Unknown Speaker 0:00
Let’s do this.

Roy Merritt 0:12
Once again, it’s time to open your ears and maybe the text I sent you. Either way. I think these boys are awesome to give you our point of view. Here on talking breath. This is how we wrote.

Mike VO 0:53
It’s like we’re wearing my headset, Mitch.

Roy Merritt 0:58
Yeah, just shoot to me. It’s just 30 more seconds to the intro.

Kevin Greimel 1:02
Yeah, yeah. And the podcast is nine minutes.

Courtney Groom 1:05
Yeah, that’s it.

Kevin Greimel 1:06
Yeah. Two minutes and 13 seconds of intro four minutes of outro and then we talked for about three and a half minutes in that stuff.

Courtney Groom 1:11
Yeah. Wait so can they hear us right now

Mike VO 1:13
everyone? Oh,

Roy Merritt 1:14
yeah, we’re lying. You hear they hear sweet so welcome back as talking brat we’re in now now it is now we are in the now what’s happening now is happening is happening now. I want to go back to then we’re cramming one more episode in 2019. We have had a busy year and did not get nearly as many episodes out as we thought we could. So we’re cramming one in here at the end. We do have a guest tonight. We have a couple of guests and a phone call. Yeah, we have a phone call from a very interesting guy that I personally know down in Florida who raises an xr 1200 Harley Davidson as well as like a KTM Super Duke and some other stuff. So definitely a you know Motorsports racing. fanatic if you will. And he does it all on his own dime and for personal gain, you know? No other real reason. So we also have Courtney. So nice. It’s a female voice you hear all my salesmen here with us. And we’re a sales lady so salesman,

Courtney Groom 2:18
salesman, yeah. salesman. Yeah, it just it rolls off the tongue. It’s so does

Roy Merritt 2:22
we also have Tyler, not a salesman is not a salesman. Tyler is a new guy that we brought into the shop. Pretty much fresh out of MMI. Phoenix. So we thought maybe we could touch on that a little bit later. You know, he’s had an interesting ride. Definitely not the typical fresh out of school ride that most of these guys get. So I’m sure he in talking with other people is in a whole different journey than most guys get out of school. So it’ll be interesting to talk about that for a little bit. But, so, Courtney, how long have you been Riding

Courtney Groom 3:01
like two wheels like dirt bikes Yeah, I’ll probably like four. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 3:05
yeah just share since you were four till

Unknown Speaker 3:07
the phones yeah since I was

Courtney Groom 3:09
not all four but it was pretty close you know? 94 Same difference

Roy Merritt 3:13
Yeah. So you know what, what do you think we always like to ask everyone you know what, what got you the bug, if they will and what would you know what do you think that moment was or what was it they kind of knew you knew in that moment that I’m screwed. This is where I want to be.

Courtney Groom 3:31
So I kind of fell into the whole Harley Davidson dealership thing. I had actually never stepped foot into a dealership in my entire life. I grew up on a Harley on the back of it with my dad, my old man, my uncles, all that good stuff. And yeah, I randomly got approached in a parking lot asking weird story, right way to start it. But now, this guy’s like, have you ever thought about selling motorcycles? And I was like, I mean, yeah, just some random guy. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Hey, he heard me He heard me applying at a bartending job and he’s like you should come apply at this dealership and I was like alright I’ll check it out McGrath to be a Harley Davidson shout out what up

Kevin Greimel 4:08
though? Were you with your dad or your old man? Because you mentioned that you wrote on the back of both

Courtney Groom 4:12
my dad is my old man okay, but it just depends. Cuz yeah it gets very confusing

Kevin Greimel 4:18
that I wrote with my dad my old man my uncle.

Courtney Groom 4:20
Yeah, my dad Well, my dad is my old man just clear 90% of the stories Yeah, yeah,

Kevin Greimel 4:26
but yeah not everybody knows the you know the lingo

Courtney Groom 4:28
That’s true. I’ll give you that so typically speaking if I say an old man you know cuz I’m like single is fog that it’s probably my throat

Unknown Speaker 4:40
want to go back over

Kevin Greimel 4:42
and write on the if you look in the in the comments and the credits or phone numbers be listed, right.

You don’t need to put in the credits. Here’s my phone number.

Courtney Groom 5:00
No just party

DTP I like it I like it. Um, no, it just kind of fell into I’ve been doing it for three and a half years now so absolutely love it. adore it. Want it? I don’t think I could ever do anything again. Neck tattoos don’t help either. Yeah, yeah I fell into it love it love moonshine love Jamie love the guys here, baddest shop I’ve ever been in, in the last three and a half years of going to Harley shops for the motor builds and just the, you know, clientele we have we have a lot of fun

Roy Merritt 5:32
employees. We try we try to do other stuff as well. And I think, you know, getting together and other projects like this and other stuff helps us at work as well. You know, it’s it’s fun and you know, it’s interesting to meet different people like we said, like Tyler, you know, you’ve been here about

Kevin Greimel 5:55
three and a half, four months. It’s been a

Roy Merritt 5:57
long time. You’ve Pretty much the throat. You got to get it. Use both hands. Hold it.

Kevin Greimel 6:06
Yeah, put it right up right up there and just go.

Roy Merritt 6:09
Yeah, he doesn’t have a fancy you

Kevin Greimel 6:10
don’t Yeah, you don’t you don’t have to be embarrassed. We’re all friends. Just not gonna do there you go see ya hear me now? Yeah, see how when you get really close to the big black thing?

Unknown Speaker 6:24
Yeah,

Kevin Greimel 6:25
yeah, we’re telling me I gotta hold it and cup it

Courtney Groom 6:28
over the throat you know,

Kevin Greimel 6:30
it’s like I grew up the plains of Illinois.

Roy Merritt 6:33
So I think Kevin, come to call me here in a minute. And just a little precursor. You know, like I said, I don’t know if I said it after the intro or not, you know, but he’s into, I guess you would call it amateur racing. I don’t I don’t believe he’s really sponsored by anybody heavy heavily or anything like that. I’m sure he’s gotten some swag here and there along the way. I mean, you don’t do that stuff without getting some. But he’s running xr 1200 It’s, it’s pretty heavily modified at this point. You know, it’s rake neck and suspension. I think he’s got a 1250 1275 something like that kid on it now and I believe he was pushing 107 horse if I remember correctly, and he, I guess he bought, I’d love to talk to him about it and see what he says because, you know, he kind of started out as fun he bought this xR and came into the dealership and he did a couple of things and meet him kind of hit it off. And then he bought a Road Glide and I did a tire spreader kit on his Road Glide, and some other stuff. And I told him like I am so jealous of your garage right now because you have a tricked out Road Glide and an xr 1200 I was like it doesn’t get any better than that to me, you know, that’s even I think he’s even got speakers in the saddlebags and everything on the Road Glide, you know, it’s done up and we kind of hit it off and I you know, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to him about. I was like, how do you get into it because I you know, I don’t really I know he was riding with some stuff. Port Mike guys is I think how he kind of got into it and they were like, Oh trackdays you’re gonna come do this. And then it became a thing and then a more regular thing. And then he’s got a trailer and then, you know, all this stuff and I kidded with him when he first started. I’m like Kevin grimble Racing man, Kevin, Kevin grimble racing. He’s like, Oh, yeah, I’m just doing it for fun. And now he’s got two bikes and maybe 33 I don’t know if ask him. I know, he sent me a picture of his new 1290 KTM that is pretty sick. You know? I was like, That looks like fun. And he’s like, yeah, 100 and yeah, yeah, it’s over 100 horse and torque. So you know, it was

Unknown Speaker 8:38
25 pounds. Oh, yeah.

Roy Merritt 8:40
Yeah. So but yeah, you know, it’s interesting because we’ve we’ve kind of dabbled in the the flat track racing. Now. I think everybody, everybody gets drag racing. You know, I mean, anybody can take their mom’s station wagon out to the local drag strip and drag it and has done it at one point or another. I think So I think for the most part there’s not there’s not a lot of gray area to drag racing flat tracks was a lot of gray area to me on like what what needed to be done and you know what he does something I would love to do I would love to have a track bike you know something to go take out to the track maybe once a month for the weekend and go you know, just hammer a bike around a track and have you know, just that I don’t know that rush I guess you could say of just really throwing a bike around I try to get that every day when I ride you know, and then that’s going to kill me one day you know, obviously but you know, I don’t know if it would make it worse or better. You know, having that track time I don’t know if it would get it out of my system.

Courtney Groom 9:39
It probably just raise the addiction.

Aaron Staudinger 9:41
Yeah, race as long as I did. Like you find yourself you don’t need that outlet anymore. Yeah, get out of your system at the track complete. Yeah,

Roy Merritt 9:48
yeah. Oh, let’s see here.

Mike VO 9:53
Is this gonna work?

Unknown Speaker 9:56
Here we go.

Unknown Speaker 9:58
Hello.

Mike VO 10:02
Can you hear me now?

Unknown Speaker 10:04
Hello.

Courtney Groom 10:05
Good.

Kevin Greimel 10:12
One of the one of the best parts about our podcast is we don’t ever try anything in debates.

Courtney Groom 10:17
Absolutely not.

Kevin Greimel 10:19
Before we Yeah, but not on the road. Not what the new equipment we did and the last time it took like three times are you there?

Courtney Groom 10:26
I was gonna say, I was like only the beers only the beers.

Roy Merritt 10:30
Can you hear me?

Courtney Groom 10:35
You gotta make sure it’s good. Oh, I know why.

Unknown Speaker 10:39
It’s not plugged in. I’m plugging the wrong thing. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 10:41
that’s funny.

Courtney Groom 10:42
Oh, yeah, they’re there.

Roy Merritt 10:45
Hey, Kevin, are you there?

Unknown Speaker 10:47
Hello, there Yeah,

Roy Merritt 10:48
there is there it is. Sorry. I was having some technical difficulties,

Unknown Speaker 10:52
technical difficulties.

Roy Merritt 10:54
It was a square peg round hole. So, you know, it was kind of one of those things. How are you doing, man?

Unknown Speaker 11:01
Very good. Thank you very much.

Roy Merritt 11:03
Yeah. Well, it’s good to talk with you. I was just kind of talking here with the mic I got so I got Mike and Courtney and Tyler and Aaron are here with me. We all you know, we kind of dabble a little bit everything and we were talking about, you know, you taking your bikes out to the track. And, you know, it’s kind of a gray area to most people, I think, you know, as to what is involved in and really how you get into it, or you know, what it is that you guys do are doing out there?

Kevin Greimel 11:39
Um, well, it was, um, it was funny we were we were right on the street. And it just wasn’t. It wasn’t as exhilarating as it probably should be to most people, you know, at some point. Some people want to take it a step further. And it’s just not safe to be able to do that. If you’re Riding on the street. Yeah. I was crazy enough. I ended up having a, the sportiest bike that Harley Davidson made. I’m an xr 1200. And they actually had an AMA class where they raced them. So I’ve said, Well, if they can do it, then I can do it

Aaron Staudinger 12:19
on pavement or was that on dirt?

