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| October 2007
Dealer
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DEALER: TAMMY & NATHAN JONES,
CUSTOM HAWG
Megan Vickers
Assistant Editor
Tammy and Nathan Jones’ first experience with motorcycles came
when they were around nine years old. The duo’s first bikes
were dirt bikes and they said that ever since then they’ve
been hooked on motorcycles. |
Jones explained they take every opportunity they get to ride
recreationally. “It is therapy,” she explained, adding, “A
few miles with your knees in the breeze can make even the worst
days seem awesome. You can ride the same road on a motorcycle
that you have in your vehicle and the scenery is completely
different.” They said the relationships they have built with
other riding enthusiasts are like no other.
In 1996, the pair started researching the market in preparation
of launching their own dealership, Jones explained. “At the
time, we had been serving some clients on a part-time level in
aftermarket parts and service,” she said, adding, “We
finally launched Custom Hawg, a full-service V-Twin motorcycle
dealership in 1997.”
The store is said to be one of the leading custom motorcycle
dealerships in New England, specializing in selling custom
motorcycle brands and its full service department houses
certified technicians in Harley-Davidson repairs and
maintenance. In 2006, they reportedly invested $30,000 in
training and equipment in order to become a certified S&S
tuning center location and, with its recent certification,
Custom Hawg is said to be the only S&S certified dealership
in New England.
The store celebrated its 10 year anniversary in June and to
recognize this milestone the duo announced a public celebration
as well as the unveiling of their new Web site, which featured
highlights from the last decade. “We have truly been living
the ultimate dream,” said Nate, who continued, “We organized
this celebration to thank the industry and the community for
their support over the last 10 years.” |
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As business owners, the pair explained there hasn’t been a position within their dealership that their employees have held or currently hold that they themselves haven’t held. Tammy added, “Along with taking care of the administrative side of the business, I often work the parts counter, work with a prospective customer on a bike sale and frequently am found writing a service repair order for a motorcycle that is coming in for repair.” She continued by explaining that Nate had started the business as a one person show, juggling a multitude of roles. “He is the expert when it comes to performance work and fuel injection tuning,” she told us. |
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Tammy continued, “There are many returning customers that we have had over the years due to the confidence that they have in him and the comfort level with his honesty in doing what is best for the customer.” Currently the two hold positions on the S&S Customer Advisory Council, they said, and they have been members of the American IronHorse Dealer Advisory Council since 2002.
Being able to respond to the frequent changes in the market with new and innovative programs is one of the great things about working in this industry, Tammy told us. “We are always looking for a challenge and enjoy the fact that with each season within this industry there are changes with designs, trends and customer preferences,” she explained. Jones added, “We are constantly having to stay ahead of the curve, making sure we are aware of what is happening within the industry and how it will affect our business, as it might relate to our parts inventory, our service department, or what customers will be looking for to personalize their rides.” The interaction they have with their customers and others in this industry, they said, is what makes what they do so exciting and enjoyable.
They have had a number of wonderful moments in the last 10 years while working in the industry, Tammy said. She added, they have attended many national rallies and have been able to work with many of the industry’s top leaders at those events and have developed great relationships with them over time. “We have attended the annual biker ball on multiple occasions during Daytona Bike Week and have enjoyed participating in a number of riding photo shoots while representing American
IronHorse,” Jones explained. Nate told us he had the opportunity to participate in a sponsored ride with Valvoline a couple years ago and got to ride on the track at Daytona International Speedway. “We really have been blessed with the opportunities and the experiences we have had,” they said.
However, it has been some of the more simple moments that are remembered most fondly. “For example, one memory that stands out is the first time we saw a complete stranger wearing a Custom Hawg T-shirt at a motorcycle rally more than a thousands miles away from our shop,” Tammy told us, adding, “That moment sort of hit us – it made us feel as though we had finally arrived.”
