ride on the back when you can ride your own?" says Karme. "Everyone needs to take the Motorcycle Safety Course and always wear your proper gear. I can't stand to see a woman wearing shorts, flip flops or a skirt on her bike just to get noticed. What are you going do if you fall off that bike? Wear the proper clothing and gear when you ride and guys will think you are hot just because you are riding your OWN bike, not because of what you are wearing on your bike."

Charities and causes aside, Karme's first love is riding. "My first bike was a '95 Suzuki Katana. I bought the bike and I had no clue on how to ride it. I took the safety course, which was the best thing I could've done and began to get more comfortable riding. After 9 months of riding that heavy Katana I upgraded to a Honda CBR F3 that was all chromed out." Karme started going to track days and decided to purchase a fully customized '99 Kawasaki ZX7R. "I raced this bike on the road track and drag strip. I really got into drag racing and I needed something faster, so I bought my 2000 Kawasaki ZX12R. I drag raced the 12 for about four years and retired her from racing to customize her. I stretched her out and added some fun things like K&N filters, nitrous, chrome and a custom paint job."

Karme now uses K&N products on all her bikes. "My bike runs so much better on the track & street. The bikes used to perform poorly in the heat but now my K&N motorcycle filters have helped out the performance tremendously. I choose K&N because they are the top race filters for a ZX12, and they are very easy to install."

Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world.