Kevin Greimel 12:21
pavement? Yeah,

Aaron Staudinger 12:22
remember that class. It was a full class of the of those bikes specifically made for that bike. That was really badass.

Unknown Speaker 12:28
Yeah, you could actually go to Vance Hines, and buy like a 20 $800 kit that had a front wheel. They went from 18 to a 17 inch front wheel and exhaust system had a little tuner on them. And then you could do some suspension upgrades. And they made you put the rear engine mounts in because the rear end of the bike would twist up so much, you come out of a corner and they’d untwist and throw you over the top of it high side. So they made you put polybag propylene bushings in the rear end, so that that pretty much stopped the twisting of the frame. But yeah, so I got one of those and decided I was going to go to the track with a bunch of people that I ride with here in Central Florida. We’re lucky enough to have a number of tracks here close by. And I just started running on running on the on the racetrack and did that for about a year. And then I decided that I was going to go race. Yeah, um, it just it was a progression for me, Hey, I’m relatively good with this. I guess I want to race. So um, after track days and classes and things like that, a lot of track time. I went actually to Newark, New Jersey, to there the Motorsports Park up there and took a race class. Got my race license.

Mike VO 14:03
It was a What does that entail? Like how do you actually get a race license?

Unknown Speaker 14:08
Um, well, first of all you have to have your, I guess we should start with the bike. The bike has to be set up to be safe on the racetrack. You have to have safety wiring for your calipers, you have to have an oil pan in case something drips, it doesn’t leak on the track. Any kind of oil plug, filter drain all has to be safety wire so it won’t come out on your axle bolts. For me, I have a lot of oil lines on this Harley Davidson I have to add to safety wire every single one of them. A suspension wise you have to set the set of the bike up so that you can actually go around the track. And then once the bike is set up, then you go into gear you have to have a handle It’s not any more than five years old and it meets all the standards for whichever organization that you base with dot

Unknown Speaker 15:10
European EC you know, oh

Unknown Speaker 15:14
yeah so you have to you have to have your helmet has to qualify for gloves full boots and then you have to have a full leather race suit

Kevin Greimel 15:24
do they allow any in some classes you know with the receipt still allow like a mesh like in your in your legs and under your armpits? Do they allow that?

Unknown Speaker 15:36
Yeah, I have Kevlar in mind. It’s just there’s some but I my whole suit is perforated

Kevin Greimel 15:42
and probably right.

Unknown Speaker 15:44
I actually run a two piece that almost. Yeah, I haven’t been anywhere that they have said anything. And I’ve run Daytona. So,

Roy Merritt 15:54
yeah. Right now how many of the tracks Did you run last season?

Unknown Speaker 16:00
Okay, so we’ll go bounce back real quick let’s go back to the den you take the race school so once you have plenty of time on the track and you can qualify and you’re not an amateur basically you’re running an expert groups you can go and take a race class and therefore they go into a bunch of different techniques. I had two full days of classroom and then track time classroom track time classroom track time for two full days we even read books during lunch kind of thing. Yeah, and then you had to finish the race weekend without any falls and then once you did that, you you got your race session shows the four days of very intensive training for me to be able to get my race license so did you

Kevin Greimel 16:44
have to be able to like go around the track at a certain amount of time to call it like as a qualifier?

Unknown Speaker 16:49
No as safely going around the track hold your lines on your Radek. predictability builds safety There is a race line that you is the fastest way around the track. You expect people to take that race line. Now you that can vary slightly. But if they’re dodging in and out and going all over the place, it becomes a hazard to everyone around them. Yeah. So that’s really the kind of thing that they’re looking for in that because especially with Arma, which is the organization, one of the organizations I run with, they run vintage bikes. So you can’t expect the 1934 pre war Harley Davidson to go around the track with the same speed as a Ducati. You can’t either there’s no way to put a time for that, you know, yeah. They even raised a steel hand shifters, you know, it’s, they, they do some really very nice stuff with in that organization. So,

Aaron Staudinger 17:46
um, as it relates to like the affordability of that kind of research that you do, what kind of rules do they have in place on the bikes, you know, that limit me from putting titanium this and that and carbon fiber and all kinds of super exotic stuff on my bike too, you know, is there a minimum weight? Are there tech inspections that limit what you can do for horsepower for, you know, anything? Like what are the limitations that help control the cost of that level of racing that you’re in?

Unknown Speaker 18:15
Um, it depends on the class. Yeah. Yeah. So in so and in that I can’t give you an exact example. But like, let’s say that like, if, like in my in my class that I run my KTM and it’s a singles class under 700 CCS, so I can do my bikes is 690. So I’m just barely under that cc limit. Um, besides that, I can do anything I want to with a suspension. I can do anything I want to with the frame. There’s guys that have built. One of the guys I raced against who’s actually way faster than me is running a 450 Yamaha with a custom frame that he built, like 450 I mean dirt bike, from like, 1986 to two Two stroke that he put on and I’m racing against him. It’s a big single. And he’s sad blazing fast on that thing. Yeah. Um, one of the things they try to do is because they can’t really limit that, but what about the guy that’s racing the Moto three bike from 1962. And it has, he just just got it, and he wants to go out and he wants to run it. There’s a class for him to be in. It’s the Moto three class. But you can also run the RC 390. Duke in that same class, because that’s where that new bike fits.

Aaron Staudinger 19:34
That whole set up a lot like SCCA club style racing, where everyone’s got, you know, there’s a niche for kind of everything that shows up.

Unknown Speaker 19:41
Yeah, yeah. Correct. Arma doesn’t do as much. Newer bikes, it’s harder to find niches. So we’re not gonna you’re not gonna bring a 600 gs xR out and run it with Arma at today, they don’t have a class for you.

Roy Merritt 19:57
Yeah, what so what do you end up running? Against with the Harley is just other Harley’s or,

Unknown Speaker 20:04
actually, there’s only john Foy, who lives here in Central Florida. He has an old ama spec bike that he runs. And then there’s a guy in Mike Scott who does some stuff out in like Wyoming. And there’s one other guy that runs in California. And that’s it. Those are the only x ours that are running in the country right now. I’m crazy. Oh, man. Yeah. So there’s four of us. Four of us that run them, so it’s really swell. And so I have I raced against john Foy, but his ama spec bike is not what my bike is. Yeah.

Aaron Staudinger 20:48
So you have in your bike right now to be competitive at the level you are

Unknown Speaker 20:53
my life sitting in here

Roy Merritt 21:05
You got a lot of time and other stuff on there to through the year

Unknown Speaker 21:11
a lot through the years um the major things that I’ve done with the bike that that I really bought brought up the level of my bike are the Owens inserts in the front suspension yeah um the the scoring from an 18 inch front wheel to a 17 inch front wheel

Aaron Staudinger 21:40
and that just centralizing the mass in the front end is makes it tip and easier.

Unknown Speaker 21:44
Yes, I actually even well and it’s also it’s lowering the front end I’m also have the triple tree that I have in the front also brings the front end in a degree and a half. So shorten the bike. Yeah, I run clip ons right than motocross bars, so again bringing my weight down over the front more, bring myself closer to the bike. Actually, I have the polypropylene bushings in the rear. Why SS cartridge, rear shocks, marching Seni rims.

Mike VO 22:22
I didn’t even know they made my road bike rims. I

Unknown Speaker 22:29
ordered them they do the whole Moto GP series. And so I ordered them and it was eight and a half months before I actually got the wheels any aluminum or carbon, aluminum. You can get carbon fiber wheels for this. But

Mike VO 22:46
you can also buy two other sportsters

Roy Merritt 22:52
we do carbon fiber wheels here from time to time so we definitely know the cost.

Unknown Speaker 22:56
Yes, yeah, no, they’re ridiculous. And truthfully the emergencies weren’t far off

Unknown Speaker 23:03
that

Unknown Speaker 23:06
you know, they’re expensive, it’s all expensive. And then the thing so if

Unknown Speaker 23:13
the tires, the tires that you that you ride with these, then you also have your equipment and then your tires and and your overall maintenance for the bike. because realistically you push this bike to its absolute limit for three or four days, once a month, you if you make that bike give you everything it has. So when you come back after a weekend or even during the weekend, you’re changing tires. So I go through basically a set of tires a weekend for the bike. The way I’ve got it set up as I like put a new set on before my races, and then I can go through and the next time I’m on the track, I can use those for my practice day. And then I put a new set on and you know, I rotate them like that. But that’s about How good sometimes with the more powerful leader bikes and stuff, they’re going through a set of tires a day.

Aaron Staudinger 24:06
Don’t you run for slicks? Or do you have to have like,

Unknown Speaker 24:09
an absolute full full slicks. Full slicks I run in an SC two, which is a medium compound on the front and an SC one on the rear, closer because fast enough on my Harley to make the rear end want to slide out so I’ve had to go to a softer compound. It’s coming out of a corner and throwing a five mountain bike sideways is it’s exhilarating.

Unknown Speaker 24:36
When it stays where it’s supposed to,

Roy Merritt 24:38
well, you know, you know how I feel about that bike. You know, I love that bike. I’m a big fan of the XRS. And, you know, to be able to take one out, drag that that’s like super cool to me. You know, something like that. It’s just I think, you know, we’ve been getting into the flat tracks and stuff up here. I know you’ve probably seen some of the pictures and stuff.

Unknown Speaker 24:59
Yes, yes.

Roy Merritt 25:00
It That is ridiculous amounts of fun, by the way, especially up here in Tennessee. It’s very old school the way everything kind of works up here. So it’s kind of just run what you brung and have a good time.

