For your birthday present, @Gorilla George said he was buying all your fork lifts so no one else could get some.
Wow, thanks everybody!!!! I’m driving home from work and stopped to get a Diet Coke and pulled up my favorite place. Lolol Heck is it in my profile, I must be getting old I don’t remember mentioning it on here?
That would be awesome, I just need to get some obnoxious lady to bump into him on his way into my shop. He could afford all of them and I could take a nice vacation. Sounds like a win-win!!!
Actually today was a really fantastic day. Bought a new to me trailer, that is hydraulic and drops flat to the ground, so I can deliver tall stand up forklifts to my customers, without having to rely on another vendor. Plus I can now deliver with the tow truck and send another driver out with my truck and trailer to service our customers. I’ve been working since May trying to get our business approved for Toyota Commercial Finance. Today they finally told me we are approved. I’m learning about the program, but in the “Great American Way” this lets me go into more debt trying to grow my business. Hopefully it will help with sales too, since at least out here, Toyota is the Top Dog and we are now an approved vendor. So only Boman and the Local Toyota dealer have that in all of LA county.
my Rob Linders' story: imagine you are a 25 year old canyon carver, riding way too aggressively on the street. someone mentions to you that track days are where its at, and you should try one. so you do. instantly hooked. a brand new racing series is starting, you have almost no knowledge of how this whole thing works, but dammit your fast in the mountains so you sign up for the New racer school. (CVMA circa 2013?) (what a humbling experience) the track is smooth as butter and your laptimes keep dropping. you are novice, and the bridgestone guy pays novice contingency for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. you are consistently 5-10th but hey, thats the tire to be on just in case. no one else is paying novices. so i pit next door to the bridgestone guy. His name is Tige and he is working with a really fast kid name Tyler Linders. Tige has done my suspension so i figure pitting next to him is smart. he asks me how the bike is between races, hes my tire vendor so i know he has a "somewhat" vested interest in me doing well. anyway, one weekend, first race of the day i crash. low side coming out of the bowl, i pushed too hard on last round's tires (25 year old budget- Tige had told me to change them) anyway, crash truck brings me and the bike back. drops me off, and Rob Linders walks over and surveys the damage. says he has the clip on i need, and will go find the rearset parts i need to get me set up for the next race. he walks the pits finding the parts i need ( i didnt have spares) and comes back and says lets get this thing ready to go for the next race. I didnt know Rob. i didnt know Tyler his son. he was just in the pit next door and saw a young, inexperienced racer in need. i doubt you even remember this Rob, it was such a small thing for a single race weekend but you got me dialed in and ready for the next race (which i was sooooooo slow it isnt even funny) but Rob just said "ill get you set up for the next race" to a total stranger . so awesome. Thanks Rob. (btw Tige is now the MA Tech guy)
Yes, Tige is with motoamerica now. James was working for them and I think Nicole might still be. those were the good old days of WSMC shutting down and CVMA starting up. Tons of crazy memories at the track during those years. One of my favorites was getting a bike brought up so we could swap a motor for Tyler. I believe he blew his bike up in the straight chute between T8/9. We finished late at night and He set the track record for a sv650 the next morning. Rob didn’t want us to go through the trouble of getting the bike to to track, blah blah blah, but we had to. The conditions were perfect and we knew Tyler had it in him to do it on Sunday.
i was always Pitted with Walt Nitto Sr... who bought Gag's evil Duc and ran in the "SV class" that Andy Palmer had such heartburn about him running that bike. Tyler used to do his homework at the track when he wasnt racing, but was super polite to all the "adults" who wanted to talk to the fast kid. Rob raised him right. good times.
We had a lot of fun racing against the blue and yellow bikes. Watched a few blow up before making it to tech inspection as well. We had our share of misfortunes but it was all of good fun and chasing that plastic trophy. A few heated conversations but that’s what competition breeds. I remember the destroked Duc. Know the guy well that started that whole process with Tige and those guys, it was truly a circus. As in, we were a circus just pumping money into SVs and old twins. Tons of fun. A true blast. Btw: Andy and the crew at WCGP were always great to race against. It was a constant raising of each other’s game and then when the org did the thing with AFM, Zoran and Speirs brought guys down and it was even cooler.
Happy birthday from Switzerland now, Egypt tomorrow, got a bottle of rum at the airport, apparently its expensive here
No that story is a classic. I'm glad you shared it. Actually I was impressed how you held onto your morals and did what you thought was right!!! I think it was right too, just not sure if I would have had the balls to execute!!!! I would like to think I would if I got as pissed as you did.