A. I was doing some production road racing - AFM - out on the coast, mid to late 60's, desert racing too - hare & hound. I went to work for Harley in 1972 as a district manager and I really wasn't too much into flat track, I wasn't really aware of what was happening there, the depth of it, the fun of it, and all that. Of course when you worked for Harley in those days you got involved in it. I really got into as a spectator, I was too old at that point to really be a participant and always promised myself that if I ever got a point where I could afford to return something to the sport that's what I wanted to do because it has provided me with so much enjoyment over the years, both knowing the guys and going to the races and we hosted a lot of teams in our store over the years too, as far as giving them a shop area to work in. Of course our infamous Sacramento Mile party has evolved into a happening.

Q. Tell me some of the riders that you have worked with over the years.

A. I started a limited deal in '92 with Paul Polemus - we did...gosh, I'd have to look it up...about probably eight races that year, maybe nine, and Paul from the was from the Lodi Cycle Bowl, Stockton area. We had a mildly successful season with it, I mean it was a very part time thing in our case. Myself and the tuner would fly in, Paul would haul the bike, so if we needed to do any work on it we would have to change the clutch in the parking lot of the hotel for example. I decided, 'if we're going to do this lets get into it or out of it, one or the other.' The tuner I had at the time was my former service manager who has a very successful fabrication shop in Sacramento - Monty Heath - who just couldn't be gone away from his business that much so I had to make a decision about what to do. Monty and I worked with Aaron Hill also for a couple of years - '93-'94. Then the deal with Kenny became available as a result of Chris going road racing, and Chris told me 'hey, you ought to talk to Kenny if you're thinking about doing this thing.' I started thinking about that, it came together and then Del Mar '94 we decided to work with Joe Kopp, who was an up-and-coming struggling kid. It was a little difficult because Kenny hadn't worked with anybody but Chris for over 10 years. It was reasonably successful for two years - 95 and 96. Of course, I just fell into Chris's relationship really as a result of the road racing thing that didn't work out for him as a privateer. We're having a lot of fun with it, these guys are a killer team. There's no question about it. There's nobody, I don't think, that has the magnetism that we've got amongst our team.

Q. Do you provide the bikes, support - how big is your part of it?

A. H-D of Sacramento owns the bikes and supplies the parts along with most of the trick stuff (Darcy, etc.) Additionally, we pay Kenny's wages and part of Travis'. I always thought I was somewhat of a workaholic but those two guys run me into the weeds big time!! Talk about getting your money's worth!!

Q. How does it work out for promotions and marketing for your shop itself?

A. The underlying reasoning behind it was to establish our shop, give our shop a name, we changed our logo and we now refer to ourselves as the Grand National Dealership. Not too many dealers have a "moniker" of that significance to attach to their store. I think it has given us an identity to a lot of people, especially in the Midwest. We get a lot of inquiries via our website - www.hdsac.com. I'm involved in the NASCAR thing too and the Kyle Petty charity ride.

Q. Tell us a little about the Kyle Petty ride.

A. Riding, that was probably one of my favorite pastimes, between road racing and doing some desert racing. I did Sturgis a number of times up from Sacramento. Aspencade, Ruidoso, a lot of this big rallies in those old days. And that's what you're expected to do when you were with Harley too, and I enjoyed it. But when you involve yourself in the retail end of it, you take your hobby and make it your business. It really bites big time (laughs.) I'll ride 10,000 miles a year and that's two rides: Kyle Petty ride - 6,800 - 7,000 miles - and I may ship my bike back to Tilley's and November and ride out to Phoenix with some of the crew people with NASCAR and that's it for me, that's all the time I got to ride, and I love riding. I don't ride around town, that's not any fun, you've got to get out on the road and meet people, get off the interstate too, that's important. It is somewhat disappointing to think that there's a lot of customers that are equally as busy as we all are and they don't have time so they have to have somebody trailer their stuff to these rallies and its a shame because 90% of the deal is the journey not the destination. Its incredible, you get off the interstate and spend a day going through Nebraska and stuff and meeting people and stories you hear. The bike is a medium of meeting people, people just run up to you and tell you all about their uncle or Dad, these old timers will tell you the barbed wire fence story and all that.

Q. The country's become kind of old school now - most people do trailer their bikes to Daytona or wherever they're going...

A. Yeah, most of us refer to Daytona and Sturgis as Trailer Rallies. It's different today. We're dealing with people that are extremely successful in their businesses and professions and it's different than what it was 20 years ago where it was predominantly blue-collar, working guys, hey man, it was fun then. Those guys had more fun than these guys have today, I'll tell you that.

Q. Do you make most of Chris's races?

A. Yeah, I'll probably do 3/4's this year, the only thing that keeps me from all of them is that I do have some other things going on occasionally that conflict schedule-wise. I try to attend some of my hog chapter events and I was involved with Harley's Dealer Advisory Council that took up some of my time.

Q. Are you pretty much 7 days a week working for the shop?

A. One way or another, we're open 6 anyway - I sometimes use the 7th day to work on my toys or on the house.

Q. Are you married?

A. I was, had a great marriage. Met her at Ascot, she was my race buddy and we partied hard and had a great time together. She went through the change of life, and all of a sudden it wasn't as important any more. I told her when I met her that she would always be number two, motorcycles, the business, racing would always be number one in my heart - no matter how hard she tried she could never be number one. It worked out alright, we lived together on and off for 10 years, married 7, and I came home from a Kyle Petty ride one year and she said 'I'm not willing to be number two anymore.' We still talk. I'll call her once in a while and give her race reports, she's on the computer too so she's hip to all the stuff that's going on. I've told her all about your good work on Chris' web site.

Q. What about the future?

A. 2001 will be my last full year, I mean, of big-time participation. I retire in two years, so I got to start setting the stage for that. I told Chris and Kenny both that what we're going to do this winter is work harder at pulling in some additional sponsorship either along with the sponsors we've got now, pull in some new sponsors such that my exit will be a smooth transition for Chris and Kenny. The bikes - I've talked to my partner that will be buying me out in two years and he's willing to let Chris use the bikes, and he'd supply a parts program, but he's not as committed and active in it. He has other things he wants to pursue as far as promotions and so forth.

Q. Then what after you retire?

A. Then I can probably do some riding - I'm seriously thinking about hitting the road and doing NASCAR and of course keeping in touch with dirt track and all that. I'm thinking also about buying a motorhome and just hitting the trail for about a year, also have an old Mercury I want to play with. I don't know where I want to be when I grow up!

I just wish that 10% of the population could have experienced the joys that I've had as a result of being involved with Chris, Kenny and Travis - its been incredible - to think that we were able to do what we did last year winning the AMA title and this year winning the inaugural PACE/SFX title, like the man says "It just don't get any better".