Latest / B 4EVA Kool "Race A Motorcycle" Podcast / B4evaKool Rexy & Dainese Louis talk about N.Hayden, Dorna, and Dainese in S5 Episode 12

Transcript

B4evaKool Rexy & Dainese Louis talk about N.Hayden, Dorna, and Dainese in S5 Episode 12 · B 4EVA Kool "Race A Motorcycle" Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome back to another edition of Be Forever Cool podcast.
• 0:02
  My name is Rex 45. We got the real Luis Ortega in
• 0:06
  the building. Welcome to the show, man.
• 0:09
  How you doing? I I still see sunlight in the
• 0:11
  background, so I don't think you're on the East Coast.
• 0:14
  How are things, man? Things are good.
• 0:16
  Things are good. No, I'm, I'm reporting in from
• 0:19
  the West Coast this week. I'm out here for some work and
• 0:23
  then I'm heading up to Laguna Seca for the Moto Macro round
• 0:25
  this weekend up at Laguna Seca. So it should be a good weekend.
• 0:30
  See how racers do at the track. I haven't actually been to
• 0:35
  Laguna Seca in several years. So it's been my my first trip up
• 0:39
  there. Actually, it's been a pretty
• 0:41
  long time since I actually made a in person visit to Laguna
• 0:45
  Seca. So it it'll be interesting
• 0:47
  because I haven't been up to Monterey in in a in a long time.
• 0:50
  I think the last time I went there, I think it was the last
• 0:55
  time world super bike race there.
• 0:57
  Oh wow. Wow, so.
• 0:58
  It's been like 7 years. Yeah.
• 1:01
  Is it a little bit of nostalgia for you going back or you
• 1:04
  sitting here like I can't wait to get back on my flight?
• 1:07
  You know, and I actually, it's a little bit of nostalgia because
• 1:10
  I mean, I've seen, I've been to Laguna Steak a lot of times
• 1:12
  throughout the years. And every time I go there, like
• 1:15
  I remember all the racers and riders and races that I've
• 1:19
  attended there. And, you know, I remember
• 1:21
  watching, you know, Nikki Hayden riding there years ago and you
• 1:24
  know, Nikki Hayden is, is one of my all time favorites.
• 1:28
  I mean, obviously he's an American, but even on my race
• 1:30
  bike, I was raced the number 69. So, you know, and, and, you
• 1:37
  know, in my youth, you know, I looked at, I looked at Nikki
• 1:42
  Hayden as like, you know, one of the best riders we had in the
• 1:45
  US. And then he went over to Moto GP
• 1:47
  and and found a long career in Moto GP as a last American to
• 1:51
  have a really long career. I know Ben Spies went after him,
• 1:53
  but, you know, I don't think Ben's fees reached the levels of
• 1:57
  success that Mickey Hayden reached to this.
• 2:00
  To this. Yeah.
• 2:02
  To this day, like, you know, people still speak about Nikki
• 2:04
  Hayden, it seems. Like also Nikki stayed in Moto
• 2:08
  GP longer than Ben's fees. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:11
  I mean, he stayed in GP longer. He had a longer career.
• 2:14
  He he he had more of a cultural impact.
• 2:19
  You know, unfortunately, Ben Spies, his time was cut short in
• 2:22
  Moto GP due to injury, not due to himself.
• 2:25
  I mean, the elbows has is an amazing talent.
• 2:28
  I mean, after Nicky Hayden, he was the next big guy that I
• 2:31
  followed in the US And you know, I loved his riding styles, his
• 2:35
  aggressive elbows out, you know, riding styles and one of the
• 2:39
  first guys to really like, you know, scrape elbows on the track
• 2:43
  and so forth. So he had a whole different
• 2:45
  style than Nicky Hayden. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:47
  Yeah, but but as far as like world relevancy, I think Nikki
• 2:51
  Hayden just made more of a global impact than any other
• 2:55
  American rider since nobody else has done that.
• 2:58
  I mean, Colin Edwards was close, but you know, Colin Edwards
• 3:01
  never won on the GP level. He, you know, he did really
• 3:05
  well, but he never got that top podium.
• 3:08
  Yeah, and, and I think, you know, Nikki Hayden like came
• 3:11
  along at the right time like that, you know, MTV era, you
• 3:17
  know, action sports and and and stuff like that.
• 3:19
  And and, you know, motorcycle racing was huge in in the US as
• 3:24
  far as eyes on watching and stuff like that.
• 3:27
  And, you know, it, it like he, he, he just had so many to me,
• 3:33
  iconic moments in Moto GP that just, you know, like a lot of
• 3:37
  riders, you know, it, it, it's, it's the equivalent of, you
• 3:42
  know, maybe somebody may not know who's certain Hispanic
• 3:45
  football stars and stuff like that.
• 3:47
  It's like they're people that may not ride motorcycles, but
• 3:51
  they know who Nikki Hayden is, you know what I mean?
• 3:53
  And he, you know, he's the closest thing to like Michael
• 3:57
  Jordan of motorcycle racing in the US in a sense, because, you
• 4:02
  know, I mean, he has a statue when he won the, the title, his
• 4:07
  dad on a bike, the flag, you know what I mean?
• 4:10
  It's it's, it's iconic. Yeah, no, it's, it's one of
• 4:14
  those things that's burned in the the tapestry of Moto GP.
• 4:19
  You know, we haven't had an American rider win a
• 4:21
  championship since. And before Nikki Haidan, we
• 4:24
  hadn't had an American rider win a championship for almost 2
• 4:28
  decades. And and so he's he's our only
• 4:31
  barometer of success. And, and he's a great ambassador
• 4:37
  to the sport. You know, he's he's, you know, a
• 4:40
  guy from, you know, humble, somewhat humble beginnings from
• 4:44
  a racing family came up, you know, as a dirt track racer.
• 4:48
  His family still runs a dirt track racing Academy in his
• 4:52
  hometown in Owensboro, KY. They still have a lot of riders
• 4:55
  that come from that area that can kind of, you know, say
• 4:58
  thanks to the Hayden family for getting them on the map.
• 5:01
  You know, guys like Jake Lewis, a few other guys, dirt track
• 5:05
  guys like Dallas Daniels, flat track guys like Dallas Daniels
• 5:08
  and like a lot of these guys all really owe a lot to the Hayden
• 5:12
  family and to what, you know, Nikki kind of presented.
• 5:15
  And you know, it's an unfortunate loss that we lost
• 5:18
  Nikki Hayden at such a young age in in the weirdest way that
• 5:22
  could possibly happen. I was actually in Italy when the
• 5:25
  accident happened and, and we were supposed to meet Nikki
• 5:30
  Hayden that weekend while we were in Italy.
• 5:34
  Like he was kind of do a little Q&A for us at the time.
• 5:37
  And then while we were at have the offices in a meeting,
• 5:41
  somebody came in and say, hey, we just got a report.
• 5:44
  You know, Nikki Hayden was involved in a bicycle accident
• 5:47
  of all things. And yeah, it really was.
• 5:51
  It was really a a huge loss. I think we lost a lot of
• 5:54
  superstars in a very short period of time between Nikki
• 5:57
  Hayden and Marco Simicelli. These guys would just, you know,
• 6:02
  these guys would light up the room.
• 6:04
  And it's sad, you know, Sad dude.
• 6:06
  Yeah, you know, you, you. I was thinking of some of the
• 6:09
  other guys in Moto 3 and Moto 2 as well.
• 6:12
  Yeah, Louis Salaam, you know, I mean, we've, we've definitely
• 6:18
  lost a a a lot of great talent, a lot of young riders with huge
• 6:23
  futures ahead of them. Like, I think we just celebrated
• 6:26
  the 10 year anniversary of Louis Salam.
• 6:28
  Yeah. And, and Can you believe that?
• 6:31
  Yeah. And that was like, dude, I can't
• 6:34
  believe one. I can't believe 10 years has
• 6:35
  gone by so fast. And, and to this day, I still
• 6:39
  can't believe like, you know, Louis Salam is gone, man.
• 6:42
  Like he was such a great talent. He just, you know, another guy
• 6:47
  that lit up the room. Have you ever like spoke with
• 6:49
  him or have you ever seen him get a mic put in his face?
• 6:52
  Like the dude love to like have fun and talk and just one of
• 6:55
  those guys and do. You give do you give Maverick
• 6:59
  points for having a tattoo on his arm?