Kevin Greimel 25:11
I think there’s kind of a whole nationwide grassroots there as well. So so

Roy Merritt 25:16
flat track racing, I read an article the other day that flat track racing was the fastest growing sport in America went from something like 800 and something thousand guests or whatever you want to say in like 2016 to like 2.5 million last year, whatever it was, so it’s like growing leaps and bounds and I think that this kind of stuff that track racing like you’re doing Kevin, stuff like that is kind of what’s going to push the future of power sports forward in the right direction. You just make it gets people excited. You know, it gives you something more to do than to ride it to work and back, right I mean, or right? Yeah,

Kevin Greimel 25:53
well and the private tier, like like Aaron said, you know, to be for it to be affordable for private tutors. Do it. Because you know, you can’t compete in the Moto GP? Oh, no, no, that’s, that’s something Yeah, that’s something that you start when you’re a kid and you have the backing when you’re seven

Unknown Speaker 26:11
and right. You know what guys are

Unknown Speaker 26:14
those guys are just, I mean it it’s one of those things where I think I’m fast until one of the guys that’s not even on their level goes by me like I’m standing still on the track. Yeah. You know it’s it’s unbelievable. It’s a little thing that I always did go straight to tell I was running at homestead actually there’s a on the homestead the NASCAR track down there last year and I was out on the Harley. And there’s one of the kids that runs in, he’s not in my class, but he’s running out there with our practice group. And he comes up to me, he’s 11 years old and he comes up to me, he goes, man, you’re fast on that thing. I had a really hard time catching up. You arrived he’s like a 125

Unknown Speaker 27:09
years. He’s just ridiculously fast. He weighs 72 pounds. Yeah, you know, my left leg weighs more than him. And, and it’s just No, he just, you know, he just eats people alive. He’s got more talent than he knows what to do it and he’s put him on a bike and he can just absolutely fly so you know,

Roy Merritt 27:26
is it Are there a lot of kids out there is there

Unknown Speaker 27:30
there are there are a bunch of kids. Damien gigolo off is probably one of the best notes kids from from this southern region. I’ve seen him run a couple times at a couple different tracks. He runs pre Moto GP in Europe now and he’s from this area. Oh, really? I think he might be from up there. Georgia, maybe Tennessee. But yeah, he’s from this area and just ridiculous. He fast. There’s a lot of young girls. Lexi is ridiculously fast. She’s getting really close to starting to raise moto America that speed and take over and then she, you know, 13 years old and she’s just she’s just a phenol, you know, just absolutely amazingly fast. A couple couple enchi races FMR a which is Florida

Unknown Speaker 28:25
motorcycle road racing, which is the local group that I also raced with

Unknown Speaker 28:33
his word gridding like at homestead last weekend, they graded close to 40 people at the Moto three class. Wow, awesome. 40 bikes on the starting line. I mean, that’s just crazy, that they’re putting those numbers there and that’s, that’s a 600 classes the same way. And the later bikes are the same way. I mean, there’s there’s 600 racers on a weekend with their families and everything out there. They’re putting that time Big it is just here in Florida.

Roy Merritt 29:02
Yeah. And we’re seeing the same thing on the flat tracks. You know, I was, I was really impressed with the families, you know, the kids, the the younger generation getting into it. And I think that that’s what everybody needs to promote no matter who you like or what you ride or what it is. I think, you know, getting the younger generation into this and actually having fun and, you know, showing people that you can have fun when you do it.

Unknown Speaker 29:24
Oh, yeah, you know, my dad threw me on a car 50 back at 1974. And by 1975, one year later, we were on a motocross track. And we raced motocross into here about 13 parents got divorced. That was the end of that, but you know, we were introduced to racing motorcycles. Yeah, um, and we got to run some flat track stuff. Because like trail, a Speedway a big place and up in Pennsylvania. They had a flat track right next to the motocross track. So Friday night when we got there. They let us go out and run.

Kevin Greimel 29:58
Yeah, so Hi. How’d you get into this? Like, what do you what do you do if I want to decide to go and try my hand at a racetrack? What do I need to do?

Unknown Speaker 30:08
Find out a local track near you. And then you can look and find out when they’re having track days.

Kevin Greimel 30:16
on a track day is just track a day where anybody can go and ride

Unknown Speaker 30:20
anybody you can go basically, they have, they have a tech in the morning some tracks like in Jennings, which is up near the Georgia border, um, Florida Georgia border there. They let you self tech and then sometimes with different organizations who run track days. So let’s say sport bike track time rents that track for a weekend, you sign up with sport bike track time, and you can run for the weekend. Basically, if you have a street bike, and you want to take it for the track, you got to make sure you have a good helmet. You got to make sure you have boots, you got to make sure you have gloves. You Gotta make sure you have a leather suit. Safety is absolutely number one. sure how well can you protect yourself in case you fall? Because everybody knows on a motorcycle, it’s not if it’s when, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 31:15
And the

Kevin Greimel 31:16
tech for everybody that doesn’t know what that is that’s go to the motorcycle, like to check it out to make sure that the motorcycle is safe for the track. And like you were saying earlier, you’re not gonna leak oil all over the place and cause a hazard for other riders and your wheels are gonna fall off. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 31:31
so if you’re gonna go for your first track day, don’t expect to you know, I see a lot of people going, I also teach people at the track and teach the beginners and go through a full course with them for a weekend and you know, for their first track weekends. So you want to find a group that actually has somebody that will help instruct you. Most of them do. So, you have you go to the track, make sure you have more than tires. If you have half of a tire left, that’s not enough for the weekend. They’re not gonna pass you check. Make sure you don’t have any oil leaks, you handle everything. You don’t have to be safety wired and all the rest of that stuff. You’re really not going to be going fast enough for that to happen again, I see people coming in they think they’re going to go out there and be Andre Rossi and they’re not you’re just not there. You know, it’s funny how these guys that are street warriors, they come out and they’re the slowest guys and it’s you have to talk them on how to actually learn how to ride their bike again. It’s just different. You have to take all the glass or remove your headlights, remove your turn signals, remove your mirrors, get your license plate off the bike

Aaron Staudinger 32:44
is is taping acceptable when you do stuff like that. What’s that is taping of the lights acceptable in your class? Yes

Unknown Speaker 32:50
it yes it is. I’m blue painters tape. Make sure you pull your your your fuse for your lights so you don’t melt the tape onto the They had like, I’ve seen that happen. Yeah,

Roy Merritt 33:02
I was gonna say I could definitely see that happening.

Kevin Greimel 33:04
So but I mean, what about so? Isn’t it embarrassing? You know, like, you go out there and and you’re nervous anyway and then you’re just gonna have these 11 year old kids just smoking You see, it seems like it would be, it would be like a big reason that people wouldn’t do it is because they’d be so nervous that they are that they’re gonna suck, you know, because we have such this emphasis now in our society about being able to be Instagram worthy, YouTube worthy, you know what I mean? And this immediate recognition of, of talent, it takes hard work. Oh, I know.

Unknown Speaker 33:40
Leave your leave. First of all, you can leave your ego at home. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 33:44
right. And you go out.

Unknown Speaker 33:47
You know what, you’re the only person that you race on a track day is yourself. Did you get around the track? Are you leaving with a big huge smile on your face with your bike in yourself? In the same condition as you got there, you win. Yeah, yeah. That’s how you win attract a Can I did I have an amazing weekend? Can I now ride my bike better than when I went to the track, you win. That’s how you decide on a track day whether or not you win. I have timers and all kinds of stuff in here. That’s great for me at racing. In some days, when I go out and I’m practicing, I’ll run a timer. There’s no reason for anybody to run a timer. It’s not about how fast you go on the track. And not until you get to an advanced group where it starts to matter where they’re going to say, okay, guess what, you’re fast enough that we don’t want you in the novice group anymore. We want you in the intermediate group. Yeah, your lines are good. You know, it’s amazing how many people can’t Apex corner. Um, or break correctly going into a corner or hold a line as they’re going through a corner work on body position. It goes on and on and on, and the more the better you get at all these different parts of writing. around that track, then you start to progress.

Kevin Greimel 35:02
And that’s just the camaraderie and your peer group getting instruction as a as you’re going around, right. I mean, there

Unknown Speaker 35:09
yeah, that level you should have teachers. What’s what I think it

Aaron Staudinger 35:13
started, can does your organization, issue pit passes?

Unknown Speaker 35:18
Oh, yeah, you can come and watch an event anytime you want. I was just

Aaron Staudinger 35:21
gonna say like a great way to get started a way I got started when I was 21 years old. When I started racing. I have an old track racing background. I did 14 years I raised, you know, late models, modifieds, trucks, all kinds of different stuff. And the way I got started, I broke through that barrier of finally getting the courage to just buy a pit pass. And I walked back into the pits. And I spent probably three or four weekends convincing myself that I had it within me to like, you know what, I could see myself doing this. And you do that enough, you gain the courage and you start to talk to people, and you start to figure out what it takes to get it done. And the next You know, you’re buying a car and the next thing you know you’re, you’re doing it. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s what I would recommend to a lot of people is these organizations will issue you at pit pass. If you go up, go back there and start talking to the racers start to figure out what it takes to get this done. Look around you what’s going on, buy your bike, and then just pay attention to the fast guys watch what they’re doing. Watch how they do and most of these guys will talk to you and tell you what they’re doing. So yeah, little things they’ll keep to themselves because they’re trying to be ultra competitive but you know, can pick up a lot just spending your time and doing your 10,000 hours you know, they always say is 10,000 hours a week, you know, really good at anything. But

Unknown Speaker 36:39
Step one is to go to a track day and see how you like it. A lot of tracks will rent you suits, they have leather suits, it’s a huge investment for a leather suit. You can get into like an entry level one is like three or 400 bucks. And then up up from there, but you can go and usually for like 50 bucks. You can rent your equipment for the weekend. You

Roy Merritt 37:05
Yeah, don’t

Unknown Speaker 37:08
recommend renting a suit for the first time you go spend the money for a suit and then find out this is not for me. Yeah, you know, you’re gonna know at the end of the weekend, whether or not it’s something that you want to do again, basically, if you if the way you look at it is one day at the track is equal to one year on the street. That’s how much better a person you’re going to be how much better of a writer you’re going to be. One day we’ll add that much experience to your writing ability. It’s ridiculous. everything slows down on the street for you. Because you’re going at such a rate you’re having to focus on so many different things at the track that when you go back out in the street, everything just slows. It’s like wow, I got plenty term time for this turn. I can break here and did it I look at that car coming at me really slow. And even though it’s almost the same speed that it used to be Everything happens so much faster on the track that you’re you get become accustomed and trained to reaction times and how you look around you. And it’s just beep Omni, you’re on the vision of looking around at everything, I’m there No, uh, mirrors on the track, you are only responsible for what’s in front of you. So you don’t care what’s going on behind you at all. But you have to be kind of know what’s going on there. So it’s kind of like you have to feel it in the corners, you take looks and things like that. So, so you become much more attuned to what’s going on around you because you don’t have the ability just to look and do stuff. You know, you’re focused I recommend when you go to the racetrack, put a piece of tape over your speedometer. Leave the tachometer output. put a piece of tape over this but amateur who cares Faster going, it’s just something you’re gonna go into a corner and you’re gonna look down at the speedometer, you’re gonna blow the corner. Yeah, it’s one of those things.

Kevin Greimel 39:09
I think most of the actual like, pro level race vehicles Don’t even ask builders it’s irrelevant your pit versus gonna tell you how fast you’re going. And you know, you can tell by the rest of the pack if you’re going fast enough, or

Unknown Speaker 39:21
if you’re in the back, you need to go fast.

Unknown Speaker 39:28
Um, but it’s the track a the racing thing is, is not you know, oh, I want to go out and road racing. You couldn’t you can have that thought. But really go to a track day and find out whether you enjoy doing it. It’s a commitment. The more time you put in the seat of your bike and the more time you spend on a racetrack, just practicing and practicing and practicing,

Unknown Speaker 39:54
the better you’re gonna be. Yeah.

