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Custom Chrome Reorganizes With Regional Market Development & Sales Leadership Team– Morgan Hill, CA May 23, 2007- Global Motorsport Group, Inc. has announced a number of organizational changes to reformat its operations within current market conditions while positioning the business for sustainable growth. Among the initiatives announced today, Custom Chrome has created a Regional Market Development and Sales Leadership Team intended to increase sales penetration, identify and capitalize on new product trends and expand market share.
As part of this strategy, Global Motorsport Group, Inc. has named industry veteran Frank Esposito as Vice President World-Wide Sales for its Custom Chrome Division reporting directly to Holger Mohr, President, Custom Chrome. ?I am excited about my new role within the organization and the talent the Regional Market Development Team will leverage to grow the business during a period of broad challenges for the entire industry,? said Esposito.
Prior to this assignment, Esposito held numerous leadership positions within the Global Motorsport Organization. Before joining GMG, Esposito was the President and COO of Tucker Rocky Distributing for over 5 years. Collectively he has over 30 years of industry experience. Frank has served many roles in the industry one most notably as the Chairman of Motorcycle Industry Council Aftermarket Committee. In addition, he is a 9-time veteran of the Colorado 500 Charity Invitational Ride of Champions. ?He is a natural with respect to building and sustaining a nationally prominent sales team. He?s a proven business leader and a salesman at heart?, said Dan Cook, GMG?s CEO.
Additional organizational changes include the integration of Product Line Management with the Purchasing Department and Customer Service with Sales Support. Some reductions in non-customer facing positions and the elimination of some of the road rep sales force have also occurred.
Completing the Sales and Marketing Development team and reporting directly to Frank Esposito, Vice President Sales will be; Norm Hasenpflug, Manager Inside Sales; Jeremy Yearton, Manager Inside Sales; Mike Score, Regional Sales & Market Development Director? Pacific Region; Heath Rehmeyer, Regional Sales & Market Development Director ? South Central Region; Gerald Bruce, Regional Sales & Market Development Director ? Mid West Region; Brian Banks, Regional Sales & Market Development Director ? Atlantic Coast Region;Mike Helms, Manager? Business Development; Joey Jelf, Manager? Customer Service.
PAGAN MEMBER KILLED, COP CLEARED–Police cleared in slaying of Pagan memberEx-Marine implied he had gun, attorney general’s report saysWilmington Police Lt. William Browne was justified when he shot and killed Derek Hale, a member of the Pagans Motorcycle Club, and will not be subject to criminal prosecution, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden concluded in a report issued Friday.
The report said the 25-year-old Marine veteran of the Iraq war was shot three times Nov. 6 as he stood up and “continued to keep a hand in his pocket as if holding a weapon and was turning in a threatening manner toward an officer armed with an empty Taser.”
The purpose of the attorney general’s investigation was to determine whether Browne committed a criminal act when he shot and killed Hale on the steps of a Wilmington home.
It is up to the Wilmington Police Department, the report states, to determine whether Browne broke department policy, rules or regulations, or “with the benefit of hindsight, the officer could have proceeded differently.”
Browne did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.The report reached similar conclusions as one issued earlier this month by the deputy attorney general defending the state police in a civil suit brought by Hale’s widow. Both reports differ from the accounts of some eyewitnesses who told The News Journal that Hale was seated, had just vomited and was shaking violently from several Taser blasts when killed on the steps outside 1403 W. Sixth St. They also said he did not appear to pose a threat to the officer who shot him outside the Wilmington home of a fellow Pagan.
Biden was not available for questions about the report on the investigation, which was supervised by Deputy Attorney General Eugene Hall.
–from Rogue
www.bikerrogue.com
DELL COMPUTER AND BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT TAP RUCKER PERFORMANCE DESIGNER FOR CROSS PROMOTION–FORT WORTH – May 23, 2007 – Rucker Performance announces the latest collaboration with technology industry giants Dell Computers, Inc and Blizzard Entertainment®. Motorcycle industry airbrush artist and designer Carl Tyndell, Director of Design of Rucker Performance, has been tapped to airbrush conceptual prototypes for Dell Inc. with original artwork from Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade.
Carl Tyndell originally airbrushed the first prototype XPS 1710 / WoW Burning Crusade gaming notebook for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES show) held in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 8-11, 2007. The scene recreated Blizzard’s depiction of a battle between a Blood Elf of the Horde and a Draenei of the Alliance, both new character races introduced in the Burning Crusade expansion. The gaming notebook was used as a conceptual prototype at the show.