• 7:03
  You know what, man, I give, I give him and a couple of the
• 7:06
  other Spanish guys a lot of love because every year on Luis
• 7:10
  Salon's birthday, everybody shouts him out.
• 7:12
  Every year on the weekend that we lost Louis Salaam, like they
• 7:16
  remind him every time they go to that track, they always do like
• 7:20
  a little bit of a remembrance for Louis Salaam.
• 7:22
  Like he, you know, in the short time he was with us and in the
• 7:25
  short time he was in the paddock, he just made so many
• 7:28
  friends, you know, and not too many riders make a lot of
• 7:32
  friends. Like, you know, most riders make
• 7:34
  a lot of enemies, Right? Right.
• 7:36
  For sure. Talk about a couple.
• 7:38
  For sure. There's there's more than a few
• 7:41
  that you know when the cameras are off, somebody wants to punch
• 7:44
  him in the face. Yeah, for sure.
• 7:47
  Yeah, no, it's crazy how that accident happened to go back to
• 7:52
  Nikki Hayden and stuff like that.
• 7:53
  And you know what he's done for, for motorcycle racing in the US
• 7:58
  and globally, because like I said, he's, you know, like I, I,
• 8:02
  I, I, like, I got, I, I watched the race after he had already
• 8:07
  won and stuff like that. I started following Moto GP in
• 8:09
  2015. So before, I mean, I went back
• 8:12
  and watched the 500CC races, all the stuff they had on motogp.com
• 8:15
  and stuff like that. But like he, he was an icon
• 8:19
  that, you know, you know, and, and just, and, and you know, he,
• 8:23
  he was the Kentucky kid. So it's not like he was from New
• 8:25
  York City or somewhere Flash, you know, I'm not saying
• 8:27
  Kentucky's not flashy, but you know, you know, he wasn't a city
• 8:31
  kid And, and he's embraced that. And it seems like globally like
• 8:36
  everyone embraced that wherever he was racing at in the world.
• 8:40
  Yeah, no, they look, you know, again, globally at the time, the
• 8:44
  way they looked at him and as an American is like, oh, this is
• 8:46
  like, you know, a country, you know, apple pie American guy.
• 8:53
  And that's what he was. He was like, you know, if you
• 8:55
  had to like in the dictionary, if they had a picture of like,
• 8:58
  hey, show me a picture of an apple pie American guy, like
• 9:01
  it'd probably be Nikki Haid. And they're like waving like
• 9:04
  that's an apple pie American guy.
• 9:05
  So. And here and from.
• 9:07
  What I could tell, he embraced it.
• 9:09
  You know, there's, there's some people and especially like I, I
• 9:12
  now, you know, we'll talk until, you know, now, you know, media
• 9:16
  and how the writers carry their business is different than the
• 9:19
  back then. You could have been a hole back
• 9:21
  then and it was OK, But he wasn't he, he seemed like he
• 9:24
  just embraced everyone and, and everybody just like, like enjoy
• 9:27
  being around him and stuff like that.
• 9:29
  I mean, Rossi and all these guys that you wouldn't think maybe I
• 9:31
  want to, you know, be good friends.
• 9:33
  He was good friends with like the best of them.
• 9:35
  Yeah, I again that I think a little bit has to do with him
• 9:40
  and a little bit has to do with the time that he came into GP.
• 9:44
  You know, we don't have the success we have as Americans in
• 9:47
  GP anymore because the transition from a super bike to
• 9:50
  a Moto GP bike now, you know, it's, it's a chasm.
• 9:54
  It used to be like there is a possibility to jump from super
• 9:58
  bike to Moto GP. There's a chance to world jump
• 10:01
  from world super bike to Moto GP.
• 10:03
  Now the path has completely changed and Nikki Hainan was one
• 10:07
  of the last guys to be able to do that direct path to Moto GP
• 10:12
  from a super bike and not have to make that step in World Super
• 10:15
  Bike. Like he actually went from the
• 10:17
  US straight to the top racing class and went racing.
• 10:20
  And if you think about it, everybody else before him and
• 10:24
  nobody had done that in a long, long time.
• 10:26
  You know, everybody else went went the path of either BSB or
• 10:29
  World Super Bike and then to Moto GP and like Nikki Hayden
• 10:34
  just, you know, just a lot of the things that he did.
• 10:37
  And then when he got to the paddock, he ingratiated himself
• 10:40
  to everybody because he didn't show up with a lot of ego
• 10:42
  because, yeah, he was a champion here in the US, but he was like,
• 10:46
  you know, now I'm with the greatest writers in the world.
• 10:49
  I have to enjoy this moment. I have to sit back and like,
• 10:52
  take a deep breath, take all this in and understand like,
• 10:55
  hey, man, I'm on the track with Danny Pedrosa.
• 10:59
  I'm on the track with Valentino Rossi.
• 11:01
  And like these, these huge names at the time, it was Markham
• 11:04
  Alandry, it was Tony Elias. It was, I mean, it was a
• 11:07
  killer's. It was a killer's alley of, of
• 11:09
  racers back then. It was a murderer's role.
• 11:12
  Like this dude had to like run the Gaul.
• 11:14
  And when he got there and he he killed him with kindness, man.
• 11:17
  He was like, no man, we we, we can't hate this dude.
• 11:20
  He's too fucking nice. Say something dumb like so we
• 11:22
  can hate you a little bit. But no man, he just was like
• 11:25
  what about his business? Always shaking the always
• 11:29
  shaking fans hands, always taking pictures, signing
• 11:31
  autographs, like doing all those things.
• 11:33
  And he deadly ingratiated himself to Valenciano Rossi
• 11:37
  because after being there for a while, I mean, he beat Rossi for
• 11:41
  one of the titles that Rossi thought he had, you know, locked
• 11:46
  in. And then Rossi lost it to him.
• 11:49
  And in another scenario, Rossi would have been like, I'm never
• 11:52
  talking to this guy again. And instead he's like, Hey, how
• 11:55
  about you come ride with me? I'm going to get you a a suit
• 11:59
  deal with Dianeze. Then he he left the team he was
• 12:03
  on because, you know, Rossi was like, hey, if you're going to
• 12:06
  ride with me, you got to be in the same suit that I'm in.
• 12:08
  I don't care about the helmet, but you got to be in the same
• 12:10
  suit that I'm in. And he was like, all right,
• 12:12
  cool. And then all of a sudden like
• 12:13
  open up all these new opportunities for him and
• 12:15
  everything else. So it's, it's, it's a, it's a
• 12:20
  really interesting story that he has.
• 12:22
  Man, I hope that at some point, the same way they're doing
• 12:24
  documentaries about Marquez and Rossi and Giacomo Augustini and
• 12:29
  all these guys, I really would hope someday somebody does a
• 12:31
  really good documentary on like the Kentucky Kid.
• 12:36
  Yeah, I, I, I hope so as well because that would be a dope.
• 12:40
  Because, you know, like being in the the racing community, we get
• 12:45
  to hear stories from different people and you can kind of piece
• 12:48
  it together and stuff like that. But for folks that don't get
• 12:52
  that opportunity like to be able to see something like this and
• 12:55
  we, we need more after F, not even after F1, even after that
• 12:58
  other motorcycle movie came out last year.
• 13:00
  We need more motorcycle movies in general, but definitely
• 13:04
  that's one that should be made about, about Nikki Hayden.
• 13:08
  And, and you know, we can, you know, some of these other
• 13:10
  writers are, you know, in the 500CC days too, 'cause you know
• 13:15
  that that that flag was, was, was shining bright for a while.
• 13:20
  Yeah, I mean, you know, they back in the day, Moto GP used to
• 13:24
  make these like, like seasonal kind of event movies.
• 13:31
  Like they have the the Kentucky Kid, the Tornado and something
• 13:34
  else. And they haven't done that in a
• 13:36
  long time. And I'm really hoping that now
• 13:38
  that this new company owns Moto GP, Liberty Media, I hope
• 13:42
  Liberty Media does similar to what they've done with F1, is
• 13:47
  try to engage fans by using documentary style filmmaking to
• 13:53
  kind of to kind of ingratiate new fans into what is Moto GP.