Aaron Staudinger 39:56
Now, you talked a little bit earlier too about pushing the bike to its limit. Talk to us a little bit about the maintenance that it takes to have something that will stay on the track when you treat it the way that you’re doing, you know, you flog it like like you are

Unknown Speaker 40:07
right so basically um

Unknown Speaker 40:11
I I’ve actually progressed a whole bunch since Roy lived here and was my mechanic because I relied on a lot of stuff. Um, so tires, I do all my own tires at this point, I have scans everything. Um, I don’t know I pull them off the bike and we take I take them to to my Pirelli dealer mounts and balances all my tires for me for free. So don’t worry about that at all at the track, so I buy tires, he mounts and balances does all that stuff for free. He five minutes and he’s got tires done, you know, he’s just doing them all day long when bing bing bing bing bing bang. So you got to make sure your tires are right. But what you also have is you have warmers that go on the tires, so your tires because they’re slicks they have to be at 195 degrees before you even touch them. Whereas road tires will heat up you go for one slow lap and then they’ll heat up and then you’re good. As slicks you want hot when you go on the track, so you’re not pushing it right off the bat and losing grip.

Aaron Staudinger 41:11
And that’s f1 stuff right there.

Unknown Speaker 41:14
So you have to very diligently monitor tire pressure. And the tire pressure is also not only what you know what tire pressure you want, so I would run it normally I would run like a 34 in the front and a 25 pounds in the rear. And now if it’s colder, I’m going to run a little bit more pressure because I want the tire to be able to keep the heat in it. It’s super hot, I’m gonna have to take some out, it bounces back and forth. Some tracks might be really slick. They just put a new surface on barber before nationals last year. So we were up at like 32 in the rear and 40 on the front, just to keep the tires on the bike because the surface was so grippy that it was terrible. ripping the tires right off the bike like two or three sessions and you put a new set of tires on

Aaron Staudinger 42:04
now as the tire tires get hot or you run a nitrogen in them or air or what

Unknown Speaker 42:10
just air real just air

Aaron Staudinger 42:12
so you just don’t worry about the balance changing too much. Um,

Unknown Speaker 42:17
no it’s 80% nitrogen

Mike VO 42:18
well yeah man

Aaron Staudinger 42:20
oval track racing man a 10th of a pound would make the car do really weird stuff. I’m

Unknown Speaker 42:28
half pounds curious. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 42:30
you’re half pound increments. I’m

Unknown Speaker 42:35
in a Moto GP level they probably run or but in my Harley Davidson that weighs 500 pounds a half pounds not gonna

Kevin Greimel 42:47
keep it realistic here.

Unknown Speaker 42:49
Um, okay, so also like, every weekend, I I pulled my brake calipers. I change the brakes out I make sure pushing out, pull the pistons, clean my pistons, put them all back in brake fluid to last longer than a couple, you know, couple weekends. Put it all back together rebleed the brakes, make sure that all your brakes are good. That’s just after every single race or race weekend, change the brakes. Halfway through the weekend you change check your brakes just to make sure everything’s good, but do it. Full oil change and everything after every race weekend. There’s none of this 3000 miles stuff. Yeah, no, it’s you just have to you change everything after after a weekend. Air Filter gets pulled. It depends on the weekend. It depends on the track, but usually, I can get away with about two or three races before I pull the air out air filter out and clean it all. And I’ve cleaned it and roil it all as per Roy’s instructions.

Roy Merritt 43:57
Sounds like you’re doing good

Unknown Speaker 44:00
He did it and realistically checking the suspension and resetting the suspension the front front forks on my bike, but set with Olins. And they were done by thermos man who’s a guy who did these bikes back in the day when they were racing. And so I can’t really mess with those too much because they’re not adjustable from the outside, you actually have to take the inside apart. So I did the best I can was setting my springs and my, to my weight and size and my riding style. And I’ve done pretty well with that with With his help. On the rear, I can adjust my shocks a bunch, if depending on the track, depending on whether I need to, you know, put some preload in or, you know, take a little bit out because the rebounds a little heavy. You know, there’s a lot of different ways that the track surface can affect your suspension, so you can play with that a little bit. The blank now is tuned and done on 100 race gas So it doesn’t really run on regular gas anymore. Well, it does but not real well. Um so you have to make sure that you have gas before you go to track some tracks have gas there, but for the most part, take gas with you to races. So there’s a

Roy Merritt 45:16
you’re pushing what was like 107 horse out of that thing right now.

Unknown Speaker 45:21
100 and 505 okay 105 with 91 foot pounds of torque. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 45:29
And yeah, so I’m also running the it was actually a stock gear for Brazil and for Japan and they call it a Daytona gear. But the primary has changed out to a 38 from a 34 tooth. Okay, at 70 miles an hour. 500 RPM is what it changed. So, Daytona Daytona this year. I’m hoping to get close to 150

Roy Merritt 45:59
nice miles. An hour.

Unknown Speaker 46:00
Yeah. Which is smoking. Yeah, hundred 50 fast. Um, last last year I hit 131 at the rev limiter. So at

Roy Merritt 46:10
Daytona, did they run? Do they run the banks at all?

Unknown Speaker 46:13
They do. They do run one in two hours you, you go across the finish line. And then you bounce down into the infield and you do a big sweeping left, that then gets really tight, then you go to a right and then you do a big sweeping another right and then you do a left and you come back up onto the banking and you go all the way around and then you hit into the back and you hit a little skein in the back. Yeah. And then you go back up and you go around the last corner and all the way back around to the finish line. The guys on the leader bikes are up on the wall. I mean 200 miles an hour plus, I was running about mid track. So it’s, it’s it’s pretty crazy being on a on a wall and going fast. It’s a pretty amazing homestead. doesn’t really have to bank it. That that’s for sure.

Roy Merritt 47:04
Yeah, well I know they have the the infield track there because I’ve been out there a bunch but and sometimes they run them sometimes they don’t run the banks, you know, depending on on who’s running and what they’re doing. But yeah, that’s always been a dream. We don’t need to base Yeah, that’s always been a dream. Take a bike out on a Daytona man that definitely is on a bucket list for sure.

Unknown Speaker 47:25
So they have a track day that you can go and you sign up and it’s hammer school, and it’s actually race school for um, you can get, you can get your race license there. And they take you out and you spend the day in a class. They do it in the in the fall, when they do the racing, they’re in the fall for the the team race, which is on leader bikes, and then in the spring, of course they do the 200 nets on 600. So the two days before that are practices for forever. Else, but then they also have a class and you can learn to take the class and you can ride it as a track day. I will teach you how to run Daytona.

Roy Merritt 48:08
I will do that when I come by my Livewire.

Unknown Speaker 48:11
Oh, that’s

Roy Merritt 48:14
good. I hadn’t seen anything. Have you seen any electric bikes or anything out on the tracks at all?

Unknown Speaker 48:19
Arma actually has a class. Yeah. And they run the zeroes and a couple other different kinds of bikes and I don’t know any of the specs on those bikes. Yeah, my buddy Arthur here runs one. I know that the first race that I went to up in New Jersey,

Unknown Speaker 48:37
they actually the

Unknown Speaker 48:40
Virginia Tech,

Unknown Speaker 48:43
or, yeah, one of the technical colleges up there, actually built, designed and built a electric bike and raced it and did relatively well. It was a little heavier than the production bikes. Yeah, but it did relatively well and they got it to go around and they actually raised It was like their senior project.

Roy Merritt 49:02
So in college if you see a live wire on the track make note I want to know how it does you’re dying to get one out on track 13 are so amazing to ride like well

Kevin Greimel 49:17
series so far there’s no way at this juncture there’s no way to get over the governor.

Roy Merritt 49:24
Well, yeah 110 but in a smaller track where you’re not, you know, Daytona or somewhere where you’re not, you know, stretching it out at 150 for a long stretch, you could get away with it and I want to know what it does in the terms that’s really what I want to know. You know, the 110 rev limiter is a beast, but that

Unknown Speaker 49:42
track would be that’s relatively close to you is a little Tally.

Unknown Speaker 49:49
Little 10 Ortega

Unknown Speaker 49:50
Talladega Grand Prix right down the road from that is little Tally. It’s a 1.8 mile track. It’s very technical. It does have a background Straight that you mean if if it would go over 110 you could go over 110 on that track. I mean I do on my bikes, but that’s about the shortest back straight, most technical track, banked corners as well.

Roy Merritt 50:15
So I wonder if Harley will give us a race mode track only mode. BMW did like Do you know the BMW had that they had right and you had to trailer it into the dealer and trailer it out on like non do t tires without a tag, like with the lights removed and stuff like full Race mode and then you could put in Race mode and it unlocked everything on that s 1000 rr

Kevin Greimel 50:39
I don’t even know what that thing would do. Because it’s so restricted. Yeah. Oh, you know, I mean, so Kevin, you need to go to a Harley dealer

Roy Merritt 50:49
that Oh, no, he said what story Have you ridden one?

Unknown Speaker 50:52
now but as soon as they have one back end, they were the one went away so fast. It went away in three hours. You know, you should you should like

Kevin Greimel 50:59
put like a A $500 deposit down and then write it and say, No, I don’t want it anymore. Just you know what I mean? just just just go test right one because I’ll tell you what, yeah, this is a funny story. Just two days ago we had some of the local cops in here and we were messing with their bikes and I just PDI the Livewire and they’re like laughing at it and I’ll shit and I said we’ll go write it. And they’re like, Oh no, I’m like, seriously just go write it because you know we’re our dealership is adjacent to a mall. So we have like this one mile circle. That’s private property. So I mean, technically nobody could really do anything anyway. And they’re motor cops so they should know how to ride a frickin motorcycle. And I was like go go go running around the mall and put it through its paces and then come back here and tell me how how much of a toy and how this thing is a Tinker and all the shit that you guys are talking right now. Both of them were like, I don’t know what just happened to me but I need to buy a Livewire

Roy Merritt 51:57
right. And I would like somebody like your input Somebody that you know that puts time on a track and kind of knows what the feel of a bike you know that’s that’s that can perform well feels like and I truly feel that as soon as you get on it and ride it you can tell it’s like oh my god this this thing’s legit yeah well you know right off the bat jr

Unknown Speaker 52:19
when the next one comes in and

Unknown Speaker 52:23
and I’ll go up and I’ll ride it

Aaron Staudinger 52:25
only ask you this in your organization what class would they class that bike in?

Unknown Speaker 52:30
Or it’s a full electric bike class

Kevin Greimel 52:32
but it’s probably an open class right

Roy Merritt 52:36
I don’t RFC yet.