Blizzard Entertainment plans to use the hand-painted prototype in promotions for the World of Warcraft throughout the next year. Photos of the finished computers can be viewed at www.ruckerperformance.com.
Additional information is available at www.ruckerperformance.com.
BIKERNET WEEKLY PHOTO ART EXHIBIT–Scenes from Myrtle Beach.
–Ride Hard,
Whiplash Biker Photog
whiplash@photo.net
NHTSA QUARTERLY MOTORCYCLE SAFETY NETWORK MEETING–The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently heldits quarterly motorcycle safety network meeting. These meetings are anupdate session held by the Feds to brief the motorcycle community at largeon what they are doing with regard to motorcycle safety.
Of particularnote is the NHTSA “Share the Road with Motorcycles” planner and guidelocated on their website (go to www.nhtsa.gov, then click on the “TrafficSafety” tab at the top, then click on “Motorcycles” along the left side).The planner provides a sample letter to the editor, posters andpromotional materials.
Also noteworthy was the update from Honda on theairbag-equipped Goldwing. Honda reported selling 700 units in the statesand recently had the first deployment in action. Turns out some guy insunny Florida t-boned a minivan and the bag inflated and kept him fromgoing over the bars. He walked away from the event unharmed. According tothe representative from Honda, this gentleman was exercising his right tochoose when the wreck occurred.
SAE Government and Industry Conference
The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) held a multi-day conference inDC this week that included two technical presentations with motorcyclinginterests. The first was a presentation by NHTSA of the FARS data fromlast year. I have seen this presentation by NHTSA dozens of times, butwhat interested me about this presentation is that it seems NHTSA may nowactually trying to collect some of the data that has eluded them in thepast, while not entirely preventing the collection of half-baked numbers.
You see, right now although it’s mandatory for states to report crash datafor automobiles, it’s optional for states to report motorcycle crash data.That hasn’t changed, but NHTSA is now urging the states to collect andpresent real world numbers instead of using mathematical equations as theycan (and many of them do) right now. To oversimplify, some statescurrently use a formula to determine vehicle miles traveled formotorcycles such as taking the number of registered bikes, and suggestingthat since bikes are “X” percent of all vehicles and cars traveled thismany miles then we can assume motorcycles traveled “X” amount of miles aswell. Of course, we know that’s not how it works. I am sure very littlewill change when it comes to motorcycle VMT and it’s likely that onceagain, as it has for many years now according to NHTSA numbers, nomotorcycles will travel in the state of South Dakota this year. Yeahright!
The second SAE session relevant to motorcyclists dealt with noveltyhelmets. Call them what you want – skid lid, half helmet, beanie – but youknow what I am talking about and you probably also know that should youneed head protection, you probably won’t find it in a novelty helmet.
Wellthe good folks at NHTSA couldn’t just accept that assumption, so theyapparently did a study on novelty helmets. This study has not yet beenreleased to the public, but NHTSA did hint at it in the session. NHTSAspent who knows how many millions of taxpayer dollars to determine thatnon-DOT-compliant helmets don’t perform as well as DOT-compliant helmets.
Seems like a waste of money to me, especially when we can fully fund acrash causation study that is nearly 20 years overdue. Stay tuned for theresults of this groundbreaking study.
MRF WASHINGTON OFFICE OPEN HOUSE–The MRF DC headquarters will be open this Saturday, May 26 from 11am-2pm.Coming to Rolling Thunder this year? Stop by Saturday for some lightrefreshments and see the world-famous MRF office, located at 236Massachusetts Ave NE, Suite 510, Washington DC 20002.
Use the UnionStation Metro stop if you leave the bike in the ‘burbs. You can contact mewith any questions at 202-725-5471 or jeff@mrf.org
Once again the MRF is holding a competition for all of our youngeractivists out there. The Meeting of the Minds, the MRF’s annual multi-day,multi-national motorcyclists’ rights conference will be held this yearwill be hosted by ABATE of Iowa in Cedar Rapids, Iowa from September20-23. Are you or do you know someone between 18 and 30ish who is involvedwith your SMRO? Get them to apply! The winners get a free trip to Meetingof the Minds! What are you waiting for?
Ride Free and Ride Often
–Jeff Hennie
SPEEDFREAKS MEMORIAL DAY PREVIEW– Hollywood, CA (May 23, 2007) – SpeedFreaks kick off the summer holiday season with a heated roundhouse of Freak’dom this Thursday at 6PM EST (yes, note the time change) with the biggest names in mo’sports from the Mazda Pits. But what’s surely to get the Freak Nation riled up is the when the quartet of Lugg Nuttz, Statt Mann, Crash Gladys and Kenny Sargent debate the real unanswered Q & A… Is an honest to goodness, meat and potatoes, American pie eating Open Wheel driver a real champion if he or she does not run, or WIN in the Indy 500? Want to ask Champ Car’s Sebastian Bourdais or Alex Tagliani?