• 13:58
  Because if you don't watch Moto GP, you're not going to wake up
• 14:00
  1 morning at 4:00 AM and be like, hey, let me turn on Moto
• 14:03
  GP. Like you kind of have to like
• 14:06
  build a fan base and to build a fan base like what they did with
• 14:09
  Formula One, Like they did that show, they put it on on TV and
• 14:14
  all of a sudden that show became like the biggest streaming show
• 14:17
  that that was airing at the time.
• 14:20
  And now look at Formula One. I mean, it was already huge, but
• 14:23
  now it's grown exponentially in other parts of the world and
• 14:26
  even in the USI think it's grown more in the US than anywhere
• 14:29
  else because we didn't really pay a ton of attention to
• 14:31
  Formula One in the US as a market.
• 14:33
  Now it's like, dude, we've got three races in the US for
• 14:37
  Formula One. Well, yeah, if, if I, you know,
• 14:40
  if I just to finish on the Formula One section, I think
• 14:43
  over 500,000 1000 people went to Silverstone this past weekend
• 14:46
  F1. That's crazy.
• 14:50
  Like what? That's crazy, man.
• 14:53
  We. Were just talking about 200 and
• 14:54
  something ass and thinking like yo they blown it out the park
• 14:57
  and it's just like it's a rainy day in Silverstone and it's over
• 15:01
  5 people coming out. There's 500,000 umbrellas out
• 15:05
  there enjoying the time man and and Formula One tickets aren't
• 15:10
  cheaper than Moto GP tickets. They're more money and they're
• 15:14
  still packing in the fans. So again, I think, you know, I
• 15:18
  think yesterday was the day that officially Liberty Media now
• 15:24
  owns 86% of Dorna Moto Gpi. Think it was this past week
• 15:29
  where it like became official, where it passed the last
• 15:32
  government's. Oh, got you, got you.
• 15:33
  OK, so I heard something about that and, and because I know it
• 15:37
  it, I thought it went in 80% last year, the end of the last
• 15:42
  season, but maybe just passed a area or one of the steps.
• 15:48
  Because when I heard it the other day sound like they owned
• 15:50
  100% of it. Not necessarily the 80% when
• 15:53
  they reported it, but it could just be the media reporting it
• 15:55
  in a way that made it seem like they owned the whole thing.
• 15:59
  Because I was just like, oh OK, they got rid of the other 20% or
• 16:02
  whatever. Yeah, whatever it is.
• 16:04
  Like they are now officially the majority stakeholder in Moto GP
• 16:08
  and everything that falls under the Dorna umbrella, which is
• 16:11
  great because even though they've been actively working
• 16:14
  with Dorna, like now they can kind of direct Dorna.
• 16:17
  Now there's like, you know, we're, we're not a majority
• 16:19
  owner anymore. We're the majority owner and
• 16:22
  we're going to we're you know, we've already started to lay the
• 16:24
  groundwork of what we want and now we're just going to keep
• 16:27
  blaming this groundwork. So I, I look forward to see what
• 16:29
  they're going to do because it's good to change sometimes the,
• 16:34
  the blood within a company, because blood can get stale,
• 16:37
  like ideas can get stale. People can get very set in their
• 16:41
  ways and not look at new opportunities and and Liberty
• 16:45
  Media is looking at new opportunities.
• 16:46
  You know, hey, the United States has a lot of money.
• 16:49
  Why aren't we doing more in the United States?
• 16:52
  You know, why aren't we doing here?
• 16:53
  Like there's a lot of expendable.
• 16:55
  Why aren't we going to more places in South America?
• 16:57
  Oh, well, economically, some of these countries don't spend as
• 17:01
  much money. That's all right.
• 17:02
  There's also winning by losing and there's losing by winning.
• 17:05
  We might lose some money, but we gain a massive amount of fans.
• 17:08
  Right, right. I agree.
• 17:11
  So I agree and changing, changing like, you know, looking
• 17:14
  at Carmelo, I think is his name, right?
• 17:16
  Carmelo that you know, yeah, he's up there.
• 17:20
  He was longing a tooth. You know what I mean I mean.
• 17:23
  I don't know how how often he's checking his Twitter page, you
• 17:27
  know, a blue sky page. He he was longing the tooth when
• 17:31
  he was longing the tooth. Man, I don't even know how to do
• 17:33
  this. Now, so, you know, no disrespect
• 17:36
  to him in the sense, but like, you're right, I mean the
• 17:39
  attention span where we are for, you know, yeah, listen, man,
• 17:42
  I'm, I'm, I'm playing a video game in in one, one monitor.
• 17:46
  I'm I'm listening to something or watching something.
• 17:49
  I'm listening to separate things at once.
• 17:50
  So like, you know, the the focus of just focusing on one thing
• 17:53
  alone is, is that doesn't happen anymore.
• 17:56
  People doing like 5 to 10 different things at once
• 17:58
  sometimes. And you know, like Formula One
• 18:02
  and I think get, get that and, and the way we're seeing stuff,
• 18:06
  the way they've been able to get I, they may have more
• 18:10
  celebrities come out than like NBA games.
• 18:13
  It's just a lot more NBA games. But like when you look at these
• 18:16
  F1 races, celebrities are coming out from all walks of life and,
• 18:21
  and they're mingling with the crowd and, and, and being a part
• 18:25
  of the crowd, not being ushered off into this private box and,
• 18:28
  and no, and no, not taking photos with fans.
• 18:30
  So like that whole interaction, I don't want to say it's
• 18:35
  normalized being around the celebrities and stuff like that,
• 18:38
  but as a fan, if you know, you can sit here and oh, they go
• 18:42
  Finialis or they go so and so would be really cool.
• 18:47
  And I think that this is one of the places where in the past,
• 18:50
  Dorna has not done a great job of retelling the story of the
• 18:55
  the people that are coming to see the events, especially here
• 18:59
  in the USI mean, we have our only Moto GP event in Austin.
• 19:05
  There's a person in the Austin area that has one of the biggest
• 19:11
  outreaches in the entire US. So you so you have the potential
• 19:17
  for someone in the US that can reach hundreds of millions of
• 19:21
  people in the US. The person lives right there in
• 19:23
  Austin. You should be actively trying to
• 19:27
  get that person to the track that weekend.
• 19:28
  When we go to Austin and have them interviewing these people,
• 19:34
  have them interviewing some of the celebrities, have them going
• 19:39
  first hand and seeing what Moto GP is.
• 19:42
  You know Joe Rogan is in Austin, TX Joe Rogan has the biggest
• 19:47
  podcast in the US. More people listen to Joe Rogan
• 19:50
  and listen to all three news. Network major new network
• 19:53
  combined. Right, that's true.
• 19:55
  Why would you not have Joe Rogan at Moto GP?
• 20:01
  Meeting with every single rider and trying to get the riders
• 20:03
  there maybe a week before to sit with Joe Rogan and try to
• 20:07
  explain to him what Moto GP is trying to explain.
• 20:09
  Like, dude, I you don't think I would want to see Mark Marquez
• 20:12
  get interviewed by Joe Rogan so he can explain the so Joe Rogan
• 20:17
  maybe because Joe Rogan is going to do his research on Mark
• 20:19
  Marquez. Although I would say Dax Shepard
• 20:22
  though, because he he's a, he's AF1 and motorcycle guy.
• 20:27
  He's a actor. He he has a he has a podcast as
• 20:30
  well, but not. As yeah, he doesn't have the Joe
• 20:33
  Rogan podcast, Joe Rogan. But again, and for Joe Rogan,
• 20:37
  it's not a big, I mean, Jack Shepherd is there every weekend
• 20:40
  at Moto GP anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:42
  Because he rides the Monday after Moto GP with Aprilia at
• 20:46
  that track day. Every year at On That Track day,
• 20:48
  I see Jack Shepherd showing up and riding for the day.
• 20:52
  But again, man, like these are all opportunities.
• 20:56
  And maybe it's again because Carla Merlo Espala Espalada is
• 20:59
  80 years old. Like this dude doesn't know who
• 21:02
  Joe Rogan is. This guy doesn't maybe doesn't
• 21:04
  know how YouTube works. And then the.
• 21:07
  Sheet the sheet the stock, if the stock is going up to your
• 21:10
  liking every year, you may not really think like, oh, I mean, I
• 21:13
  don't know, I, I, you know, if I'm fortunate to get to 80, I
• 21:16
  don't know. But maybe he's happy with the
• 21:18
  numbers and think things are going really well, right?