Kevin Greimel 52:37
Well I don’t I don’t know if there’d be if there’d be any way to really distinguish at this point between electric classes because there’s Yeah, I mean,

Roy Merritt 52:46
well, it’s kind of like you’re gonna be you’re gonna have to be in like a kilowatt class or something. How are your batteries

Mike VO 52:52
interesting? Because

Unknown Speaker 52:54
it’s Yeah, I don’t think I have that differentiation yet because most of the guys are running the same bikes. Anyway.

Kevin Greimel 53:00
I mean, other than just the specs of this bike, because it’s not like you can really modify any of them that much yet.

Roy Merritt 53:06
Well, there was an article just put out the other day and for the life of me, I can’t remember who did it, but it was one of the big motorcycle magazines or whatever. And a guy did a test ride on a live wire, and he wrote the new zero x RF up there. And, you know, long story short, the article was, you know, he wrote the zero of their kind of to spite the Harley and wanted, you know, wanted desperately to hate the Harley, but when he got done was like, the Harley is a better bike.

Unknown Speaker 53:40
And that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Yeah. And I wanted to do well,

Roy Merritt 53:43
yeah. And I tell everybody, you know, I challenge you to find a bad review from somebody who is actually ridden the bike. You know, anybody that’s talking trash has not written it because the proof is definitely in the ride and, and right it’s, it’s a really interesting Bike it’s been really fun to play with and and whatnot and I can’t wait to it makes it on the track that’s

Unknown Speaker 54:05
the my friend Arthur he who races the electric bikes his issue was that he was having overheating problems so that he would get the engine so hot motor engine there’s

Roy Merritt 54:24
the Harley engine and battery is liquid cooled

Unknown Speaker 54:28
it he did a full oil jacket and then put an oil cooler on it and ran oil through the whole outside of the thing to keep it cooler. Yeah, designed his own. You know, so he did he did basically what what Livewire did, and he made his own because apparently they when they get hot, they just shut down. They don’t produce anywhere near the horsepower that they should. Yeah, you have to in in a race in an eight lap race he has to monitor how much throttle he’s using because he could kill the battery and it goes into like powers Save note, if he’s on it all the time in an eight lap brace, there’s kind of a chess match for him.

Roy Merritt 55:07
Now is this like a manufactured bike? Or is it something that Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 55:10
he has. He has a brand new manufactured bike and then he just modifies them. He’s a retired engineer, you know place

Roy Merritt 55:18
nothing better than a fucking electrical engineer

Unknown Speaker 55:23
plays You know, he rebuilt all of his stuff, you know, he’ll take the shocks apart and rebuild it just because he one of them was twitching a little bit you’ll take it apart make sure everything is good and put it back together. Um, yeah, so that that’s certainly a bike that I would like to get on and go on. So with the the kind of know where the the XR stands at Nationals this year, where the my bike runs is with mostly with the sv 650s. Yeah, and the Ninja 650 that’s, that’s the class that I run with. So I have 34 people in my class. I placed 13th.

Mike VO 56:07
So good, nice. Good. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 56:09
So relatively respectable on a on a 2009 Harley Davidson. Oh, yeah.

Roy Merritt 56:16
And I’m sure everybody has to, you know, that hasn’t ridden with you, or raced with you before has to comment

Unknown Speaker 56:24
on these guys under BMWs and when they get passed by the Harley Davidson, and then they have come and find out what it was and they’re like, that’s Harley.

Roy Merritt 56:34
Well, and you have other bikes. So now do you have one other bike or two other bikes?

Unknown Speaker 56:37
Um, I have seven right now.

Kevin Greimel 56:41
Well, I heard you got a new KTM

Unknown Speaker 56:43
Yeah, I did. So my other. So I race my Harley Davidson and then I raced the 690 KTM. Yeah, it’s a Duke. It’s an upright bike. That one it was my street bike, because I took the car off the street and started just racing it and then I bought the KTM do ride on the street and then I started racing it on that this year on my KTM I won the East Coast and I placed fourth nationally and points for the season. So I did relatively well on it this year. I wish he would have gotten third but you know, it is what it is. Yeah.

Roy Merritt 57:21
It’s respectable man. Especially run it on your own dime, right? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 57:24
Yeah, exactly. Um, the big thing was a

Unknown Speaker 57:29
barber.

Unknown Speaker 57:31
Barber I was national in October. And somehow or another, I boiled my brake fluid and went into turn one at 120 miles an hour and grabbed a handful of front brakes and there wasn’t any. And so I went off the track and into the air fencing at about 120 miles an hour.

Unknown Speaker 57:53
It’s pretty wadded up but it’s being fixed right now.

Aaron Staudinger 57:56
Yeah, um, rim doctor.

Unknown Speaker 57:59
He had no frame the subframe and the rear was bent, but I just bought a new one.

Roy Merritt 58:04
Is that on the KTM?

Unknown Speaker 58:06
The KTM Yeah, so I haven’t been able to ride it since October. Just still starting to try and get it put together. Like I hit the air fence with my back and watch the bike fly over top of my head and land behind me.

Roy Merritt 58:18
It’s like Ricky Bobby moment.

Kevin Greimel 58:26
Have you been able to determine what caused the break?

Unknown Speaker 58:31
I think that it was, I

Unknown Speaker 58:34
don’t know, a piece of sand and a piston could have caused it to

Unknown Speaker 58:41
retract all the way.

Roy Merritt 58:42
Yeah. variables.

Unknown Speaker 58:45
I put new brake pads and new fluid in

Unknown Speaker 58:49
two days before it happened.

Unknown Speaker 58:52
On your Harley though.

Unknown Speaker 58:57
I’ve been down. I’ve been down on the Harley Over 100

Unknown Speaker 59:02
guy cut across the race line going 30 or 40 miles an hour slower than me and I had two choices I could slam into the side of them or I could go off into the grass off into the grass or land and when those trees are coming up on you fast I dove and put the bike on its side and you know we fixed them on and you know, put them back out there. Um so I raced the the KTM and the Harley right now. And then I have a Road Glide. I have a big comfortable one. Yep. And my Road Glide of course also has the stage for tire shredder kit from Harley.

Kevin Greimel 59:46
She’s a fast learner

Unknown Speaker 59:48
100 and 107 horsepower 24 foot pounds of torque.

Unknown Speaker 59:53
Nice.

Unknown Speaker 59:55
Go into second throw throw that was sideways. Yeah.

Roy Merritt 1:00:00
Rolling burnouts

Unknown Speaker 1:00:01
rolling burn out sideways in the second year, what have

Aaron Staudinger 1:00:04
you done to that bike for transmission clutch, all that good stuff but

Kevin Greimel 1:00:09
you put your mouth right.

Aaron Staudinger 1:00:16
Oh,

Roy Merritt 1:00:16
the KTM you’re talking about

Unknown Speaker 1:00:20
they go The Road Glide their Road Glide, I put a heavy duty

Unknown Speaker 1:00:27
that was the screaming Eagle clutch I put in there. Um, and the transmission we didn’t do anything to Roy actually built the bike. So when he was here, the from the first time when we had our round heads, which we sent back and we had to replace cylinders, cylinders.

Roy Merritt 1:00:48
Yeah, we went through the tire shredder was

Unknown Speaker 1:00:50
and then we had rings that came apart and shredded the inside of it.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:59
And that was And

Unknown Speaker 1:01:02
now we’re like 6000 miles with no issues whatsoever

Roy Merritt 1:01:04
yeah that’s cuz I didn’t

know that was back they had they had a problem back then with rings and stuff and yeah, I think they’ve cleared all that up now but yeah, well dude I’m gonna I’m gonna let you get off of here and we’re gonna continue on here I want to check back in with you maybe in a few months and see how you’re doing see what’s going on. Like I said if you if you hear anything about a Livewire out there I know for sure now

Kevin Greimel 1:01:31
just the electric bikes in general because yeah, I’m telling you this is gonna This is gonna catch on and it’s gonna change mode. f1 it has Yeah, well yeah. f1 And not only that, but also endurance racing. I mean, the top gt one class in, in endurance is hybrid Porsches

Unknown Speaker 1:01:51
hybrid Porsches. Yeah.

Kevin Greimel 1:01:52
And they’re fucking smoking everything every nobody can touch them.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:56
Like every horsepower that they can.

Mike VO 1:01:58
Yeah, of course. Always they’ve

Roy Merritt 1:02:00
always had their finger on on racing.

Kevin Greimel 1:02:02
Well, I don’t give a shit know who you are. All those supercars that are out there. Porsche is so understated. They are the sexiest fucking car.

I don’t give a crap. Yeah, if you look at a Porsche, and you’re like, I don’t like it. You’re just lying. Yeah, you’re making shit up, right? You don’t like you’re just trying to. You’re pulling a soft hands at that point.

Roy Merritt 1:02:27
Oh, yeah, Tyler’s got a question which you got.

Courtney Groom 1:02:29
Hey, Kevin, I’ve heard a lot of you talking about how Roy has helped you out a lot. So being a new tech, did you take his advice on tools? I’ve heard a lot of different things between using his cheap tools and and he swears by them so much. Did you take his advice? I’m using tools. No.

Rory answered the question for Kevin. Nope.

Roy Merritt 1:02:53
No, no, no.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:56
No, see, I’m I I’m a carpenter. I work I have my own set of tools for most things. And my theory and tool in the Tool thing is I buy the most expensive tool or the best rated tool and I buy it once, and I don’t ever have to replace it.

Kevin Greimel 1:03:10
That’s what most professors

Roy Merritt 1:03:12
I know. He’s got it. He’s got a very nice clean toolbox full of very nice tools. Yeah. Oh, is it mixed up?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:21
Well, most of my stuff is craftsman. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um, or snap on? Yeah, yeah, which is my father was a mechanic. So he gave me a lot of his tools that he no longer uses. And he has like four sets of everything. You know, because he had one set that he kept it he taught automotive studies. So he had one set that he kept there once it came home then he had one set for his race trailer. He raced cars, and you know, so I have gotten most of sets and he of course did all snap on stuff because he him in the snap on guy were, you know, not even close. Right? You know, you don’t 35 years. Yeah, you’re buddy buddy. But yeah, the the tools, you know, you come across stuff if somebody recommends something I’m more than willing to try one out or do it. Um, but it’s, uh, I can’t say that I don’t go down to Lowe’s and buy the cobalt set of sockets when I lose my 10 millimeter socket for the 14th time. You know,

Roy Merritt 1:04:21
yeah, no, I, you know, I in and it goes into the new guy thing because he’s fresh out of school. And, you know, what I try to tell him is, man, don’t blow your load on every tool you buy, you know, something, you don’t use that much. Don’t use that much. Maybe you don’t need the hundred dollar version, maybe the $50 version will do fine for a couple of years, you know,

Unknown Speaker 1:04:40
correct by good, you know, pick what you’re going to buy and add to your add to your stack a little bit at a time. Yeah, you know, this year, I’m gonna buy a metric socket set. And then next year, I’ll buy the standard socket set. You know, that kind of thing. You don’t buy it all at one time, because then you end up with no money.