After 10 years in business the pair have noted a number of concerns that are harmful to this industry; however, they feel the saturation level of new units is one of the most damaging factors in today’s industry. “There are so many manufacturers out there, from those building a couple dozen bikes a year, to Harley-Davidson with their extensive production line,” they explained. Across the country, dealers have full showrooms and many of them have inventory that is at the point where it is so old the dealer has to offer deep discounts in order to make a sale, Jones said. “This is hurting the used bike market as well with re-sale and trade values,” Tammy stated. |
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On the other hand, the service department has the greatest potential for growth in this industry, she told us. “We are seeing that motorcycle owners are doing more with their current bikes versus upgrading to new models,” Tammy explained. She continued by saying, “Fuel injection is putting a whole new spin on the market and is making it necessary for riders to do more to their bikes, for example, needing to switch out factory components such as the exhaust.” This creates a number of sales opportunities, she added, as well as billing for the tuning time required. |
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With their ten years of experience owning and running their own motorcycle dealership, they wanted to advise other dealers that it is important to make sure they don’t get caught in a rut running their business the same as they have always done. “You need to constantly be ahead of the curve and be anticipating what the customer is going to want next season,” they explained. Tammy added, so much is available to the consumers through the Web and they are doing their homework before buying. Dealers need to be ahead of that trend and need to have the knowledge on all the newest products available, they added. “Our customers come to us with the anticipation that we are the experts and we need to live up to that,” Jones concluded. |
Distributor
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DISTRIBUTOR: DAN LOPEZ, WESTERN POWER SPORTS
Megan Vickers
Assistant Editor
Ever since his cousin owned a 1979 RM80, Dan Lopez said he has been interested in offroad bikes and he bought every Dirt Bike magazine he could get his hands on. His father had stored an old 1960s Honda S-90 out in the shed and Lopez explained it had a rusted gas tank, bad carburetor and scored cylinder. He told us he decided to fix it up so that he could ride it and bought a new carburetor, Powroll bore kit and fixed the gas tank. “I can’t believe how well it ran after that, I guess you can’t kill an old Honda,” Dan exclaimed. He added, “I loved riding that bike in the few open spaces I could find in the east bay near San Francisco. I was probably thirteen or fourteen at the time and it didn’t get any better than being able to ride through the neighborhood with a motor in my bike, when all my friends were riding bicycles.” |
After he turned 15, Lopez explained he got a job working in the parts department at Richmond Honda, which had been JK Cycles, in Richmond, CA. “At the time, you were automatically cool with your friends if you worked in a motorcycle shop,” Lopez recalled. There were about 10 other people working at the store and Dan said they all got along great. “We got to race z-50s in the parking lot after work and everyone I worked with was an enthusiast,” he noted. Since Lopez was a lot younger than his co-workers he said he was able to do a lot of things other kids his age didn’t. “Like one time around 1986 we rented a motor home and five of us went to Laguna Seca to watch the GP,” he explained, adding, “We camped at the track, there was great racing, burnout contests at night, parties everywhere.” Lopez continued by saying it was during his time at the dealership that he had pretty much decided the motorcycle business was the only industry worth being involved in.
Lopez reportedly spent three years at Richmond Honda, first working the parts counter and eventually moving up to work as the parts manager and then service manager. In 1988, he said he left the dealership to work at Concord
Motorsports, where he worked from 1988-1991, before moving on to Western Power Sports in 1991. He held the position of motorcycle product manager at
WPS, but left to go back to Concord Motorsports in 1995 for a year before returning to WPS in 1996.
Currently, Lopez works as the wheeled division product manager for Western Power Sports, which he said means senior product manager for motorcycle and ATV product, including on and offroad motorcycles, ATVs and
UTVs. “There are six other people in my department, each specializes in a certain category: street, dirt, etc. We are responsible for bringing in new products, working with purchasing and sales departments to make sure we have those products and that they sell through,” explained Lopez, who added, “We work with the graphics department to build catalogs, we work with industry magazines for advertising our products, we work with vendors to create sales programs, create new products and have them built, we also man the phones to answer customer questions, some of us even helped to move our California warehouse from Sacramento to Fresno last year.” He summarized, “Our duties are to manage WPS products from the moment we first see them until they are sold to our customers.”
Dan told us he likes wearing all of these different hats because it keeps work interesting. “I like working in an industry where most everyone is an enthusiast and rides a motorcycle or ATV,” Lopez explained. “How many industries are there, where in your free time you participate in the same thing that you do all week?” he asked.
Of the many great moments he’s experienced since starting out at Richmond Honda, one of his more recent favorites happened to be when he got the opportunity to drive offroad racecars in Baja, Dan explained. “It was part of a sales program that we put together with Michelin, where winning dealers and reps got a chance to travel to Mexico with ‘Wide Open Baja’, a company that rents the racecars and runs the trip,” he said, adding, “We got to drive these incredible racecars through much of the Baja 500 race course. My favorite moments of that trip were everything before we rolled a car on day three and everything after we got it rolling again.”
It is very important for enthusiasts to protect their right to ride, noted Lopez. “It is so easy, because we are all busy working, racing, spending time with our families, to say I will go to the next meeting where the
BLM, Forest Service, etc., is considering closing an area,” he explained. The problem, Dan added, is that the next meeting is now closed. “There is a dedicated group of individuals that carry the flag for us, but we all need to be more involved,” he stated.
The UTV market is very hot and Lopez said he thinks this will continue since UTVs have all the benefits of an ATV, but riders can now share those benefits comfortably with a passenger. “There has been a number of times when I’m towing a trailer with a Rhino on it and a person will walk all the way across the parking lot to ask what is it, how much it costs, where they can get one?” he explained, adding, “They look friendlier than many ATVs, most everyone can drive a car and the UTVs look like mini jeeps, so it will bring in another percentage of customers who felt driving an ATV was beyond their ability.”
Nowadays, Lopez enjoys riding at his local motocross track, as well as trail riding and riding ATVs. “I would say my favorite is the motocross track. We are so lucky here to have trail riding and two MX tracks within a 20 minute drive from our office,” he explained. Lopez’s only advice to others within the powersports industry is, “Please be active in protecting our RIGHT to ride.” |
Manufacturer
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MANUFACTURER: MICHAEL
FARABAUGH, LUCAS OIL
Megan Vickers
Assistant Editor
Michael Farabaugh has spent the last 40 years criss-crossing America on two wheels. His journey started in Indiana in the late 1960s as he was associated with the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) participating in AMA dirt riding events in and around the Midwest. As president of District 15 AMA in the early 1970s, Farabaugh evolved it into one of the AMA’s premier district road riding programs. Joined by his wife Debby in 1972, the two founded an AMA road-riding club and served as president and secretary/treasurer for 10 years. |
It was during this time that Michael began working with ABATE and legislative affairs. ABATE founders Wanda and Steve Hummel lived less than three miles from the Farabaughs and over time Wanda eventually handed over control of the ABATE files to the
Farabaughs. They converted their garage into an office and after 12 months had convinced Wanda to return, thus opening ABATE of Indiana for business. Membership of ABATE of Indiana soared from around 600 people to over 12,000 during Michael’s tenure as Executive Director. Today’s ABATE of Indiana boasts nearly 30,000 members, which is reportedly 20 percent of the state’s total motorcycle population.
The three organized a modern day version of the first ever “Meeting of the Minds,” which led to the development of a National Steering Committee of which Michael was chairman. This eventually led to the creation of the Motorcycle Riders Foundation
(M.R.F.) and Farabaugh spent four years as president of the
M.R.F. During these four years, Michael was able to gather enough support from national bike organizations to hire the first full-time lobbyist, Wayne T. Curtin, a motorcyclist, who opened an office in Washington, D.C. to push for positive motorcycle legislation.
In the winter of 1978, Michael opened the first Motorcycle Safety Foundation
(M.S.F.) curriculum Instructor Prep classes to be taught in Indiana. Both Michael and Debby graduated in the spring of 1979 as
M.S.F. certified instructors and Michael then opened the “Movin’ On Motorcycle School” in South Bend, IN. As a chief graduate of the M.S.F.’s
Lethicum, Maryland Chief Instructor program, Farabaugh taught 900 instructors in 25 states over the next 23 years. He encouraged all of the students in his
M.S.F. classes and instructor prep programs to join the AMA and throughout the 1980s over 600 of his instructor prep graduates became AMA members. His programs and instructors have graduated over 75,000 people and Farabaugh taught 89 instructor preps and more than 300 ERC and MRCRSS classes, before the financial and physical demands placed on the program eventually led him to donating the school to ABATE of Indiana.
Michael has spent the last 32 years as a master photojournalist, traveling the North American continent and Europe to photograph and film people, places and motorcycle events for magazines, newspapers and documentaries. His individual work has been featured in books, calendars, brochures and as an accompaniment to the many motorcycle magazine articles he has published. His photographs have also been displayed in professional art galleries in six states and as a freelance artist Farabaugh’s work appears in Paisano Publications monthly.
As co-founder of the Miracle Ride for Riley Children’s Hospital, Farabaugh has organized events that have contributed $1.65 million to sick children. Michael and Debby also started rides for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the Paraplegic Foundation, Hemophilia, from the 1970s to the 1990s, generating over one million dollars for those organizations. Michael has been chairman of the Miracle Ride for 11 years.
In the last two years, the Farabuaghs have taken the voice of motorcycling news to the airwaves, where they broadcast motorcycle news, politics and issues every Saturday and Sunday morning across Indiana. Guest appearances include everyone from Willie G, to Discovery Channel, to industry VIPs, to local dealers, to the Governor. The two even offer live broadcasts from Sturgis, Daytona Beach and bike events across the USA.
Currently Michael serves as the national motorcycle sales manager for Lucas Oil, where he has worked for the last three years. “I have done three 10,000 mile test rides on all the products related to two wheels,” he told us, adding, “I love the company and the entire team of people who work for Lucas – Lucas is an outstanding and stand up company.”
Among his many awards and acknowledgements, Farabaugh received the AMA’s top award, the “Dud Perkins Award” for dedicated service and in 1989 he was awarded the M.S.F’s top achievement award “John E. Harley Award”. At a breakfast ceremony in Daytona 2002, Michael was inducted into the National Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame. |
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