• 21:21
  I mean, obviously they sold and obviously these changes are
• 21:23
  happened. So something happened to say,
• 21:25
  hey, we need new blood in here. But, you know, maybe he thought
• 21:28
  they were doing fine. I mean, money wise they were
• 21:31
  doing fine, but that doesn't mean that you're growing the
• 21:34
  sport. And you know, over the past few
• 21:37
  years we saw attendance going this way and now over the last
• 21:40
  two years we saw the attendance going this way.
• 21:43
  And this is a combination of a lot of things. 1A new way of
• 21:46
  marketing Moto GP, trying to outreach outside of the normal
• 21:50
  customer base. And some of that is the changing
• 21:52
  of the guard of some of the races that we're racing, the
• 21:55
  dynamics of the racing and the slow comeback of like, you know,
• 21:59
  Mark Marquez. I mean, a lot of people don't
• 22:00
  like to give him credit, but you know, Michael Jordan, when
• 22:04
  Michael Jordan left the NBA, there was no Michael Jordan.
• 22:08
  The NBA viewership went like this.
• 22:10
  And then they found new, They found new stars.
• 22:12
  And, you know, Michael Jordan came back.
• 22:14
  We're in the 4-5, and all of a sudden the NBA went like this
• 22:18
  again. So, you know, you need
• 22:20
  superstars. You need to get the superstars
• 22:24
  in front of the right people that can then let these
• 22:27
  superstars attract more customers, attract more
• 22:30
  viewerships. Again, I still don't understand,
• 22:33
  like, how does Moto GP not get Joe Rogan, who's already in
• 22:38
  Austin, TX? Dude, I would literally rent the
• 22:42
  track with nobody there and I'd set up the studio in the middle
• 22:45
  of the start finish line. And I have Joe Rogan interview
• 22:48
  Mark Marquez right there when nobody else is around.
• 22:51
  Yeah, that'll be dope. That that definitely would be
• 22:53
  dope for sure. I'm available for marketing and
• 22:59
  research. You know, and and you know,
• 23:01
  Speaking of before we talk about what's going on with Dainese,
• 23:05
  like, yeah, I think that Ducati like seeing these commercials
• 23:09
  roll out by Mark Marquez. This is the most commercials
• 23:13
  I've seen from Mark Marquez since he's been in Moto GP.
• 23:17
  Maybe what's happening on Spanish networks or over in
• 23:20
  Europe and stuff like that. But you know, he got, he got
• 23:23
  the, the Ditchy camcorder, he's running, he's pushing the V2.
• 23:29
  He, he's actively like, you know, trying to, you know, be
• 23:33
  the face of, I don't know, Moto GP per SE, but definitely
• 23:37
  Ducati. I mean, this is a, when you're
• 23:41
  an alpha predator kind of like him, you got to do these things
• 23:45
  that separate you from the guy in the box next to you.
• 23:49
  You know, I know Peko Bag 9 has a a big fan base and everything,
• 23:53
  but he doesn't have the fan base Marc Marquez has.
• 23:55
  He doesn't have the reach that Marc Marquez has.
• 23:57
  So Ducati needs to capitalize why they have him and he needs
• 24:01
  to capitalize why he has them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:03
  Because, you know, this this might be for his forever,
• 24:06
  forever home after this. He you know this might be his
• 24:08
  last stop at Moto GP. Right.
• 24:10
  My, my 14 year old daughter is a Marc Marquez fan.
• 24:14
  And, and so there's a bunch of 1417 to, you know, four years
• 24:18
  old like Marc. Marcus, I mean, it's, you know,
• 24:23
  it's going to take a big pitch for him to convince me.
• 24:27
  It's going to take a big, big pitch from him to convince me to
• 24:29
  buy another Ducati. But who knows?
• 24:32
  Maybe he one day he'll he'll do the commercial.
• 24:34
  Like, you know what, I'm gonna have to go buy Ducati.
• 24:38
  He gonna sign the Dionysia and then you're like.
• 24:40
  I I got Mark, that happens, then I don't, then it's mandatory.
• 24:44
  I got to buy Ducati. So yeah, man, let's let's, let's
• 24:49
  bring it all full circle to talk about.
• 24:50
  Yeah, for sure. Danaise, how are things been
• 24:53
  this this season so far? You're out in Cali right now
• 24:58
  doing some Danaise stuff and going to Lagoon La Seca.
• 25:01
  So how things been with the tariffs and and and just racing
• 25:05
  in general? Yeah, the tariffs have been like
• 25:08
  the most interesting thing. There's actually two things
• 25:11
  happening right now in the US that have both happened at the
• 25:13
  same time this year that have impacted the entire motorcycle
• 25:17
  industry. And one of them most people have
• 25:19
  no idea about. And the other ones, the tariffs.
• 25:22
  And so the tariffs are the ones that most people know about.
• 25:25
  We didn't get really heavily impacted by the tariffs because
• 25:29
  the areas that were most impacted by the tariffs, we
• 25:32
  don't make products there or we don't make many products there
• 25:35
  like in China. We make very few products we
• 25:39
  produce on the AGV side. There's two helmets that are
• 25:43
  made in China. All the other helmets are made
• 25:46
  in our own factory in Vietnam and in our factory in Italy.
• 25:49
  So we only have two helmets that were necessarily impacted.
• 25:52
  So overall, our pricing didn't move that much.
• 25:55
  I think we did like a 5 or 7, 5 to 7% increase on a few items
• 26:00
  because even in the countries where we didn't get 120% tariff,
• 26:05
  they're still tariffs. And so we do have to make some
• 26:08
  small price adjustments, but we calculated them out very early.
• 26:12
  We try to keep them very small, but unfortunately, you know, it
• 26:16
  does impact the end consumer, which is kind of weird because
• 26:19
  normally we base our pricing in other parts of the world on the
• 26:24
  US pricing and now we can't. Now we actually have to base our
• 26:29
  pricing on pre tariff US pricing.
• 26:33
  So we actually have AUS price and then we have the US price
• 26:37
  that we actually charge the rest of the world, which is not the
• 26:40
  US price because the US price is higher because of the tariffs
• 26:44
  and we don't want to penalize other countries are Tara
• 26:48
  Freight. You know, you know there there
• 26:51
  are people in countries in Africa is like y'all are
• 26:54
  stealing my model. I can't free prices for
• 26:58
  tourists. But we, you know, comparatively
• 27:04
  here in the US, we still have the most competitive price
• 27:07
  because when you sell that product in Canada, now you have
• 27:10
  to do the exchange rate for Canada.
• 27:11
  And the exchange rate for Canada right now compared to the US
• 27:15
  dollars what like 1.46%. So it's still cheaper to buy it
• 27:21
  in the US if you're Canadian, come over the border.
• 27:24
  So, so it's still comparatively cheaper.
• 27:27
  It just kind of sucks that we had to like increase some of
• 27:29
  these prices. We try to keep it as minimal as
• 27:31
  possible. The bigger issue that we've had
• 27:34
  this year is California, New York and New Hampshire.
• 27:38
  We haven't been able to sell a lot of our products and a lot of
• 27:41
  other manufacturers can't either.
• 27:43
  And that's because of a regulation that California put
• 27:46
  into place the beginning of this year where you can't sell
• 27:49
  anything that has PFAS, which are chemicals that are like last
• 27:55
  forever. And the most the most common one
• 27:58
  of those is Gore Tex. So Gore Tex has chemical inside
• 28:02
  of it that once you make it, it can never be unmade.
• 28:05
  Like it never like disintegrates in nature.
• 28:08
  So a lot of a lot of like pots ago, pot companies like it to be
• 28:12
  losing some money. I, I don't know, I don't know if
• 28:15
  it actually effects Teflon too much because Teflon's a whole
• 28:19
  other chemical, but it does affect a lot of products
• 28:23
  because, you know, these PFAS products are, are in tires,
• 28:27
  These PFAS products are in a lot of different materials.
• 28:30
  Anything that's waterproof typically has some sort of PFAS
• 28:33
  in it. So we have been for many years
• 28:36
  now working on non PFAS or PFAS compliant products and we were
• 28:45
  planning on putting them into the market.
