5:45 Thursday, Estherville, IA

Good morning all.  This is my first bike rally of any kind and my first exposure to a full-blown Victory sponsored event.  I'm doing this for all you newbies out there who want to learn all you can about the American Victory Rally. 

I came in with VisionTex.  He and I have become great riding buddies over the past couple of years and he is a veteran Victory owner (Kingpin prior to the Vision).  This will be his 3rd AVR.  We are staying at the Super 8 in Estherville, about 15 miles east of Spirit Lake.  I booked the rooms in March and the rate is $55 Wed/Thurs $65 Fri/Sat nights.  The room is clean and totally adequate for what I'll be using it for (crash pad).  We got in about 4:00 yesterday (perfect riding weather by the way- high of 77).  State Troopers were really thick within about 75 miles of Spirit Lake.   VisionTex and I are calling this trip our "No Tickets Tour" and are keeping the speed limit at 4 over (on the GPS), max.  Probably saved us at least five times coming in yesterday.  We hit one section of highway that had a real mild sweep to the right and back to the left.  We called it the "Iowa Twisty" because it was the only time we leaned the bikes except for turns at intersections.   After getting settled in at the motel we headed for Spirit Lake. 

The highway into Spirit Lake (Hwy 9, coming in from the east) takes you literally to the Polaris factory.  The factory is at the corner of Hwy 9 and Hwy 71.  It is bigger than I thought it would be.  I have just seen pictures online of the Polaris sign on the side of a metal building and had no idea of the actual scale.  I'll be taking pictures later today of the actual building and parking lot.  They have a dedicated section of parking right next to the building just for Victory bikes but there were a whole mix of bikes throughout the parking lot.  Harley Fat Boy, BMW RT, and several Japanese bikes.

The Polaris factory workers are the volunteers that make this rally happen.  There will be factory tours available but the rally itself is held about 5-10 minutes down Hwy 71 at Arnold's Park.  This area surrounded by lakes and has got to be one of the most gorgeous spots in all of Iowa.  Going down Hwy 71, Spirit Lake turns into Okoboji (I hose that name up every time if I can't see it spelled out) which turns into Arnold's Park.  Arnold's Park is the town name but the is an actual amusement park here with that name also.  There is a small rollercoaster sticking up over the wall and a big parking lot at the entrance.  It is right on the shoreline of Lake Okoboji.  A grassy area under the trees will be where the vendors will be set up and we can park our bikes there. 

Lloyd's rig will be set up in the parking lot at the entrance.  We were hoping to meet him yesterday but he had vehicle issues around Chicago (transmission seal) and was not scheduled to arrive until around midnight last night.  That is all well and good except I have a 9:00 appointment this morning to get my cams done by him.  (All that stuff going through your head about that, yeah, I was thinking about that too.)  He is booked all day and I hope he and his crew make it through ok.  Gonna be a long day for those guys.

When V-Tex and I got to the parking lot at the park, the Victory 18-wheeler was parked there along with a trailer from Conquest Customs.  Nobody was around.  V-Tex gave me a tour of how it was going to be set-up and as we were mounting up to leave, a truck pulled up.  Scott Kietzmann from Conquest Customs.  Right behind him was the driver of the Victory rig (forgot his name, will post later) on a blue Cross Country.  Scott is a very outgoing guy and passionate about Victory stuff.  He makes high quality "bling" for  Victory bikes and pulled a really nice looking custom Hammer out of his trailer. 

Five minutes later a Ford Taurus pulled up with four senior citizens in it.  They got out and proceeded to take pictures of our Visions.  They were just driving by, saw the Victory trailer from the road and the Visions parked next to it and pulled in out of curiousity.  One couple was retired locally and the other was visiting from Florida.  We talked Visions for an hour with them.  Another couple pulled up on a bike and knew the Victory driver and they chatted off to the side.  At about 6:15 we left the parking lot and went down the road for dinner.  Sat out on the deck overlooking the lake and ate some really good bar food as the sun went down.  Great day.

