Yes, all true. I didn’t want to go there. Even musk himself will say we aren’t ready, but I really didn’t want to go down this road.
What did you do before that you made custom engines?
Not going into the politics of electrification, just happy it's moving forward, wish you guys could go on a ride with me....
I got into engine building when I met another kart shop owner (constructor) named Mike Clements (RIP) at our local track
PKRA. We were dominating the TaG class with an Easykart and he came out with a chassis of his own design and a 4-cycle
Biland engine that gave us a run for the money. My shop was called TMS Racing and his was Heartbeat Racing, named for the fact he'd survived several heart attacks and needed to get back doing what he knew best as a former IKF Grand National Champion.
At the time we were beating former Indy 500 champ
Buddy Rice who ran another local kart shop, so when Mike came out of nowhere and his driver won a race or two I took notice. Well, Mike and I got to talking and it turned out he wanted to sell his business so he could start another one under his own name which had been taken from him in a business deal gone bad. Shortly after deciding we could work together I broke my leg (actually a Giant Cell Tumor) and needed to curtail some of my trackside service business. So, I started apprenticing with Mike at his home shop in Chandler, AZ which was just a few miles from my home.
Mike taught me many things about karting, engine building, and life that I'll be forever grateful for and eventually we came to an agreement for me to purchase Heartbeat Racing Products including both chassis he designed, engine building clients and some inventory. This was around 2007 and I finally made a profit that year after starting TMS in 2004. Mike stayed on to make a smooth transition and we attended the Kartfest tradeshow in Hickory, NC for a couple of years together.
We all know what happened in 2008....
In 2009 I moved the business to Northern Michigan and diversified into outdoor power equipment with Heartbeat Power Products, LLC. I continued to run the karting business until 2010 but the bottom had really dropped out of the entire industry with so many people having to cut back, or get out of racing all together. I liquidated most of my inventory in 2015, but still have the dyno and a few other things entrusted with a close friend there.
Actually, my engine building experience goes back all the way to working at Cal Kart when I was 14. But I went into A/V, then IT, then my own businesses and eventually back to IT. Kinda have gone full circle though since I maintain equipment at an electric motorcycle company now.
Definitely a long winded explanation but it wasn't a straightforward path.
John
zeromotorcycles.com