• 28:47
  And unfortunately, like not unfortunately, I mean, we're
• 28:50
  glad that this is happening because we were planning on
• 28:52
  eliminating it. On the Dianese side, you know,
• 28:55
  we've actually started to use a lot of recycled cardboards and
• 29:01
  recycled materials in a lot of our products because we want to
• 29:05
  be a little bit more, you know, ecologically compliant.
• 29:10
  You know, if we can use recycled cardboard, let's use recycled
• 29:13
  cardboard. Let's use less plastic, let's
• 29:15
  use more natural paper instead of like synthetic type of paper.
• 29:20
  Let's use it like, you know, we're trying to find ways to be
• 29:22
  a little bit more environmentally friendly and we
• 29:26
  were already working on this, but this kind of not that it
• 29:29
  came up unannounced, but it's definitely something that came
• 29:33
  up in a very short period of time.
• 29:35
  So we're making PFAS compliant products.
• 29:38
  The thing is we already have non PFAS compliant products in the
• 29:42
  market and we have to move them out of these States and sell
• 29:46
  them in other states. So some of our more popular
• 29:50
  items we can sell in California and New York, which are two
• 29:53
  really big markets. But even losing those two big
• 29:57
  markets, like we're having a really great year here for all
• 30:00
  of our products. Dionysia is doing great, AGV is
• 30:03
  doing phenomenal. I mean, AGV helmets in the US in
• 30:09
  the past 10 years, I mean, the growth has been unreal.
• 30:12
  And, and it's a combination of a lot of things.
• 30:15
  I mean, before we purchased the brand, the brand kind of bounced
• 30:19
  around to a lot of different owners and there wasn't a great
• 30:22
  fit in the helmet. The quality wasn't always the
• 30:25
  best quality. Sometimes it had quality issues,
• 30:29
  fitment issues, the degradation issues like the helmet would
• 30:33
  fall apart. And then after we purchased the
• 30:36
  and brought it back in house and started developing the products
• 30:39
  in Italy and started producing them ourselves, you know, we
• 30:42
  were able to really work out all these things, work on a, what we
• 30:46
  call an AGV fit, an AGV fit for the Japanese for the Asian
• 30:50
  market and AGV for the US market.
• 30:52
  We were able to just fix all the little things that we knew were
• 30:56
  the only problems that the helmet had because the brand is
• 30:59
  legendary and the products are great.
• 31:02
  You just need to get the fit right.
• 31:04
  And once we got the fit to where we wanted it, like now, you
• 31:07
  know, I, I, you know, driving around now, I see so many more
• 31:11
  AGV helmets than I saw even five years ago.
• 31:15
  OK, I might, I might get one now.
• 31:17
  Because that that was that was, I wanted a AVAGVA helmet as well
• 31:21
  and it wasn't fitting my head back in 2013.
• 31:23
  It wasn't comfortable, which was interesting.
• 31:27
  So it it it's it's cool to hear that you guys recognize that as
• 31:32
  an issue and also dealt with it because again, I think even for
• 31:38
  myself, I didn't realize that you guys had to fix that because
• 31:42
  it's because it's like, yeah, I'd love to go to AVAGV helmet,
• 31:44
  but it I didn't get the fit. So I definitely want to look
• 31:47
  into that now. So that's pretty dope.
• 31:50
  Yeah, Yeah. So overall the company's doing
• 31:52
  really good. Sales are great.
• 31:54
  You know, all of our partners here in the US, AGV is
• 31:57
  distributed by Parts Unlimited. And you know, they're they're
• 32:01
  loving the product now because the sales are great.
• 32:04
  So that's, you know, when your sales are great, people love
• 32:07
  your product. So and we have some really
• 32:09
  great. I just saw the new graphics for
• 32:11
  2026 and we have some really, really nice new graphics across
• 32:16
  the entire line. So from 250 bucks all the way to
• 32:19
  1800 bucks for the pizza. There's a lot of really nice
• 32:22
  graphics that are coming down the pipe.
• 32:24
  And then on the Dainese side, we have a lot of really nice
• 32:28
  textile new designs, new features.
• 32:33
  You know, with the change in ownership, you know, also came a
• 32:36
  change in a little bit of the ideology of the design.
• 32:41
  And you see it on the AGV sign where if you look at the last
• 32:44
  five years, we went from a very generic type of helmet design to
• 32:47
  now a very dynamic type of helmet design.
• 32:50
  And I can see the progression, especially from the inside where
• 32:52
  I'm like, I can see 10 years worth of graphics and I'd be
• 32:55
  like, oh hey, wow, how do we get here?
• 32:59
  You know, like this is this actually looks cool and modern
• 33:03
  and and it's happening on the dine as a side as well.
• 33:06
  Like next year we're going to introduce a couple of new mesh
• 33:08
  jackets that are in the right price point between that like
• 33:11
  that 220 to $360.00 range. We're introducing a lot of new
• 33:17
  gloves. We're introducing some new boots
• 33:19
  St. and track some new technologies in one of our track
• 33:23
  boots that's going to make it even more appealing to do like
• 33:26
  the boot in the suit kind of thing.
• 33:30
  Got you. OK, so, you know, a lot of you
• 33:34
  know, this is the time of year I get excited because I get to see
• 33:38
  I get to see stuff well ahead of time.
• 33:40
  But when I actually see the final products that are going to
• 33:43
  be put into play. And now it's the tangibleization
• 33:47
  of what I've been seeing for like the past two years where
• 33:50
  it's like, you know, we got to fix this.
• 33:52
  We got to fix that. Like it takes a long time to
• 33:54
  develop some of these products because we're, we're, our, we're
• 33:57
  our worst critics, right, Right. Like we look at something and
• 34:01
  somebody else will be like, that looks cool.
• 34:02
  And then we'll look at it and be like, we can make it better.
• 34:06
  We can make it better. Can you make make a a a Ducati
• 34:10
  Dynase suit that give you more patent on the right leg for the
• 34:14
  heat shield to help with the heat?
• 34:17
  Well, exhaust. I I can, I can build one for
• 34:20
  you, you know, I can't, I can't make one for Ducati.
• 34:22
  Ducati doesn't, you know that's. Fine, yeah, I'll take I'll take
• 34:26
  a nod Ducati. It's just like you know, you
• 34:30
  know a little bit more insulation on on the right leg
• 34:33
  would be would be good a hamstring just to keep some
• 34:37
  separation from the heat. I.
• 34:38
  Definitely. Thought I definitely thought
• 34:40
  about doing the the exhaust heat shield that you could put on
• 34:43
  your, you know, your racing fairings in the bottom.
• 34:46
  I was like I could. Probably get away with that.
• 34:48
  What's there's a bait Leathers? I don't know if you've heard of
• 34:52
  them. They do a lot of drag racing
• 34:55
  Leathers. No, no.
• 34:57
  So Bates Leathers is a company that makes a lot of drag racing
• 35:00
  Leathers and they actually put heat shielding, a lot of heat
• 35:04
  shielding inside the legs because when you're drag racing,
• 35:06
  you're pretty much laying on the motor in one of these drag
• 35:09
  bikes. So they put a lot of heat
• 35:11
  shielding and you also need to have a very rude fire retardant
• 35:14
  suit at a certain level of drag racing.
• 35:17
  So not only is it leather, but they has a lot of fire retardant
• 35:20
  material inside of it so it doesn't burn through.
• 35:23
  So yeah, we can look into it. That's, that's, that's what's
• 35:28
  up. How have the customer base been
• 35:31
  so far this year? Do you find that there are first
• 35:34
  time customers coming in or a lot of repeat offenders or
• 35:38
  combination? Well, through our retail stores
• 35:42
  we've noticed a lot of new customer, first time customer
• 35:46
  sales. We've also started to notice a
• 35:50
  lot of of people coming to the stores like our, our, our turns,
• 35:54
  our door turns. This is a way that retail stores
• 35:57
  track people coming in and out of the stores are are up
• 36:00
  significantly. So we've had more people coming
• 36:02
  into the stores and even if they didn't buy on their first visit
• 36:06
  and they just came to visit, they eventually do buy on a
• 36:09
  visit because based on the door turns and the overall sales,
• 36:14
  like our retail stores are definitely seeing a lot of
• 36:17
  attention, especially in areas where dealers aren't carrying a
• 36:22
  lot of our products. You know, those customers still
• 36:25
  want Dainese. And you know, in the past the I,
• 36:28
  the idea was, well, I'll just buy it online And there's still
• 36:32
  a lot of online sales. But we're finding that customers
• 36:36
  buying these particular products like to touch it, feel it, see
• 36:41
  it and try it on. And if they're, and if they're
• 36:44
  already in the store and they tried it on and they had a great
• 36:47
  experience in the store, then I'm just going to buy it here
• 36:50
  because it's going to be the same price if I buy it online.