Forecast for today is partly cloudy, high of 84.  I'll be taking photos all day and will get a video of Lloyd thrashing my bike through a dyno run with the new cams.  I look forward to making a lot of new friends over the next couple of days.  If you have any requests for photo's or videos you'd like to see, let me know here and I'll try to accomodate.  Watch for updates tonight.

11:20 p.m. Wed night

I uploaded all the pics and videos to the laptop and started uploading Dyno video to YouTube about an hour and a half ago.  With 16 minutes left, the WiFi kicked off and the upload was terminated.  "Crud" as they say here in Iowa.  Will try again after this update.

Ok, today was Cam Upgrade Day.  V-Tex and I got to the parking lot at about 8:45 and the Lloydz crew was busy unloading the truck and trailer to set up shop.  We parked the bikes, walked up and said "Hey, what time did you guys make it in last night?"  Lloyd said "About 45 minutes ago."  I said "From the hotel?"  He said "Nope, we just pulled in."  Yeouch!  They were amazingly active and alert for what they had gone through just to get here.  We basically stayed out of their way while they set up.   There was Lloyd, his wife Brie, a young kid from Lloydz shop - Andrew, and Rylan Vos - Victory wrench from Iowa - "vicbuilder" here at the forum.  Rylan and Andrew were in charge of equipment installs and Lloyd ran the dyno all day.  Brie was flitting about setting up displays and organizing appointments and paperwork.  Quite the team.  Rylan and Andrew put my bike on the lift at 9:05.  Unbelievable.

Ok, it's late at night and this update will just address the cam upgrade.  A big question about the cams is why are the '08 models so much cheaper to upgrade than the '09's and later.  Here we go.  (The captions will be at the bottom of each photo.)

See that bronze colored box with the studs sticking out of it?  That's called the cam carrier.  (The end of the cam is sticking out of the front of it.)  Notice how the carrier unit is split horizontally.  There is a top half and a bottom half.  This is an '08.  In order to cut production costs, Victory changed that design and made it a one piece unit that cannot be split.  Not a big deal, unless you want to put bigger cams in.  The newer, one-piece units have exactly enough clearance to slide a stock cam through but the Lloydz cams lobes are too big for the one piece hole.  He has to basically take out the stock one piece unit and install an '08 spec carrier that he can split and seat the bigger cams in. 

Here is the stock cam coming out.  Loosen the nuts at the top of the studs, lift up the top half of the carrier, and the cam comes right out.  With the newer cam carriers, that whole box has to come out, studs and all.  $460 difference in parts just because of that design change.  (Not sure what the story was with that honkin bandage on his - Rylan's - thumb.)

Stock vs Lloydz.  You don't have to be a master mechanic to see how much more aggressive the lobes are on the Lloydz cams.  That's why they won't fit through the one-piece carriers.

Rylan, Lloyd and Andrew.  Just after my dyno run.  Total time from start to finish - a little over two hours.  My H.P./Torque values went from about 87/105 to 107/109 (Stage 1/Level 1).  For another $225 I could have extended the rev limiter to 6,400 rpm but decided that I need something to save me from myself for a little while.  That would have added about 5/5 to the numbers. 

Well, it's now after midnight and I'm a punkin.  Will start the YouTube upload of the dyno run again and see if it succeeded in the morning.  Hope you all enjoyed this update, I  learned a lot today, not the least of which is how nice Lloyd is.  I peppered him all morning and he was way more gracious than he had a right to be.  Rylan is a great wrench and Andrew is an up and comer that has a wealth of knowledge surrounding him.  I hope those guys sleep good tonight.

Hey Jeff,   Sorry you couldn't make it.  I was trying to be considerate with the photo bandwidth so went conservative.  From now on everything will be this size.  I start a whole new post about this cam stuff for the Tech forum when I get home.

"

I'll take a picture of the Dyno sheet I got so you guys can see the numbers (oops, sorry Kevin, I mean curves)  more clearly.

Visioness - will work on Brie today.  She is terrific.

Raining this morning.  Factory tour at 9:00.  No luck with the video so far,  will sort it out tonight.  Lots of pics tonight.  Later.

Thanks for keeping us up to date at the  "American Victory Rally".