Plus, like they did with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his secret desire to go to art school, SpeedFreaks expose yet another big name in NASCAR and his…
Freakin’ TV guests includeNASCAR Pilot and Record Label Owner Carl EdwardsThree Time Champ Car Champion Sebastian Bourdais andChamp Car Rival Alex TaglianiFreestyle Snowmobiler and X Gamer Jimmy BlazeAmerican LeMans Series Driver & Former Formula One Pilot Mika SaloAnd a bit of fun with some Mazda Atlantic Drivers
TOPIC: The Freaks dive right in this Indy 500 Weekend with:Are you a true American Open Wheel Champion if you do not run, or WIN, the Indy 500?
HOLLISTER H-D NO MORE, NOW HOUSE OF THUNDER H-D IN MORGAN HILL, 20 MILES AWAY–New name is House of Thunder H-D in Morgan Hill just 20 minutes from downtown Hollister.I’m probably a year away from completing a coffee table that will be faster than the Bandit Panhead desk. It is a double engine Triumph with a lot of race goodies on it. I had a stack of leftover Triumph parts that I didn’t know what to do with. Including the original front engine case from my bosses double engine race bike. So I was inspired by this loon that built desks out of old bike parts. It’s mocked up in a frame but lots of details yet to do. It’s therapy.
Just completed my Road Glide engine (110). This bike won the SF Rod & Custom Show and now I’m hitting the road tomorrow for break-in and final tune before the Redwood Run. I’ll send you some photos.
Now that that one is done, I can get back to my sidecar project that Tim Condor had drawn. It runs and has no metal on it, and I drove it around. John Reed helped me with the geometry and it handles pretty well even without a body on it. I gave a couple of guys that work for me a few beers, strapped a board on the sidecar frame, gave them a tiedown to hold onto and away we went!
Finally (after two years) got the wheels from Halibrand and need to fit those and remove the Ness wheels I thought I was going to have to use. Then off to Munroe’s for the body skeleton. My personal goal is Daytona but not sure.
Shop is doing really well. H-D tells me we are the fastest growing dealership in the West. Still small, but growing like hell. All departments are doing well, causing me to work six days a week, so my stuff keeps taking a low priority.
Gearing up for Hollister. We are sponsoring and have a booth downtown. Problem is Sunday night after the Rally Shirley and I are on a redeye to Nashville for the H-D tradeshow. Immediately following that we are picking up an ’08 and heading for the Blue Ridge Parkway and a little R&R.
But first, the Redwood Run, my favorite!!
Ride with at least one hand on the bars, Okay?
–Dan
AMERICAN IRON RETAILER WANTS RESPONSE–I’m glad the interview with you got a big response. You do mean GOOD responses,don’t you? hahaha
I wish folks would send me more e-mails or call me about articles they like (ordon’t like). Often I hear nothing from my readers about articles, but theysometimes contact the writer/subject directly. If I never hear about anarticle, I never know whether folks liked it!
If you’ve got any comments from readers, you can forward them to me if you’dlike and I’ll print them in the Mailbox column in the next issue.
–Marjorie
marjoriek@americanironmag.com
Marjorie is another hardworking editor for a dealer mag in our industry. Editors are damn hardworking folks. If you think about, while all sorts of workers dick-off and don’t accomplish shit, editors can never do that. They must meet their deadlines or die trying. We have a good group of magazine editors in our field right now-no rabid egos. So let them know if you’d like to see them cover something different.–Bandit
BASSANI DO-IT-YOURSELF RSD HEADER KIT– RSD custom builders can now realize the proven benefits of Bassani Xhaust engineering in a set of Pro Street pipes custom assembled to fit their specific project. Each RSD machine presents it’s own fitment requirements making it nearly impossible to produce a system that will fit all Right Side Drive applications. Recognizing this Bassanipipes is now offering a complete DO-IT-YOURSELF RSD PRO STREET HEADER KIT.
All of the hard work like bending and collar installation has been done. All you need to do is slip pipes together at the joints, twist them to conform to your needs and tack the supplied bracket right where you want it. Once you are satisfied with the look and fit, weld or have them welded and finished to your liking.
DIY RSD Pro Street kits complete with pipes, brackets and baffles retail for $399.00. Call 866-439-4287 or catch them on the Web at www.bassanipipes.com
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