• 36:52
  And back in the day, you would buy it online because you didn't
• 36:55
  have to pay sales tax. Now that you have to pay sales
• 36:58
  tax when you buy online, like that's kind of become a moot
• 37:01
  point. If you, if you have it in the
• 37:04
  store and you deliver the service, now I get instant
• 37:07
  gratification. I was going to buy it anyway.
• 37:09
  The price matches online anyway. So I'm just going to buy it
• 37:12
  today and. Go ahead.
• 37:15
  And online, unfortunately online is kind of like a self-service.
• 37:19
  So you have to, you don't really have somebody that can instantly
• 37:22
  answer your questions. You can't try it on.
• 37:25
  So what we've seen is that our stores are actually
• 37:28
  outperforming online in most cases because again, and I've
• 37:32
  said this for years to dealers all over the US and to all the
• 37:36
  dealers that watch this, if you're not stocking product in
• 37:40
  your store, don't blame the customer for buying it online.
• 37:43
  That's your fault. That customer customer was could
• 37:46
  easily, while sitting on a toilet taking a shit, order that
• 37:50
  product. But that customer chose to wipe
• 37:53
  their ass, put their pants on, drive to your store because I
• 37:57
  don't. I'll tell you right now, I've
• 37:58
  been to dealerships all over the country.
• 37:59
  There's no dealership next to anything where I'm just going to
• 38:02
  walk by and walk in. I have to drive to that dealer
• 38:05
  with the purpose of wanting to buy something.
• 38:08
  So I took the time to wipe my ass, put my pants on, drive to
• 38:12
  your store, walk in your store, and you didn't have shit.
• 38:15
  And then you're complaining. Oh, everybody's buying it
• 38:18
  online. No, no, no, no.
• 38:19
  It's your fault for not having it in the store or not having it
• 38:22
  leave some selection that I can choose from in your store.
• 38:25
  You have nothing in your store. You don't want to invest in the
• 38:27
  retail side of your store. That's fine.
• 38:30
  Live off your parts and accessories and motorcycle sales
• 38:33
  where you're missing a huge portion of business when you're
• 38:36
  not doing helmets and apparel right and this is what we see.
• 38:41
  Yeah, I was going to say it. It's almost because, and you,
• 38:43
  you know, you could tell me how long the stores have been around
• 38:46
  in the US because it's, it's not normal for a, a, a motorcycle
• 38:52
  brand to have a store. They usually part of some other
• 38:55
  things like, you know, the cycle gears or that's the only thing I
• 38:58
  can think of outside of going. And so to to have your own, you
• 39:03
  know, you know, unique store and and only selling your product
• 39:07
  and stuff like that. That's that's AI don't want to
• 39:10
  say big gamble, but that's a that's a bold move.
• 39:14
  No, no, that's a big gamble. That's the right word.
• 39:18
  It's a huge gamble. It's a huge gamble except for
• 39:22
  the fact of the industry that we're in and it is still a big
• 39:26
  gamble because again, we are a corporate store, so we're only
• 39:31
  going to sell our products. So you know, we don't have the
• 39:34
  opportunity when you walk in our store to sell you oil or oil
• 39:38
  filters or other fast turning small products.
• 39:40
  Like we're focusing on one thing, but that also makes us
• 39:44
  unique because we're focusing on one thing.
• 39:46
  So we train all our employees very, very much on our products,
• 39:50
  but not just our products, on products in general, why we wear
• 39:54
  these products, what the use of the product is for how it works.
• 39:58
  So that when a customer comes in, you know, they feel that
• 40:01
  experience where almost everybody that works in our
• 40:04
  stores rides motorcycles. So you're talking to other
• 40:08
  riders. You're not talking to just some
• 40:10
  guy that we hired or some girl that we hired to just, you know,
• 40:13
  fill a place in a store. So we already have that
• 40:16
  community feeling because if you look in front of our store,
• 40:19
  there's typically at least one or two motorcycles parked all
• 40:22
  the time there. Why?
• 40:23
  That's our employees. Got you and and now do you are
• 40:27
  you and you know, are you more like on, you know, Rodeo Dr.
• 40:31
  store Ocean Dr. store Newbury Street in Boston and are you
• 40:35
  around more of the you know, the Lamborghinis and the fast like,
• 40:38
  you know, expensive stuff or. I mean, we have some stores that
• 40:44
  are in in prime locations, like for instance, our New York City
• 40:47
  store, it's New York City. So it's, it's got to be prime.
• 40:52
  It's, it's got to be prime like this.
• 40:55
  But like our, our first store, we opened it here in Orange
• 40:58
  County. It was originally the store was
• 41:01
  our original office. So the so we kind of used the
• 41:05
  front of the store to sell samples and stuff that we didn't
• 41:09
  need, like stuff that we would bring in to like demonstrate and
• 41:12
  then we open up a little storefront to sell these samples
• 41:15
  and then that. And then it grew a little bit
• 41:17
  more because now we were selling samples and leftover inventory
• 41:21
  from the year before. And then it grew a little bit
• 41:23
  more and it kind of kept growing and eventually became our first
• 41:27
  real store. And that store has been there
• 41:30
  now for 1520 years. And, and from that store, we
• 41:38
  kind of learned a lot of things, good and bad.
• 41:42
  And, and overall, globally, we started opening stores around
• 41:46
  the world. I mean, we had a store in
• 41:47
  Vincenza and we have a store and now we have stores in like
• 41:51
  China. We have a store in Japan, we
• 41:53
  have a store in Italy and London.
• 41:56
  And, you know, and it's kind of become this global thing where
• 41:58
  we have stores in like all these major locations.
• 42:02
  And the main thing is 1. We want to build a sense of
• 42:04
  community, but we also want to build a sense of, hey, you can
• 42:06
  come here and you don't have to buy our products.
• 42:09
  You can just ask like ask us questions.
• 42:12
  Like we're going to give you very, you know, unbiased
• 42:14
  answers. Like if you come in here and
• 42:16
  like, hey, you know, how do you think this fits?
• 42:19
  Even if it's our stuff, we can tell you like, hey, you know,
• 42:22
  that's a little too loose. That's a little too tight.
• 42:24
  You know, next time you're going to buy something, look for these
• 42:26
  features. Look for this, look for that.
• 42:28
  Well, you know, this armor is good, but in the future, look
• 42:31
  for this type of armor or look for this kind of fit.
• 42:33
  And again, there's not a lot of knowledge that's shared with the
• 42:37
  consumers. Most of the consumers have to
• 42:39
  figure it out for themselves. And we provide that.
• 42:43
  So you don't need to buy anything from the store.
• 42:44
  You can always just come in and ask questions.
• 42:48
  Nice, I, I like the sound of that and, and, and the store
• 42:52
  factor as I'm, you know, listening to you talk and
• 42:54
  thinking about it now, just globally and stuff like that.
• 42:57
  The closest thing that comes to mind is like, you know,
• 42:59
  Starbucks and, and what they're doing and, and how they, they,
• 43:03
  they, you know, you know, they making coffee like everyone
• 43:06
  else, but they, they also doing their little spin on it and
• 43:09
  makes it so much more comfortable for the consumer
• 43:12
  coming in and stuff like that. And not just the regular store.
• 43:15
  They got these fancy stores as well that that's just doing one
• 43:20
  off stuff and every, every location is a little bit
• 43:22
  different and stuff like that. And it's not the same
• 43:25
  experience, not the same things on the menu I mean.
• 43:30
  I mean, we have stores now. They're just outlet stores
• 43:33
  because we still have a lot of inventory in our warehouse that
• 43:36
  maybe like carries over a year or two and we just send it to
• 43:39
  these stores and we sell it at a deeper discount to the
• 43:42
  consumers. So these are the outlet stores.
• 43:44
  Then we have the flagship stores that have all the newest, latest
• 43:47
  and greatest products. So it's a good mix and, and you
• 43:52
  know, we continue to learn, but we still partner with Komodo,
• 43:56
  which owns Cycle Gear and Revzilla.