I plan on attending the 2011 Victory Demo tour tomorrow at  Bill's Service Center  .

Tom

Songfan,

I think I owe you a beer for all your help several months ago on LED lighting. I'm here at AVR (actually live here in town). Give me a call 336-456-4550. I just stopped by and secured a time with Lloyds this Sunday morning. You going on Poker Run?

To anyone else here on the board that is attending AVR,

If you have any questions or need any help while in the area (unless you need bailed out of jail, then call Songfan), pls give me a call. Have fun at the AVR!

Thursday 5:30

I got a hold of Man314.  We'll hook up tomorrow at breakfast.

For you guys that have never been here before, the catch phrase for the whole weekend is "Laid back".  Probably less than 20 vendors set up in the park and the bikes parked in the grass number in the hundreds, not thousands.  You get the feeling that this is about all that anyone wants to deal with.  The riders and vendors that have come in from Sturgis are really glad to have the relative peace and quiet.  Here are a few shots to put it in perspective.

"

This is the local Sheriff patrolling around on his ATV (donated by Polaris).  It has over 18,000 miles on it.  The Sheriff's name?  Arlen.   (Perfect.)

This is a view of all the vendors.  The registration tent is at the far right edge of the photo.  Manned by factory employees. 

The bikes park out under the trees in the grass.  This view shows about half of the total of what was parked out there.

This update will give you a feel for how small it is.  When the locals find out we came in from Houston and Memphis for this their eyes fly open "Wow!  No kidding!"  I get the vibe that this is about as big as Spirit Lake wants to put up with.  It is a major effort by the factory employees to put this on and they are super friendly and sincerely want you to have a great stay.  There are no lines at the vendors so you can actually hold a conversation with them and not feel like you are holding someone up behind you.  This is not the money maker for them that a major rally would be but you get the feeling that that's ok, it's nice just to be here and relax.  More updates tonight...

Friday night, 10:30

Factory Tour - We showed up at about 8:45 for the first tour scheduled at 9:00.  It started off on time with about 12 of us in the initial group.  They took us to the cafeteria where they had some bikes on display plus a Vision frame and Cross-bike frame sitting up on some tables.  No cameras, cellphones off please.  We left the cafeteria and walked to the part of the assembly line that was closest to the cafeteria.  Not the begining of the line.  The frames with motors installed were coming around a curve and the guy at the station where we stood was mounting tires and putting brake rotors on wheels.  (I had struck up a conversation with a couple while standing in the lobby waiting for the tour to start and they were Harley owners, currently on a Road King but tired of Harley and interested in the Cross Country.)    We were at the back of our group and it quickly became obvious that there was no tour guide at the front of the group.  We were left to just mill around and watch the guy mount tires.  (What the?.....)  So, I started filling this couple in on the production line.  The frames currently in front of us were for an 8-Ball Vegas, a white Cross Country, a black Cross Roads and a Vision up on the second floor coming down next.  We could see the next station down the line and see the saddlebags and fairings for the Cross bikes, the fenders for the Vegas (to go with the blacked out motor).  Couldn't tell what color the Vision was going to be.  Just saw a silver frame instead of the black Cross bike frame.

After about 10 minutes with no guide, someone showed up and herded us to the dyno station.  From where I was standing at the back of the group, I could tell an engineer was talking to the people up front but couldn't hear the conversation.  Could not see into the dyno booth at all.  I saw a bike go in there but didn't hear anything.  After about 10 minutes with that guy we were ushered out, tour over.  Seriously?  That was it!?  We didn't see 90% of what was going on in there!  No paint booth, no welding shop, no end of the line where they are crated for shipping.  If VisionTex hadn't told me, I would never have guessed that there was a whole other section making ATV's at the same time.  He walked out and was extremely disappointed.  It wasn't like that in the past.  Everybody in the group who had been on a tour in previous years asked the employees what the deal was.  Why was it so lame this year?  Nobody had an answer.  Apparently it didn't get better throughout the day because every single conversation about the tour was centered on how disappointing it was.  Friday was the big day that everybody wanted to see it because it was going to be in action.  They will have it Saturday also but no one will be working it.  It will be static.