Aaron Staudinger 1:05:01
And well it means no tires, which means you don’t go fast.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:04
Yeah.

Roy Merritt 1:05:07
When you say no money, it means no money for food. It doesn’t mean no money for time.

Yeah, yeah. raise your rates. Yeah, that comes way before food and movies and doubles. Right.

Kevin Greimel 1:05:24
When you’re married, though. There’s a different set of equations.

Roy Merritt 1:05:28
Yeah. Well, Kevin’s married I believe his wife is pretty supportive of his. Now let

Aaron Staudinger 1:05:32
me ask you this man as it applies to your relationship. Did you? Were you racing when you met your wife? Or did you have to kind of bring her into this racing thing?

Unknown Speaker 1:05:39
No, we were actually I had been doing track days. And we had kind of bounced it around a little bit about me trying it and stuff like that. And we went to the Daytona 200. And I’m down there and I’m talking to my friends and we’re watching the races and she just looked over at me. She goes, you gotta do this, Kevin. You should see your face right now. You know, she’s Yeah, she you should see your face right now. You gotta do this. Yeah, yeah. And that’s how it started. she regrets that

Aaron Staudinger 1:06:08
Yeah, hi guys raised just no yeah, I’m gonna have to break him into it easily. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:13
Depends on the check depends on the check you met her already raising like

Roy Merritt 1:06:17
yeah I think I was still down in Florida around then and I remember him coming to me finally and he was like yeah dude the wife is on board yeah sounds like he

Courtney Groom 1:06:28
or she likes the life insurance

Unknown Speaker 1:06:32
make sure I keep that up

Unknown Speaker 1:06:37
um, but it’s uh it’s progressed she likes going with me. You know I am. I started off I was in a trailer and I was, you know, pushing my my bike into a trailer and I was going I was sleeping in an air mattress. Now I had a nice trailer but it was my work trailer. I took all my tools out I put air mattress in the fridge and put an air conditioner in which barely kept up and we lived that way for weekends. And now it was just rough. Rough. So I got a toy hauler trailer. And now I know that I can throw three bikes in the back of that put the pit bike in the back of my truck, and we roll to the track and she’s got air conditioning in a TV and, you know, she watches me. She’s my pit girl. When I come in from the she jack, she puts the bike on the stand. She puts star warmers on, she makes sure I’m set up with a drink and everything else and then she goes back it does what she does.

Courtney Groom 1:07:29
And what’s her name Kevin. Denise. Again for Denise. I like this lady. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:07:35
so she is she’s absolutely 100% supportive and by endeavors she hates it some days. She really does. I come back in and I’ve got you know, Barb I broke five ribs at barber

Unknown Speaker 1:07:48
so it’s and messed up my shoulder.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:52
rotator cuff action get surgery to put muscles back together. And it’s uh, you know, she doesn’t like that. Yeah, but She likes to go away for the weekend getaway and it’s just us and we have a great time. You don’t like camaraderie. The track is amazing.

Kevin Greimel 1:08:07
Yeah. When there’s no money involved the camaraderie is is is 50% of why you do it. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:16
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s a whole bunch of ego that goes with it, for sure. But it’s, uh, the it’s just fun. You know, I smile for four days straight. And there’s something to be said for that.

Aaron Staudinger 1:08:32
You know, it has to motivate you to, you know, when you’re tired for a day at work to come home and work on that thing for probably three, four or five hours a day.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:42
Oh, yeah. But let me tell you, I don’t work on it for three or four or five hours a day.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:49
I

Unknown Speaker 1:08:52
I, I clean my bike. It’s absolutely you could eat off my bike. I keep it that way. All the time. I do my maintenance of the oil changes and in my tires, my brakes and anything else that I have to do with the bike. But all that stuff is, I mean, if I can’t take the get put my bike up, take the wheels off, do the tires do everything on a Saturday morning when I’m having coffee. Something’s wrong with me, you know, it takes me I can change the tires, but I have two sets of rims for each bike. So I can take one set off and put a new set on in 15 minutes for the front end rear. And that’s with rewiring safety wiring everything and you know, making sure everything’s right. And going back and then that’s done, you know, and I’m ready for the next the next one. Yeah, it’s a if there’s something wrong or like probably every six months, the XR goes up like the the XR is going up to dock in two weeks, and he’s going to check all the valve clearances and the heads are going to get reset. The valves get reset in the heads to make sure everything is absolutely perfect with this bike. That is way less expensive than a new engine.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:06
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:08
Yeah, um, so let’s say like the engine last year I spent 8500 on this engine for the for the race bike. Yeah, just in the heads and pistons and rings, cams you know, it’s it gets ridiculous it’s a race bike, you know, you have to you know, I can’t take it and put it I can put a tag back on it if I wanted to. There wouldn’t be any lights. It would be rolling tires on it, but then I could go somewhere but I have to be able to come back to the gas and I can’t just stop and get gas. So it’s it becomes difficult the KTM I can switch it back from Race mode. Back to street mode. I’d like take all the stuff off and take the headlight off with the truck license plate on pull the rear Terrell titty unplug two wires, which is four bolts. I can change it From street mode to race mode in 25 minutes Yeah. And then switch it back in 25 minutes and then I ride it on the street for the next the rest of the month and then I get ready for race I do all my maintenance on it, take it to the track. So put put the street tires, take the street tires, I’ll put race tires back on it, take the track and race it and then I bring it home and I put it back on the street. And but that’s how close to and that’s the bike that I’m winning, ranked nationally on it’s amazing how the bike that taking a bike ride off street that’s how close it is to what a real race bike can be.

Roy Merritt 1:11:38
Yeah. Um, well, you know, there’s a lot to do with rider there as well. You know, that’s kind of always been the argument you’re gonna fastest bike out there, but if you don’t know how to ride it don’t mean shit.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:47
Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:49
Um, so so like last year? I did.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:54
I did 27 race weekends last year. Wow. So I was all over the place of New Jersey, up in Georgia bunch

Unknown Speaker 1:12:05
over Talladega little Talladega Barber,

Unknown Speaker 1:12:10
homestead Daytona.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:16
Jennings, I raced last year.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:21
New Orleans, Nola race Nola, North

Unknown Speaker 1:12:26
Carolina Motorsports Park.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:32
To do, um, all over Florida. So yeah, so it’s like 12 different tracks and 2727 race weekends. And that’s racing on two bikes. Arma you race Saturday and you race Sunday practice on Friday. So I get to rate two races in a weekend on each bike so four races in a weekend. FMR a is practice Saturday race once on Sunday, but again on two bikes So that’s six, and anywhere from two to four races, or a month, six, six individual races a month for 10 months. It’s like 60 races. Yeah, that’s hard. Yes. Yeah. So C times c times C time. And that’s not practicing. That’s not going to track days and that’s not going and running. teaching people how to ride do track days and.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:27
and riding on the street. I put

Unknown Speaker 1:13:30
20,000 miles on my bikes last year.

Mike VO 1:13:34
No, no. That’s right. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:39
I own my own business I work from I leave my house at six in the morning, and I get home at 430 in the afternoon and I’m on a motorcycle and I ride in the afternoon until wherever I want to go cruising. I take the Road Glide. I’ll go for a ride. I’ll go run some backroads real fast and race. race around Saturday. I do Like my own ride, usually I would take a Road Glide go out to tamper or something like that. And then Sunday morning is with my my foster friends that have Ducati and BMWs or or whatever, and we ride with them, you know, five or six hours on Sunday. And that’s every week is your own a bike that much unless it’s race weekend, and then you’re then you’re racing. You know, so it’s if you if you really want to get to where you can go out and you can run and you can achieve at that level, you have to donate

Unknown Speaker 1:14:30
everything to it. It’s a lifestyle choice.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:32
It absolutely It absolutely is.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:37
Yeah, if you had and realistically, you know, luckily like my job supports me well enough that I can do that. But if you think about every every race is basically a set of tires. So you get practice day and a race and practice day in a race is a set of tires and a set of tires is 320 340 bucks. So and that’s times two because I got two bikes

Mike VO 1:15:04
so there’s the tires.

Aaron Staudinger 1:15:06
That’s just the tire not not the motor work nothing else.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:09
Not the not the brake.

Roy Merritt 1:15:10
Oh, it’s not free to go out there and run well yeah,

Kevin Greimel 1:15:13
so yeah, the travel time and the food and lodging and towing the trailer.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:19
I had my trailer so I all my logic is with me

Unknown Speaker 1:15:23
and that’s one of the reasons I have it. Um, you know, next weekend is my birthday. We’re taking the trailer we’re going out to the coast. Bam set up on the beach. Yeah, you know, there’s are benefits to having that you know that the toy hauler

Unknown Speaker 1:15:37
but it’s it absolutely you have to decide that this is something you want to

Unknown Speaker 1:15:43
really do and then then do it or if you want to go out and do it, I recommend everybody should get out and run a track day on their bike. Yeah, find a bike. You can rent bikes. There’s people who rent bikes, you know, 200 bucks for the weekend and you have to buy the tires or they like those nasty suits.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:02
You’re not gonna get nobody’s gonna put you on a BMW.

Roy Merritt 1:16:05
You’re not gonna read an S 1004.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:08
Yeah.

Roy Merritt 1:16:12
Well, hey, man. Again, it was good talking with you, brother and we’re gonna check back in with you.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:17
All right,

Roy Merritt 1:16:18
I wish you good luck and ride safe and it was good talking with you man. All right, I hope you have a happy new year. Okay

Unknown Speaker 1:16:28
all right. That is one interesting

Roy Merritt 1:16:31
guy. He’s super interesting guy. So he doesn’t drink either. Oddly enough. This is how he has this how he has the money now.

And and, you know, when I used to work on his bikes and stuff he would come over bring me beer and everything so he’s not like weird about anything, you know, but super cool guy works his ass off. He’s a really really meticulous carpenter. So he does a lot of like high end stuff like that. So yeah, yeah. Oh,

Courtney Groom 1:17:02
When he brought the tools Tyler was like, Oh, do you do this? He was like, No,

Roy Merritt 1:17:06
absolutely not. No, I know Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. He’s very meticulous guy I’m sure when you’re out to track in between he’s cleaning those bikes he’s like he said, those bikes are always very clean everything he has is very meticulously maintained. I mean, he’s got carpeted floors in his garage it’s hardcore. I don’t think it’s actually carpeted but he’s got carpet there where you know his bikes go and everything but yeah, he’s super cool guy doing some really cool stuff and you know, it’s hard to find people that are doing there’s only what he said four of them out there running a Harley in these kind of things. That’s fucking cool, man. Yeah, I’d like to make it five if I could afford it. Hell yeah. If I could find me an xR and you know, get out there. I would love it. I think the flat tracks is a shorter distance to that same type of satisfaction if you you know achievability Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. The track bikes are fun and the flat tracks are fun you know, I had to drop in the Livewire. You know. I’m a hoarder when it comes down Live Wire because I fucking love it

Kevin Greimel 1:18:09
well, but you know, this is kind of a recap episode. So we’re just gonna talk about all of it.