• 43:58
  So in a lot of the Cycle Gear and Revzilla stores, you'll
• 44:00
  still see a lot of Dionysia, AGV and TCX products.
• 44:04
  You know, our core business is still that wholesale business
• 44:07
  selling to vendors, selling to distributors and letting them
• 44:11
  get as much of our product out to all these dealers as
• 44:13
  possible. I mean, our goal is the stores
• 44:17
  is kind of a little bit, I'm not going to say like the Nike idea,
• 44:22
  because Nike I think pulled away too much from wholesalers.
• 44:26
  Like we don't have 300 stores across the US.
• 44:29
  We got 13 stores, man, and we placed them strategically in
• 44:33
  markets. What we know that they're
• 44:35
  underserved by our product. So by bringing our product to
• 44:39
  these customers, now more of the customers are going to be
• 44:42
  engaged in getting these products.
• 44:44
  And maybe that pushes them to go to their local dealer and be
• 44:46
  like, hey, man, every time I go to buy an AGV, like you never
• 44:49
  have AGV, you should get a GVI would buy AGV from you.
• 44:52
  But since you don't have it, I drive 2 1/2 hours to the Dianese
• 44:56
  store because I know that they have it.
• 44:59
  So whose fault is that? Is it the dealer?
• 45:01
  The customer's telling you what they want, You're just choosing
• 45:04
  not to bring it to your store. And now the customer's going to
• 45:07
  drive 2 1/2 hours and have the experience of coming to the
• 45:09
  store. I mean, we would prefer you had
• 45:12
  it. But if that area is underserved,
• 45:14
  then we need to serve that area. We can't wait for somebody else
• 45:18
  to serve that because we know that the customers are there.
• 45:20
  We know that they want our product.
• 45:22
  That's that's huge. And, you know, that's a, a big
• 45:25
  initiative for a company like Dainese to do because there's
• 45:31
  other manufacturers that are, are not doing that, you know,
• 45:34
  and not thinking about the customer that effect.
• 45:36
  So if, if dealers aren't putting the stuff in, in, in their, in
• 45:40
  their shops, we got to find it online and we got to figure out
• 45:44
  what country I'm in and what size I, I should be, my fitment
• 45:47
  should be. And it's, it's, it's, it's a
• 45:49
  process if you're not used to that stuff.
• 45:51
  I mean, I've been fortunate enough now that I've gone gone
• 45:54
  through it enough time that you get the hang of it.
• 45:56
  But definitely it it would have been nice and easy if I had a a
• 45:59
  place I can go to and get fitted and get get get all my questions
• 46:03
  answered without having to figure out how to use a tape
• 46:07
  measure a tailored. Tape measure.
• 46:13
  No, it's, it's, it's again, it's, it's helping us just kind
• 46:17
  of get that reach to the end consumer and create that
• 46:20
  relationship. The stores are a great outlet
• 46:24
  even for our racers. You know, our racers use the
• 46:26
  stores all the time to, you know, I need a set of epochs
• 46:32
  today. They'll run to a store and, or
• 46:34
  they'll call the store and say, Hey, I need three sets of
• 46:37
  epochs. Can you mail them to me?
• 46:38
  And they'll buy them from the store and the store will mail
• 46:41
  them directly and it'll get there even faster than buying it
• 46:44
  online. If there's a warranty issue or a
• 46:47
  crash, they can contact the store.
• 46:49
  The store will tell them how to go about getting the suit ready
• 46:52
  to send it back to get a crash. They pay for the repairs right
• 46:56
  through the stores. Like it's a really convenient
• 46:59
  thing. And, and it, like I said, it's
• 47:00
  still evolving, but it's gotten to the point now that it's
• 47:03
  become like essential for the overall customer experience.
• 47:06
  You know, hey, my zipper pull broke.
• 47:09
  You can take it to a store. Any of our stores can replace a
• 47:11
  zipper pull. Hey, my snap broke.
• 47:13
  Take it to any of our stores. They all have the equipment to
• 47:16
  take snaps versus mail it to California, wait 15 days and the
• 47:23
  whole process like it's, it's, it's becoming a very, very
• 47:27
  essential part of the business to just deliver on that premium
• 47:31
  experience. Right without waiting too long
• 47:34
  or having to ship things too far that that's definitely that's,
• 47:40
  that's truly ingenious, man. And you know, and it and it's
• 47:44
  definitely needed because like I said, and we've been we've been
• 47:47
  talking about on the show for a little bit now.
• 47:50
  You know, some of these dealerships are in some remote
• 47:52
  places and, you know, you show up sometimes and you're looking
• 47:56
  around and it's like. Flying the right.
• 47:59
  Flying the right place you. Know exactly Joe Rocket jacket
• 48:04
  from 94 still hanging there like what the fuck?
• 48:08
  Yeah, no. Seriously, you know.
• 48:10
  You know they haven't dusted in a while, and you know they might
• 48:13
  make more money from the service department than they do from
• 48:17
  parts and sales. I I've always, I've always told
• 48:20
  and, and a lot of dealer groups know this.
• 48:24
  Parts and parts and apparel are two different things and helmets
• 48:30
  and apparel are are very important revenue stream for a
• 48:35
  dealer. It's not the biggest revenue
• 48:36
  stream, but it's an important revenue stream because you can
• 48:39
  sell helmets and apparel all year round.
• 48:42
  No matter where you are in the country.
• 48:45
  You can only sell motorcycles or the peak of motorcycle selling
• 48:47
  season is you typically from February to right about now,
• 48:51
  July, August. In July, August, most dealers
• 48:53
  will tell you they see a significant drop in sales
• 48:57
  because in the minds of most customers, once you hit July
• 49:00
  4th, summer's almost over. If I don't want to buy a bike
• 49:03
  now, I'll wait till next year. So you, you don't think like
• 49:08
  that, but most consumers see July as kind of the end of the
• 49:13
  OR the beginning of the end of the summer.
• 49:15
  And so overall, motorcycle sales start to drop in July, but
• 49:20
  helmets and apparel keep selling, people keep needing
• 49:23
  jackets, keep needing gloves. I don't have a winter glove.
• 49:26
  I don't have a winter jacket. I need to get something when it
• 49:29
  gets a little cooler 'cause I'm planning on riding my bike deep
• 49:31
  into October or maybe November. So it's a very important, like I
• 49:36
  say that in a dealership it's got three legs and it needs
• 49:40
  three legs to stay upright. It can't stay upright with just
• 49:43
  two legs. And you have your motorcycle
• 49:44
  sales, you have your service, you have your parts and apparel
• 49:48
  and parts and apparel is only as strong as the second part of an
• 49:52
  apparel because what the margin that you make on apparel is so
• 49:57
  much more than you make on a motorcycle.
• 50:00
  You can ask any dealer. So if you give me $30,000, I
• 50:06
  could buy 1 1/2 bikes. And when I sell those 1 1/2
• 50:13
  bikes after F and I after I try to get you on your extended
• 50:17
  warranty on your wheel and tire protection on all that extra I
• 50:22
  might make let's say it's a 30,000 bottle, but I might if
• 50:27
  I'm lucky, I might make 2700 bucks, maybe 3000 bucks.
• 50:34
  If you give me $30,000 to buy helmets and apparel, I can
• 50:38
  easily get you back. You know, twelve, $15,000,
• 50:46
  that's. Huge.
• 50:48
  That's huge dealerships. You got me some phone calls.
• 50:52
  You got to make phone calls, you know, even if you give them
• 50:54
  stuff at like 10, fifteen, 20% off, like you get more margin on
• 50:58
  helmets and apparel and you get more customers.
• 51:01
  And once customers understand that your dealership does that,
• 51:04
  like there's a couple of dealerships that do it great,
• 51:07
  all of a sudden there's people that go to your store not to buy
• 51:10
  a bike. They literally go there to buy
• 51:12
  helmets and jackets and gloves and boots and pants and
• 51:14
  everything else. And eventually they're going to
• 51:17
  come in there and they're going to buy oil, oil filters, spark
• 51:20
  plugs. And when that day comes to buy a
• 51:23
  bike, they're going to come to your shop to buy the bike as
• 51:25
  well. Listen, I'm getting off topic a
• 51:28
  little bit, but I wish more dealerships would understand.