I was going to post some pictures but don't feel like taking the trouble.  All I have is the parking lot, some employee bikes and the outside of the building.  I didn't expect pictures inside but I did expect something interesting to write about tonight.  I would say that half of our group still has no clue about how a Victory is assembed from beginning to end.  (The other half had been on a good tour in the past and had come back.) This was not the workers fault.  They were inside doing their thing.  Someone up in the chain really restricted access for some reason and even though I was glad to say I've seen part of it, it was really hard to put a good spin on the whole experience.  The most common word I heard about it was "Cheesy".  Hopefully won't happen again.

The good news is I had almost 30 minutes of uninterrupted conversation with the Harley couple and by the time I was done with them I am as sure as I can be that they will be buying a black Cross Country with the leather-like bags. 

It's 11:30 and I'm toast.  Still trying to get the videos uploaded to Youtube.  Tomorrow I'll have pics & stories of interesting people I've met here.  Ciao.

Saturday night, 11:00

Well, the rally is over.  It was small, laid back, easy to get around, friendly, sunny and great.  It was exactly what I wanted.  After trying to pin down why I like it so much I'd have to use the word "accessability".  There were no lines for anything except the demo rides.  (They did over 500 this weekend.) 

Everybody and everything I was interested in was accessable.  Lloyd Greer treated me like we'd been friends for ten years and I just met him Thursday morning.  Bri put up with me all weekend.  I spent nearly two hours at the Road2ACure booth talking to those guys.  I spent almost two hours talking to a Polaris volunteer (Amy) from accounting that had been there since day one at the Spirit Lake factory, 16 years ago, when there was no Victory Motorcycle.  She was there for the first 1999 bike produced, the 2003 Vegas and the Ness's coming onboard and the six years leading up to the release of the greatest gamble in the 50 year history of Polaris - the 2008 Vision.  I met two life-long H.O.G. members who were 70+ years old, had ridden nothing but Harleys since 1953 and now ride Visions.  I met James Holroyd, chassis engineer on the Cross bikes projects and VisionTex and I talked to him for probably an hour all told today.  I talked to Scott Kietzmann of Conquest Customs for over an hour and he educated me on custom made wheels.  (He had a 23" Foose wheel displayed for $4100 and explained why it (one wheel!) cost so much.)  Bak (pronounced Bock) of Bak Victory in Sioux City let us get right in on the bike as he changed out a headlight bulb on a Vision today.  (He hadn't done it before and it only took 30 minutes and a severely cramped hand.)  You can have Sturgis, this was a constant, eye-to-eye, three day conversation with a bunch of really nice people.  Even though the factory tour was a bust this year, I got the feeling that the people in charge were listening to the feedback and it won't be like that next year.  We got listened to.  I don't think anybody would hear a word I said at a huge rally (both figuratively and literally).

If you get energized by the vibe of a huge rally, that's great.  If you get energized by getting one-on-one time with people who are normally too busy for that, you will love Spirit Lake.  The Polaris employees want it to be a big deal but I'm trying to convince them to capitalized on what they have to offer right now - access.  The Sturgis rally is 70 years old this year.  Started in 1941.  The AVR is less than 10 years old.  Going to Spirit Lake this year is like a Harley guy saying he went to Sturgis in 1951.  It's just getting started!  I would say that 90% of the bikes parked in the grass today were from within a days ride.  It did not have a national vibe at all.  Very mid-western and local.  You guys that are from the coasts and neighboring states need to plan a trip and take advantage of it while it is like this.  The locals were truly amazed that VisionTex and I came all the way from Houston and Memphis just hang out in their little Iowa town for the weekend.  This is a special time to be a Victory owner and it will only get bigger. 

I'll spend the next couple of days posting some pics and videos of some really memorable people.  I hope to meet a lot of you guys here next year.  Viva Spirit Lake!

I think Rylan is heatstroked.  He and Andrew worked their butts off this weekend in the corner of a hot parking lot with very little shade.  Bak, the Sioux City dealer who had set up in the park, was also constantly sweating from about 8 a.m until the day ended.  The wrenches were in the trenches.

If any of you guys are within riding distance of Rylan, I can't recommend him highly enough.  If you look at my bike in the dyno video, it is spotless after he and Andrew finished the install.  I can't remember the name of the tiny little town he lives in.  (Put it in your profile Rylan.)  If I lived within 200 miles of him I would make up an excuse to go see him.  He had done about a dozen cam upgrades before mine and he has it down pat.  Andrew, the rookie, learned a lot from working next to Rylan all weekend.

Pencil me in for the rev-extender next year! 

As I was leaving the AVR, (literally walking between two tents on the way to my bike), a voice called out behind me  "SongFan!?"  I turned around and there was this guy with a big ol' grin on his face.  "Man314....Mark?"  "Yep."  "Heeey, finally!"  We had missed hooking up all weekend but he finally tracked me down.  (He recognized the hat.)   By that time VisionTex was walking over and we spent the next 30 minutes chatting.  Mark is a typical Iowan.  Nicest guy you'd ever want to meet and truly feels blessed to be living in a town as beautiful as Spirit Lake.  He was literally the last guy I talked to at the Rally.  Perfect ending.

I'm hunkered down in Keokuk, IA tonight and will try to get some more stories posted before bedtime.

Bri -

You have read the thread that Jedi Jeff posted about her and seen why she is such a hit.  If you remember the beginning of this thread, I thought (assumed - yeah, I know) that she was Lloyd's wife.  I was quickly corrected, along with the spelling of her name.  Once I got a request from Visioness to track her down again, my interest was piqued.

Here's the Bri you don't know.  She was born to immigrant parents;  Irish mother, Brazilian father.  Because her parents were not citizens of the U.S., she and her brother were put up for adoption and adopted by a couple in Illinois.  She was raised in a very small town and when she got old enough to notice, she saw that all the other local kids were pink, she was dark tan.  She knew deep down, early on, that she was "not from around here".  She survived small town life, got married, had a daughter and went to college.  She was studying pre-law.  Her husband forced to to quit school and stay home and within a year after that they split up.  Bri and her daughter moved back in with her adoptive parents and she soon became very restless.  All of her life had been spent conforming to what everyone around her wanted and she had no clue who she really was.  She asked her parents to watch after the baby while she left home to find herself. 

In 1999, she loaded up a 1990 Dodge Omni (yikes!) with all of her worldly possessions and drove straight to New York City.  She had never been there before and knew no-one.  While driving through Pennsylvania, she got pulled over by a State Trooper (big Smokey Bear hat).  She was doing 68 in a 60.  He asked if she knew why she was being stopped and she said "Yessir!  I know I was going over the speed limit but if I go 60 the car shakes so bad (insert dramatic head and steering wheel shaking here) and I can't even think straight!  If I can get it to above 65 it smooths out.  I don't know what else to do!"  He stared at her for a second, shook his head and said "You couldn't make that up if you tried.  Please be careful."  "Yessir!"

She got to New York and parked her car in the middle of downtown.  She walked a short distance down the sidewalk and stopped in front of the legendary FAO Schwarz toystore.  There was a giant Mickey Mouse on display above the door and all she could do was stare at it and wonder how she could get it in the Omni to take back home to her daughter.  While standing there, she felt a tug on her sleeve.  It was a very nice older gentleman.  He asked if she was new to the city and she said "yes".  He introduced her to another guy standing there and it turned out to be his son.  They asked her if she had eaten lately and when she said no they invited her to eat lunch with them.  They proceeded to tell where to go and where not to go and eventually they ended up in Central Park.  The two men broke out a Hero sandwich and shared it with her.  She eventually got back to her car and it had miraculously not been towed.  

There's a 10 year gap in her story here but she told me that 10 years after those guys had shared that sandwich with her it occurred to her that they had to have been homeless.  They had shared their only meal of that day with her, given her advice to protect her and to this day she gets choked up thinking about it.

Her little daughter has now graduated from college and Bri has learned to live for herself.  She plans on racing at Bonneville and deeply wants to beat out Laura Klock for a world record.  She is awesome and I was lucky to get to talk to her.

Roger and Tom -

Roger is wearing the red ballcap (his black Vision is on the lift, to the left), Tom has the white, long-sleeve t-shirt on.  They are both around 70, retired businessmen, lifetime members of the Harley Owners Group (H.O.G.).  They have ridden nothing but Harleys since 1953.

Tom lives in California, Roger lives in Nevada (used to live in CA).  They have been friends for over 30 years.  One of Tom's sons had a Vision, hurt his back, and had to sell it.  He asked his dad (Tom) if he wanted to buy it.  He said "No, but maybe Roger might want it."  Roger said "Thanks, but no thanks."  Tom lives within 20 miles of Arlen Ness's shop in Dublin, CA and has known Arlen for over 20 years.  Bought several Harley's from him.  Tom asked Arlen to sell the Vision on consignment. 

Shortly after that, Roger came to visit from Nevada.  Tom said "Let's go to see Arlen and see if there have been any bites on the Vision."  Tom introduced Roger to Arlen and before long,  Arlen (after quite a bit of prodding) convinced Roger to take it for a spin.  "Just go out for 30 minutes and come back and tell me what you think."  Roger came back, got off the Vision and called his wife back in Nevada.  "Honey, I'm coming home on a new bike."  Tom was blown away.  Roger is the most conservative, anal, over-thinker Tom had ever met.  He never does anything on a whim.  Tom walked up to Roger "What the heck is wrong with you!?"  Roger tossed him the key.  "Take it out, you won't believe it."  Tom took it for a spin, parked it, walked up to Arlen and said "Can you build me one?"  "No problem."

Tom with his Arlen-prepped bike.

This is what makes the Vision a game-changer.  I met BMW guys who would ride nothing else....until the Vision came along.  I met a Goldwing guy who had bought every model since the 1975 GL1000 and wouldn't even look at anything else.....until the Vision.  All four of those guys; Tom, Roger, the BMW diehard and the hardest core Goldwinger all stood under the same tent, talking about their bikes.  Name any other bike on the planet that would make that happen.  There isn't one.

Gene,  it was great meeting you too!  The organizers work so hard and want it to be so great and I really had to convince Amy that they have something very special going on here. 

Chris, I feel the same way but I just can't bottle this thing up.  I told VisionTex during this trip that I finally figured out what I want to do when I forced to retire from the FAA in three years.  I will be on a journey to document the story of the Vision.  It's not going to be commercial for Victory, it's going to be something that will be shown on the Documentary Channel.  It will start with Polaris wanting a chunk of the motorcycle market and the first numbered bikes.  It will move to where they brought Mike Song and the Ness's onboard, the '03 Vegas and the Design Center in Wyoming.  A rash of young engineers and designers.  Then the real story begins: the six years leading up to the release of the Vision.  I want to really know what was going through Mark Blackwell's head through all of that.  The infinite design changes, timeline overruns, cost overruns.  The clay modelers and their relationship with the designers.  People like Amy in accounting.  What was it like to have to organize purchase orders for so many more new vendors?  Which vendors came and went over that timespan?  The workers who built the first Visions - how many really couldn't stand it personally?  How close did the whole project come to being canned?  The Vision Project pushed every single person at Polaris the the brink at some point.  The single greatest gamble in Polaris history.  At what point did they actually feel they were going to actually pull it off?  How were they going to present this to the stockholders, dealers and the press?  I could go on and on.

This story is every bit as compelling as "Tucker" or "The World's Fastest Indian".  I just want to pursue the real story without any corporate spin on it.  That's what I'm trying to convey with this journal.  The AVR is not about the Rally any more than the Vision story is about the bike.  The story is about the people.

We'll see.

af goalie -

John Hart, in the Air Force, plays ice hockey, thus the callsign.  19 years active duty.  Currently stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base and if I told you what he does on the B-2, I'd have to kill you.

af goalie with the infamous Roger and Tom.  John was one of the 7-minute wonders who bid on a 10th Anniversary Vision.  He ended up with #002.  Very cool.

John is by far the most laid-back guy I met at the rally.  He just finished up a year long tour in Korea, is moving from Rapid City and is house shopping in the general area of Kansas City.  He found his dream house on 5 acres with a killer view at a great price.  Problem is, it is literally on the wrong side of the street.  His daughter has a friend whose dad also got stationed at Whiteman and she goes to another school.  In order for John's daughter to go to that school, they would have to find a place across the street.  The zoning lines are so convoluted that there is a story in town about a house on a cul-de-sac that was literally split down the middle.  The kids had to go to different schools based on which bedroom they were living in.  Anyway, truth or not, John rode to the AVR to forget about "the dream house that got away".  He literally zones out and gets a 10,000 yard stare as he describes it.  Great guy.  Hope he comes back next year with a good ending to the story.

Vin Do -

"utvvdo" here on the Forum.  A bunch of us were standing around the Lloydz tent in the parking lot.  It is right at the entrance to Arnold's Park so anyone standing there gets the first view of any bike turning into the rally.  This black Vision with a totally different rumble turned the corner and when we looked to see who was onboard we saw this unbelievably short guy swing that thing into the parking lot.  His legs were fully stretched out and they barely went halfway up the floorboards.  I thought "Jeez, this ought to be good when he has to stop."  He pulled the bike right up like he owned the place, blipped the Thunder Sticks and put his feet down on his tippy-toes.  He put the kickstand down and hopped off with a big grin.  You could tell he gets these looks every day. I may be pushing it to say he is 5 feet tall.  Maybe 5'1" in boots.  To see him throwing a Vision around is absolutely awesome to watch.

Vin is from Salt Lake City and is a total gear head.  He has owned a ton of different bikes and works on all of them himself.  He loves the Thunder Sticks and has the full blown cam upgrade except for the rev-extender.  Vin's bike is a 2010 and Lloyd is still waiting for the software code from Victory.  His bike pulled 112 ft/lbs of torque on the dyno.

I used myself - 6'3" - and Vin as a graphic example of how versatile the Vision is as far as fitting different riders.  We looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito in "Twins" and we both feel comfortable on our bikes.  How in the heck did they do that?  Vin was one of my favorite guys at the Rally. 

Hal Hockett -

Hal grew up in Estherville and was in town for his 55th high school reunion.  He did 20 years in the Naval Reserve and was a Northwest Airline pilot for 30 years.  He retired as a 747-400 Captain. 

He was staying at the same motel we were and we had seen his truck and trailer in the parking lot.  I had unpacked in my room and forgot to bring the camera up so I had gone back out in gym shorts, a t-shirt and bare feet to get the camera out of the trunk of my bike.  As I opened the trunk, I saw a guy opening the trailer.  He put the ramp down, walked in and back out on this old survivor Harley.  A 1946 EL 61.  He bought it when he was 16 years old in 1953.  He was going to ride it to the reunion later that day.  It was exactly like it looked when he graduated from high school, scars and all.  This video shows the very first time it had been started in over two years.  I stood in the parking lot talking to him for nearly two hours.

Hey walmarty, we talked about those pipes.  They look fantastic on the 8-Ball. 

The Vegas on the right is interesting also.  It belongs to Amy's husband.  The saddlebags are the prototype bags that Victory was having made back around 2002/2003.  The bags have the name of the company on the lids (just above the flames) and are the only ones ones in existence with that name on them.  He scored them because of Amy's connections at the factory.  (That is not him or Amy in the background.)

I just realized that all the stuff we have talked about in that picture isn't even why I took it in the first place.  It's about Bak (nobody calls him by his first name).  He literally packed up his entire dealership in Sioux City (except for the bikes) and moved it to Spirit Lake for the weekend.  The canopy on the left was his maintenance shop.  The red/white striped canopy housed his entire product inventory from his showroom.  It was stripped so bare that they had to leave big notes on the doors "WE HAVE NOT SHUT DOWN!  PLEASE COME SEE US WHEN WE GET BACK FROM SPIRIT LAKE!"  His wife and kids were manning the striped tent.  Amazing.