Roy Merritt 1:18:12
Yeah, yeah, we’ve talked about we had women rider so we got a woman on

Mike VO 1:18:15
tonight. Yeah, we talked about the episode about electric bikes, and yeah,

Roy Merritt 1:18:20
flat drag race. We talked about drag racing a little bit. We had we had a bunch of really cool ideas for episodes where I really want to get to the drag strip. Yeah, that is really intriguing to me. Yeah, the drag strip is definitely on the list this year. You know, my setup now is a little more mobile. I’m looking at doing some other stuff. So some some of these events I’d like to set up, maybe grab some racers and do some interviews and you know, work them into an episode and I think, you know, I had kind of wanted to gear up into maybe doing interviews a little separate so I can, you know, weed through them a little bit and then play him on, you know, we can talk over him or whatever. But you know we we’ve got an hour and 23 minutes in Now we do have a few before we started but

Courtney Groom 1:19:07
say I meant to that was like,

Roy Merritt 1:19:09
Yeah, yeah, well we always start off bullshit.

Courtney Groom 1:19:14
That’s the way she’d even know we were fucking

Roy Merritt 1:19:16
Yeah. What’s going on or can they hear me?

Kevin Greimel 1:19:23
who’s listening right now? Yeah, hello. According to the there are 1 million choice just keeps going up how many people listen

Courtney Groom 1:19:33
our 23 minutes and 57 seconds.

Roy Merritt 1:19:36
Yeah I mean, you know Kevin was like how long How long do you think I should plan for this conversation I said I don’t know man. You know there’s a lot to talk about to be honest with you because we’re all newbies to this you know so it is interesting to hear how you get into that stuff again. You get brainwashed and

Courtney Groom 1:19:53
yeah, you know, and if you know anything about Kevin, he did he ever did. I’d never heard anything about it.

Roy Merritt 1:20:00
Yeah, they, you know, he’s he’s got you know, like I said he’s got a job that helps him support it, but he’s done a lot. You know, when I first met him, you know, yeah, he had written when he was a kid and stuff, but he’s like, yeah, I’m thinking about taking my bike to the track and

Aaron Staudinger 1:20:14
that’s one of the you know, like as a racer, who was there, one of the biggest barriers to break through is how you just get to the trash Yeah, go and get some experience. Yeah, just go hang out, learn about it and see if it’s for you. And if you want to do it, just commit yourself to doing it. Yeah, do it and you can do it.

Roy Merritt 1:20:31
If I went to a flat track back in Florida I think before I moved up here, I probably would have already had a flat track but before I got here, I believe that you know what I mean? Like I you know, just just in seeing how it all works and you know what all goes on? You know, I’ve fun trying to ride a bike differently, you know, and when it comes to that kind of stuff when it comes to dirt and everything I didn’t grow up racing motocross So, you know, it is a different world for me. Yeah, I rode dirt bikes and stuff like that, but you know, down to earth. Florida we rode four wheelers and buried in the mud in the water and shit. You know, we didn’t. It wasn’t the same thing. Yeah, I had friends that rode motocross and everything, but it was never really my bag. So, putting a Sportster on street tires out on the fucking muddy as flat track was a lot of fun. You know, it was interesting, you know? Yeah. You know, Mike talked about, you know, do you feel bad when you get passed by an 11 year old or whatever, you know, my whole goal when I went out on that track was to stay upright. I mean, it was like, I don’t give a fuck where I finish. I just want to stay upright, you know, and I, you know, two, I think two guys went down and didn’t finish around me and I didn’t go down. I was like, Fuck, yeah, they were on, you know, purpose built bikes, you know, and they went down. I didn’t grant it, they were going a little faster than I was. But not that much at that point. You know, it was probably something dumb happen to hit each other, whatever. But, you know, my whole objective was to stay upright. I was in. I was like, as long as I stay up, right, and I finished the race. I’m fucking good man.

Courtney Groom 1:21:57
And you did it and you did it

the way I did.

Aaron Staudinger 1:22:00
Once you get a taste, man no Yeah, that’s it you are cashed in. Like it is it’s a life changing event the first time you go on the track and you really dig the moment in it clicks in your head that you can be competitive. Oh my god, it’s

Roy Merritt 1:22:14
over. Well, you know you talk about being able to forget about everything. And there is no forgetting everything like there is sitting on a track and going there. There is nothing else you can do that again that day. Well, I kept saying when we go back in the back I’m like, you know, cuz I still like fucking headlight and turn signals, mirrors everything. And I was like, I’m gonna go out there on the track and right before right before they give us a green flag. I’m going to turn my left turn signal on, and I’m going to go and when I hit the straightaway, I’m going to turn my left turn signal gone, and go again. And I’m like, yeah, that’s gonna be awesome when I got on the track. Fuck, that was the last thing. Dude, I was just goes like, let the clutch go and give it hell, you know, try not to go down. So but yeah, you know, I think getting people that don’t Ride to those events is the biggest hard part right now, you know people that really wouldn’t normally go to those events. I don’t think you know, like the flat Trek series that we tend to go to is a real small time thing you know and I think the guys that run that have no idea how to market to people.

Courtney Groom 1:23:15
Yeah, they need a little bit more. Yeah,

Roy Merritt 1:23:18
just like the hillclimb yeah they have a big stadium they do this stuff in but it’s not full, you know, if they if they could get somebody to actually market it like Hey, man, here’s a cheap, you know, afternoon to come watch some guys throw bikes around a track, even kids and as it

Aaron Staudinger 1:23:32
becomes a family as an event, you know, you competing against so many different forms of entertainment, it’s really difficult to get people to get up off the couch and come out and check. You know, check out that kind of form of entertainment,

Kevin Greimel 1:23:43
especially when motorcycling is on a declining trend, you know, sure, you know, well that’s that’s which is odd because you would think that it would be the opposite as economical and environmentally friendly as it is

Roy Merritt 1:23:58
yet well. I don’t think the At least in America, little market for those smaller economical bikes for the, you know, the urban areas is really marketed well anyways, you know, I think we missed a generation at least of marketing that it’s we’re feeling now. And now we’re realizing that we need to market to the younger generations and I think that’s, that’s what’s gonna change the industry and that’s, that’s the thing that I think over the last year or two the industry is realizes is that we can’t just focus on people that ride we need to focus on people that are learning to ride a bike and put our name on that bike. You know what I mean? Like, if you’re gonna ride a bicycle, yeah, yeah, ride a bicycle. If you’re gonna ride a Harley bicycle, when you go to motorized, you’re gonna want a Harley, you know, or a Honda or whatever it is, but that that younger demographic that is coming from pedal bikes to motorized bikes, is where every manufacturer has to plant their seeds. You know, that’s and I don’t even mean manufacturer at the end. History itself has to plant those seeds. And it has to be you know, everybody doing it, you know, you promote Harley, but you’re doing it to promote power sports in general.

Kevin Greimel 1:25:10
But how many young kids do you see riding bikes nowadays?

Courtney Groom 1:25:13
Even bicycles? Yeah.

Kevin Greimel 1:25:15
I mean, they don’t even go outside. Yeah. It’s the biggest decline in motorcycling. I don’t think it’s because of people not being able to make a transition or not being accepted. I think that the I think that the, there’s fundamental changes in what people view as how they want to spend their time. Yeah,

Courtney Groom 1:25:34
yeah. I agree with that. Like, when I grew up, the only time I ever saw a Harley or anything on two wheels was when it was my uncle or somebody riding the motorcycle. Like, I would love for my kid to just go, like, hey, I want to write two wheels and do this, but he barely knows how to ride them how to ride a bicycle. And he’s damn you’re six years old. Like why why is he not wanna ride this?

See my cousin grew up on four wheelers, dirt bikes, cool kid, right? He’s like 716 now. And you know what he, what we got him for Christmas, three months for subscription to Xbox. And that is what he’s like in love with I shit you not. And it’s like, I’m glad I assumed off a little bit away. But I think we all have those weekends where it’s like, you know, I want to stay at home. And that’s what we’re instilling in our kids nowadays. You know,

Unknown Speaker 1:26:25
I think so I think

Roy Merritt 1:26:29
the experience of writing is something that can’t be replaced, cracked. And I think the reason that we tend to lean so heavily on that live wire and why we like it so much, is it takes most of the variables out of riding correct, you get on it, you twist, you go, there’s no sound really, there’s no nothing. It’s you and the road.

Courtney Groom 1:26:52
It’s balanced. And

Roy Merritt 1:26:54
that’s about it. So that that experience is something that needs to be shared, and it’s something that Most of us get out of an internal combustion engine. But people are very intimidated by the loud noise, the heavy Bike Share, you know, the the even, you know, we’ve talked about even just the culture itself, they’re intimidated by, but actually the Harley Davidson culture Yeah, but sigma go I think that the electric front on that is going to change that you know that people are going to have a different view of electric bikes like, Well, yeah, it’s not your typical rider. Maybe that is for me and and i think that that also gets to, like I said, kind of the pure form of what riding is about. And I think that proper electric bikes are really going to provide that at one point, you know, if you really want to clear your head, you can do it on your Harley, or you can do it on an electric bike. And I think if you truly want to clear your head, people are gonna do it on an electric bike.

Kevin Greimel 1:27:49
You know, I think Harley Davidson, though is up against the same wall. That every time the company comes out with a new or new product, they hit the same wall. You know when the V rod came out the V rod was a radical departure from standard Harley Davidson and the the salesman didn’t embrace the V rod. Yeah, so the new people the new riders the new people that are coming in how often do you encounter somebody that this is their first time considering buying a Harley

Courtney Groom 1:28:23
considering buying or just looking either Okay, so actual, like coming in just wants to buy a Harley. In the last three and a half years, I’ve probably sold true newbies. Probably 20 times. true true, like walking off the street. never ridden on two wheels. This is my first bike ever.

Kevin Greimel 1:28:45
So how many did you typically sell that? Well, but hold on a second. How many people do you think in the last three and a half years you sold motorcycles to Bala? So hundreds? Yeah. Oh yeah. Maybe thousand

Unknown Speaker 1:28:57
that you sold 1000 motorcycle

Courtney Groom 1:28:58
dreams, three and a half No, absolutely a dealership up north typically a good years like 400 bikes through a dealership, you need to know. I need to stay here, right?

Kevin Greimel 1:29:13
So hundreds, okay, so say say 200 of you sold 200 maybe 20 of them were the people that have never been on a Harley correct.