• 51:30
  If you treat a customer really good, they're probably going to
• 51:33
  bring you at least three to 8 customers, and each person they
• 51:37
  bring is probably going to bring you a few because the motorcycle
• 51:40
  community is very loyal if they like you and.
• 51:44
  And they'll. Keep going back.
• 51:45
  They'll drive, I'll drive 24 hours to get to somewhere if
• 51:50
  you're the best guy for the job and, and I like what you're
• 51:52
  doing. I mean, there's no, there's no,
• 51:54
  you know, there's people ship their stuff all around the world
• 51:57
  to get people to work on them and so forth.
• 51:58
  So that, that that's priceless because like I've done that, you
• 52:04
  know, to some dealers and you know, and, and I don't think
• 52:09
  they appreciate or, or get or get that and, and, and you know,
• 52:13
  don't and I don't feel the love and, you know, I've moved on to
• 52:16
  other places and now my friends and I going to those places.
• 52:20
  Yeah. It's, you know, it's, I mean
• 52:23
  it's a retail market, so you can never have 100% satisfaction.
• 52:28
  But even if you have a 90% satisfaction, that 90% can drive
• 52:33
  your business for years. And and they're gonna, you know,
• 52:38
  it's gonna organically grow because they're gonna tell their
• 52:41
  friends, their friends are gonna tell their friends.
• 52:44
  And it kinda, you know, you're gonna end up creating your own
• 52:47
  like little like regional dedicated fan base to your
• 52:56
  dealership only because like, hey, this person said this, this
• 52:59
  person says that, you know, our Google ratings are super high.
• 53:02
  We always have stuff in stock. There's always an option for
• 53:05
  somebody to come here. And there's only, I mean, I've
• 53:08
  been around the country on the West Coast, there's a lot of
• 53:11
  dealers that do it better than most places.
• 53:15
  But on the East Coast, like there's a handful of dealers
• 53:18
  that are really, really honed in on that.
• 53:20
  And the ones that are good at it, I mean, there's dealers that
• 53:22
  are making millions of dollars just on helmets and apparel,
• 53:26
  which is it's not chump change, man.
• 53:28
  Because when you're making millions of dollars on helmets
• 53:30
  and apparel, your net profit is going to be a lot more than if
• 53:34
  you sold $1,000,000 worth of motorcycles.
• 53:35
  Right, right. And yeah, no, it's, it's
• 53:38
  unbelievable. I don't, you know, and we'll
• 53:40
  move on and kind of get out of here for that.
• 53:42
  But I'll say no. I'm still waiting on a
• 53:44
  dealership to call me about a bike and then like we'll call
• 53:47
  you when they get it when it comes in and, and it's already
• 53:50
  sitting in my my garage and. I'm just like.
• 53:53
  I still have yet and got a call say, Hey, that bike is in that
• 53:56
  you wanted you interested. It's like and I and I you know,
• 54:01
  I get like there's people that may come in and and browse and
• 54:05
  stuff like that, but you can't make assumptions on people
• 54:08
  whether they're going to buy something or not buy something.
• 54:11
  You got to treat them all the same and and the ones that come
• 54:14
  back, you know you treat them even better next time.
• 54:17
  Yeah, in in retail, in any kind of retail sale, they always say
• 54:21
  don't pre qualify the customer don't because you don't know
• 54:25
  what that customer is up to. That customer could have showed
• 54:28
  up that day in his son's beat up Honda that his son just happened
• 54:33
  to slam to the ground and has cambered wheels because it's his
• 54:36
  Ferrari's in the shop. Exactly.
• 54:39
  Exactly. And now, you know, you treat
• 54:41
  this guy like you know all this guy's on a, you know, a 1990
• 54:45
  Honda with cambered wheels with five different paint jobs from
• 54:48
  all the crashes. He's got no money.
• 54:50
  And you don't realize like this guy's got more money than you
• 54:52
  can imagine. Like everybody that comes in,
• 54:54
  you treat them always the same, like they're the last customer
• 54:57
  you're ever going to have. So treat them.
• 54:59
  Treat them great, man. And and then this weekend, we're
• 55:03
  going to go up to Laguna Seca and we're going to watch guys go
• 55:07
  fast, man. Nice, nice.
• 55:09
  And so Daneze will have a tent up and and all that have merch
• 55:14
  up and stuff. Or is it more?
• 55:17
  No, it's more of a fan experience.
• 55:18
  No what? We'll have a tent up.
• 55:19
  We'll have a a 20 by 20 inflatable gazebo.
• 55:23
  We'll have some giveaway items. We'll have a little few promo
• 55:26
  items to give away. We'll have some suits on display
• 55:30
  so people can kind of see what the suits look like up close.
• 55:34
  We're going to work with some of our racers there to just make
• 55:37
  sure that everything's good, that they're happy with the
• 55:40
  service this year. So far this year, knock on wood,
• 55:45
  we've had a pretty good year. As far as like the Dianeze
• 55:48
  family of riders we've got in stock 1000, we've got the number
• 55:54
  one and #2 rider. So we've got Andrew Lee and
• 55:56
  Jason Uribe one and two on the BMW in the Kramer Cup.
• 56:01
  Demario is leading that in the the twins Cup, the Mario's
• 56:06
  leading that. I mean, I think the Mario would
• 56:09
  be leading a lot of different cups if they let us let him race
• 56:12
  more bikes in the Super sport class.
• 56:16
  Blake Davis is like right there third in the points won his
• 56:20
  first race a few races ago. So like good for him.
• 56:24
  And then Bobby Fong in super bike is hanging in there in the
• 56:27
  top three. So overall we have our top
• 56:30
  three, top 4, but overall we have a really good group of guys
• 56:34
  racing for us this year. And you know, considering that
• 56:38
  there's other companies out there with like 15/16/17 guys
• 56:43
  and we're out there with five and all five of them, or at
• 56:46
  least in the top three or four in their class.
• 56:49
  It's not a bad, it's it's not bad, dude.
• 56:52
  You know, if I wanted to, I could, I could put 30 guys in
• 56:57
  there. So I can guarantee I'd be in the
• 56:58
  top three. But to do it with like 5 or
• 57:01
  yeah, do it 5 or 6 really quality riders.
• 57:05
  I'll I'll stick to that. So before you get out of here,
• 57:08
  you're out in Cali for a little bit like, you know, what are you
• 57:11
  eating? Are you going back to some of
• 57:12
  your favorite places? Like what?
• 57:14
  What are we? What are we eating?
• 57:16
  I last night I had chronic tacos.
• 57:20
  OK. That's what sucks.
• 57:21
  Which is like one of my when I was out here.
• 57:24
  I love chronic tacos, man. They just, they're just good
• 57:26
  tacos, man. Does that means it's infused
• 57:30
  with something? When you say?
• 57:31
  When you call it? No.
• 57:32
  No, no, it's just, it's just called chronic.
• 57:34
  I mean, I don't believe they have any chronic in them, but
• 57:37
  they're that's they might. I mean, the logo does have some
• 57:41
  chronic on it. Like I I just saw nobody was.
• 57:43
  Just sitting on my chest. I don't.
• 57:45
  Know what happened there's another place out here so I, you
• 57:51
  know at some point I'm probably going to have in and out because
• 57:55
  you have to have in and out at least once you do and.
• 57:59
  And the other place that I it's not located near me yet is
• 58:03
  Raising Cane's chicken fingers. Yeah, dude, I love their chicken
• 58:08
  fingers. And you didn't get them in many
• 58:10
  places. So those are really the main
• 58:12
  three. Other than that, like pretty
• 58:15
  pretty pretty simple palette. Hey listen, as long as it's good
• 58:19
  eating and and you get some good, create some new good
• 58:22
  memories. Yeah, and Thursday night, if
• 58:25
  anybody wants to meet up with me, we will be at the Cinemark
• 58:29
  in Salinas, which is close to Laguna Seca.
• 58:33
  We'll be there Thursday night to watch Superman.
• 58:35
  So the Dionysic crew will be watching Superman Thursday night
• 58:38
  before the Laguna Seca round. There you have it, people, Luis
• 58:43
  Artiga from Dainese man, welcome to thank you for coming on the
• 58:47
  show and we'll talk soon, man peace.
• 58:49
  Take care.