Courtney Groom 1:29:22
I’ve never been on a bike ever,

Kevin Greimel 1:29:24
ever so 10% of the crowd. Yeah. Now there’s a statistic that I don’t even know where I heard it as a subclass or something. But for the average person that’s not like, born into the culture. It takes them 15 times of going past a Harley dealership before they stop it.

Courtney Groom 1:29:44
There’s also another saying to that as well as just there’s just your standard buyer on its 20 touches. For every time you talk to a customer. It takes 20 times to sell a motorcycle doesn’t matter if they’re in the shop. Doesn’t matter. If you call him doesn’t matter if you text them, it’s called 20 touches. So things like that same thing. Yeah, it’s hard to instill that into somebody who’s never lived the brand live the name lived the experience. As you know, Roy made a really good point about that is if you’re not on two wheels, you can own Harley shirts all day. You can talk to your friends or a Harley riders. It’s cool, right? I that’s how I was I never drove a Harley until three years ago, as soon as I started driving on the road with that Sportster, as I was hooked, and

Kevin Greimel 1:30:32
yeah, so as the industry changes, if the people that are selling these motorcycles don’t understand that they are the ones that are telling the people that walk in here, what’s cool and what’s not. You know why the street didn’t take off, because the salesman said it sucked.

Every time somebody wanted a street, they said, look at this Sportster. And we we move away from the new models internally. So there’s no way for the Side culture to embrace it because when we were a salesman, we hated the V rod. So I

Roy Merritt 1:31:07
want to say, and I might be talking out of my ass here, because I don’t have anything to back this. But I want to say that the sales departments didn’t have as much incentive. There wasn’t as much money in a street, as it was a Sportster. And that was the reason that most sales departments push people onto sportsters because there was more money involved in that sale. You know what I mean?

Kevin Greimel 1:31:30
Well, I’m sure yeah, there’s a sliding tier of you know, the more expensive the motorcycle the more money you make. Yeah, right. But there’s also the very large burden of qualifying your customer. Yeah, but we’re talking about salespeople here.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:46
Don’t ignore the fact that they just, you know, they perform differently. Yes. Whether or not you can qualify that as being performing better or not as good. They sounded different. They they did everything a little bit. Well, the problem with the street is the problem with everything in life in general.

Roy Merritt 1:32:06
And that’s ego, human nature, right? People want to ride a Harley, you want to drive a Mustang, you don’t want to drive a four cylinder Mustang and drive around like fucking look at my four cylinder Mustang. It’s so cool.

Kevin Greimel 1:32:19
But how many books so I’m gonna go back to this out of the 20 people that you saw that had never ridden a motorcycle?

How many of them walked in and said I want a road King?

And you went okay. Or did they did they come in and they start saying, Well, I don’t know. I don’t a good writer. What’s a good thing for me? Blah blah blah blah blah and then you as a salesman, steer them to the model that is best suited for them to ride saga be as good example

Courtney Groom 1:32:50
to two main bikes. I would say that people come in, there’s like, I fuck I fucking want one. I want to have one. I’ve never ridden a bike. And Erin kind of touched on this a little bit. No No, no, no. No, no. I will say was right. You’re gonna say Sportster. Yes. Sportster is probably first time rider. What I’ve sold a lot of people. And guess what I tell them like thank God. Harley Davidson does do a special offer during limited times of the year. It’s not going on right now, but it’s called the freedom promise. You buy a Sportster you traded it in within about 18 months, you get that full value back. That’s the freedom promise. And the reason being is I bought a second Sportster first bike I rode was a 1200 bought another 1200 thinking it was gonna be way better because it was nicer newer, all this stuff not wanted to wanted to get rid of it. Within two weeks. I was so mad I bought a second one. I love it. Don’t get me wrong, but they’re, they’re one of those bikes is kind of what you were saying earlier, when you go to flat track doesn’t make you just want to, like do you keep wanting more and more, or just to kind of get it out of your system. It depends person to person. I mean, if you’re cool with how it’s working rides you can have a Sportster for like 20 million years I robbed

Kevin Greimel 1:34:02
you. But you know why? Because Because the general public comes in and they see that it’s the cheapest Harley and the salesman doesn’t say this is a race bike, but it also

Roy Merritt 1:34:15
was their nose. They’re you know, they’ve been toned down most of the models already. It delivers the lowest price

Aaron Staudinger 1:34:21
point. Yeah, you know

Roy Merritt 1:34:23
what the XR

Courtney Groom 1:34:25
people told you to go and go, Ah, you should start off on a Sportster. I’m five foot zero. Obviously nobody listening Listen, see that

Kevin Greimel 1:34:34
I will take 83 off the floor. And I will put it against the last guy you sold a Road Glide to and I will race him for 100 miles and I will get there first.

Courtney Groom 1:34:43
I am not saying they’re so lightweight and they are full torque they get there first, but

there’s nothing wrong. Tyler

Roy Merritt 1:34:55
I ride home with big twin street glide I always have to wait up for

Courtney Groom 1:35:03
that. Which one? Which one is a? Which one’s more comfortable? First of all, in my in my honest opinion, I’ve that’s the only thing I’ve ever written.

Roy Merritt 1:35:12
So have you ever ridden softail?

Courtney Groom 1:35:14
Correct favorite bike?

Unknown Speaker 1:35:15
Yeah, well, one of the new ones is the Sportster.

Courtney Groom 1:35:18
Right. That’s why I’m saying, first time, if a guy comes in and tells me Yeah, if he’s with his his lady, and he goes, are you on a Sportster? No fuss, I’m gonna grab him, like, right by the throat and be like, No, he’s wrong. You’re the woman writer. Right? Absolutely. And I go, in my opinion, if you are short female, and you want something control, I have a really nice fat boy low outside, ever really nice. softail slim, and that’s because the seat height is super low.

Kevin Greimel 1:35:45
Yeah. They’re much more manageable, and they’re, they’re balanced so well too. And they’re designed. They’re not designed for performance crap designed to be manageable and comfortable. Yeah, absolutely. And and so many times, also My first bike I need is for sir No, boy. Yeah, and it’s

Courtney Groom 1:36:05
Yeah, that’s number one thing I used to hear. I want a fat boy why Terminator. Cool, bro.

cool bro. And the only reason Roy pointed Tyler is because he can work sweet and learn between traffic

through traffic better than I can with

your I like your gold flakes very nice

already it’s the bad guy.

Mike VO 1:36:46
He’s like I’m just gonna say

Roy Merritt 1:36:48
we got to the meeting like the first day it was like it was like his third day at work. Yeah, like walking I sit down I’m like who’s fucking bass tracker outside? He’s like the Tyler’s like

Courtney Groom 1:37:07
was the picture that he had on his Facebook profile?

Roy Merritt 1:37:14
Yeah, Tyler came in. I don’t think he had a beard.

Courtney Groom 1:37:16
dating profile one on one. Yeah, look nothing like your picture. Yeah, like

you had a beer. And when I saw your profile because I was so confused, I was like, What the fuck is going on right now?

Kevin Greimel 1:37:26
So Tyler, how different is school from real life?

Courtney Groom 1:37:29
Yeah. What’s it like being in a huge shop like this?

Well, the shop is totally smaller than the pictures. I was like, What the fuck is going on? Right? Yeah,

well, being a girl beggar in the picture, okay.

Boom. It’s basically the same thing but, but coming from school and going to this shop. I’ve talked to a lot of few other texts I’ve, I’ve gone to school with and they’re they’re totally different than what I deal with here. I came to this this shop expecting to do tire changes and just doing services oils and stuff like that. And then Mike’s like, Hey, you gotta do this. I’m like, What is this? You’re gonna throw this you’re gonna tear down this whole engine, and you’re gonna just do that. That’s it. And I’m like, What? Yeah, I’m gonna tear down an engine. I don’t expect any of this stuff. He’s like, yeah, you’re gonna do that and doing it is totally different. The school school they just tell you tear it down, put it back together, and you’re done. And here you got you got us a certain type of loop. You got us all this other different stuff and all

Roy Merritt 1:38:43
the little tricks,

Courtney Groom 1:38:45
tricks you got. He got everything specific and detailed and art and everything is detail oriented. If you use your friend who’s my best friend, the manual

Roy Merritt 1:39:00
Well, yeah, man. Well, well, man. He’s the hardest worker in the shop.

Courtney Groom 1:39:05
Like I don’t need a manual. Yes, you mean the man?

Unknown Speaker 1:39:10
Yep. Manual.

Courtney Groom 1:39:14
Mike told me how to use the manual. Everybody in the shop said, use the fucking manual. Don’t fucking ask Mike use a fucking manual. I was like, Alright, I use a manual.

Kevin Greimel 1:39:24
He tries though he’s like, what about this? And I’m like, What did the manual say?

Unknown Speaker 1:39:29
Excuse me that look like

Mike VO 1:39:32
he walks over.

Kevin Greimel 1:39:34
I can’t find it in the manual.

Courtney Groom 1:39:38
If I can’t find in the manual, I do go straight to Mike. And I try sometimes. I specify sometimes because there’s some times I just like fuck it. I’m gonna ask

Roy Merritt 1:39:49
by the menu. have everything No, no, there is stuff you do have to ask for. But, you know, it. I think we got about enough time in. It’s probably wait time to start wrapping this up anyways.

Courtney Groom 1:40:03
Yeah, my sister sexy me.

Roy Merritt 1:40:04
Yeah, everybody

Courtney Groom 1:40:07
was my sister.

Kevin Greimel 1:40:09
He’s always run long.

Roy Merritt 1:40:10
Yeah, yeah, we singles. We have no control over the show.

Courtney Groom 1:40:14
We’re just do we just sushi man.

Mike VO 1:40:18
Yeah, we push drinks. Yeah, cuz you

Courtney Groom 1:40:20
haven’t gone on to my dog sushi is wrong. You’re wrong. Go manual.

Go back to fucking Chinese

Aaron Staudinger 1:40:29
go out go out to a nice place and quit swiping.

Courtney Groom 1:40:33
I don’t do that actually.

That’s probably why I’m single.

Roy Merritt 1:40:37
Again. It’s a wrap up to 2019 we’re gonna try to hit 2020 harder. Hey,

Courtney Groom 1:40:43
hey, don’t swipe right.

Roy Merritt 1:40:45
Yeah, don’t swipe right. It’s not even me. Is that a millennial thing?

Mike VO 1:40:51
don’t ride motorcycles because they’re inside on the

Courtney Groom 1:40:55
millennial thing.

Roy Merritt 1:40:57
Well, again,

Unknown Speaker 1:41:00
We’re gonna have some fun stuff

Roy Merritt 1:41:01
next year.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:04
Lots of fun.

Mike VO 1:41:08
Thank you for showing up guys.

Courtney Groom 1:41:10
Yeah. Happy New Year boys and girls.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:14
Yep, look forward to season two.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai