Brian Slark: Seventy Years in the Right Place at the Right Time

0:00You know, being in the right place at the right time can change your life, but you still have to be the right person when the opportunity comes along. And throughout his nearly 70 years in motorcycle, Brian Slark has been that guy again and again. Growing up during the golden age of motorcycle in London, Brian saved every penny he could and got a BSA bantum. And then started racing motocross and eventually earned his British expert status. Then he walked into associated motorcycles looking for a job and walked out as a test rider. Before he eventually made his way to the factory competition department. The chance friendship with legendary racer and stuntman Bud Eakins eventually brought Brian to California, where he just so happened to help introduce the legendary Norton Commando to the US market. Fast forward a few decades and Brian played a huge part in the groundbreaking art of the motorcycle exhibition at the Guggenheim. He's also acquired hundreds of bikes for the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum and he even came up with the idea for the Barber Vintage Festival. Talk about being the right guy at the right place at the right time.

1:01This is Brian Slark. I'm your host Mark Long and you're listening to Driven to Ride. Alright Brian Slark, you are on Driven to Ride. Thank you so much for being here. I'm really excited to talk with you today. Well, yes, I'm happy to be here. Just make it interesting and awesome questions. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's impossible for you to not be interesting because you've been in the motorcycle industry for a couple of years and you've done a few things here and there. So I'm really excited to kind of dive in to your motorcycle story. But before we do that, I want to know in your own words and what in coming from you, what do you think most people know you for and maybe what is your claim or in your case, maybe claims to fame would be? I guess about outlived a lot of people. It's done a lot of motorcycle excavators over the last 70 years.

2:02Never had a real job of what it's been doing but I've done a labor love. Still riding a little bit when the weather's good and not too good. I'm riding a motorbike to easy. Get down and off is get little harder. So I'm not up to a three wheeler yet or a scooter. So I'm hanging in there. I was going to say that I think the momentum is probably key, just keeping it going. Oh, yeah. Once you're on the bike, I can ride at 100 miles. That's easy. There are just twists and throttles. There you go. Well, let's go back to the beginning. How did you even start motorcycling in the first place? I started off with a bicycle. Good start. I would ride my bicycle into some local wood, a big park, which is wooded. And I go to the top of the hill and I would post down the hill, go through little money runs and paths and I would play off road racing.

3:10I'd only had to go down there. That was my aspirations of off road. And then I finally saved up when I was 16. I could ride. I lived in London in the city. So I did have a lot of opportunity to ride off road, like say, if you lived in the country, you're a little bit on a farm. So when I was 16, I'd be a safe anthem. Which most people did. And I rode that everywhere. I rode that off road, on road, lived on the scene. So that's why it's introduction to motorcycling. So did you know that you wanted to ride motorcycles, like even when you were riding a bicycle? Oh, yeah. When we were kids, some of the girls in our street, they had their boyfriend's wood visit on motorcycles and, you know, the dark places of Bellosets and BSAs.

4:15You know, I asked kids for motorcycle trains because that was the fastest thing on the road in the 50s. And we were just looking at these bikes and drove over over there, they're leaking oil on the curve. And we would get these magazines, a motorcycle, a motorcycle, and you just look about weekly and some of the guys that give us some old magazines, and we'd look at all these road racing and these motorcross and the trials, scribes, or soap. And we were all motorcycle mad, I guess. I love it. Yeah, I mean, it was the time and place for it. And what I think is interesting is that, you know, a lot of people think about, you know, okay, post-war England, golden age, maybe, of motorcycling, some may say, a lot of people think about the on road, you know, the cafe racing, the, like you said, the triumphs and BSAs and a lot of on road riding and maybe some on road racing.

5:16But you sound like you had an interest in off road racing. Yeah, I always like the off road. I think it was my love of the countryside to get out of London, to get out of the suburbs into the country. And, you know, you could normally, in England, you could only afford to do one thing, either you were a cafe racer or you're off road. You could ride some rides and trials, which you had a bike where you could ride to work and you could ride it weekend, compete. So it was affordable. In fact, my first motor cross, I actually rode my trials bike to the motor cross, took off the lights, put some number plates on, competed, rode it home and rode it to work

6:16on Monday, something you couldn't do today. Yeah, yeah, talk about being economical though, yeah. I did, I did, you know, you got the enthusiasm. I did, and then I graduated into, into scribbles or motor cross. And I took that pretty seriously. I became a British expert, Sadduce, which means he didn't have to pay for your entries and he wanted one of the little prize money. So that was good. And yeah, the girls liked it too. So that was an added bonus. So that's a big plus, yeah. The main thing I think was, when I was a schoolboy, I had a crush on this young lady, and I asked her if I could walk her home and she said, yeah, and we walked over to her hours and leaning on the curb was a motorcycle.

7:18It was leaning on the footrest. And it was a most gorgeous thing I've ever seen. It was a mattress. It was absolutely sparkling, blacked out all. A polished aluminum, and that's a labelled on it. A Cooper Molder's Loss. I had just california. Oh no way. It had three miles on it. And it clicked and appeared. Absolutely prestige of Lussard. What is that? Oh she said, that's my dad works at mattress. And he gets a new bike every evening and every weekend. From home on that's it. That's what I wanted to do. So anyway, the local kids we failed out. The factory was about three or four miles away. So we were top on the tram for a penny, and we walked to the factory and this is growing me as so-shaggy motorcyclist factory, just in dirty old place, fell into boil and the

8:26oil and we were watching. Prey new motorcyclists pop out the door and it's just little fire. I said, one day I want to do that. And I did. So. There you go. I mean, small beginnings, small beginnings. Yeah, I mean, so going back a little bit, do you remember the first time you actually like threw a leg over a motorcycle and took it for a spin? Do you remember that moment? Yes. So there was very embarrassing. Really? Yeah, I was working at a garage and one of the guys had a band to, and they had to park the motorcyclists in a warehouse across the street for the main garage. And in one day, he said to me, why don't you bring the bike over and ride it over to me. The main garage, Missonna, around about a traffic circle. I got this band to them.

9:27I'd seen in the magazines and these guys throw motorcycles in the corner and lean over. So I hopped on the bike and I had it pretty quick to the roundabout and the road was pretty easy. It's a diesel fuel and of course down I went and slid across the road very embarrassed. I picked it up and I took it to him and he was okay. It just, I just tore the foot, wrist rubbers or whatever. And I think there's a landed on my wrist and that wrist ate through a barrel of wheat and I never told my parents, but I've got a band over to cry at night. You know, I've seen it in these magazines and these road races would just hurl into corners and I thought, that's the way you do it. So that was my initiation. Oh man. Embarrassed. And since then I saw, I don't like falling off.

10:30So I've been very lucky. I hadn't fell off any, any time. Because I did think it was very nice. Yeah, I mean, you got it out of the way early, I guess, right? Yeah. That's a heck of a story. So what was it about off road that appealed to you? You know, like I said earlier, I mean, I don't think a lot of people think about the off-road scene in England at that time. I think the challenge, because it's the south of England, the one that he rocks, it was really bad. And I've got to learn how to ride on mud and ride fast. And it's not a team sport. It's an individual that you want to see what you can do personally. Right. It's a challenge. And I don't know. It's just very, very exciting. You know, you are. You just get the bike ready and you have a little pickup truck or a van.

11:33And the subject scene was pretty good. It was just something I did on live for. I live for the weekends, you know, just to go on, go and brace and go to all different places. And yeah, it was young guys single, but some money in your pocket. No worries. No credit cards. Just easy, easy living, you know? Yeah. So it sounds like you got a job in the motorcycle industry and was like racing on the weekends. What was that first job? I worked at a garage when I first left school. And then I had to go into the Royal Air Force and I should service for two years. Okay. Yeah. When I was in the Air Force, we had a sort of a workshop part in this and heart, on

12:36the heart that it was their motorcycle shopping. You know, we're all like 17, 18 year olds. Most of us had motorcycles and we would hang out in there. And then during the day, if we were on night flight, we would be off during the day and we would roar around the countryside on our motorcycles by early guns. And I got out the Air Force and I went to work a little motorcycle garage. One day I went by a social media motorcycle, say, Jason mattress. I just said, I'll go in the employment office and I walked in and my motorcycle gear on. And I said, I already baked it. And he said, just wait here, son. And this gentleman came down to see me and he was huge, I had a captain of the International

13:41Sixth day, he was on the Scottish about five times. I mean, he was the man at the airport, he was about and he said, huh. So you want to ride on a motorcycle, son? And I said, yes, sir. Anyway, I got hired and I worked in the special and I did a lot of rectification on you motorcycle, little adjustments. And then I got to be a rider up, which means one of motorcycle comes off the assembly line. You get to pick it over, pick it, not electric start, pick it every month, check the oil return, take the brakes, then it will go down the street for a road test. And did that for a couple of months and then the foreman said to me, come with me and get on this bike. So I got on this new motorcycle and he hopped on the back and I had to ride him around

14:46the neighborhood. He said, okay, it's our to go out testing. And I used to test brand new motorcycles. I battled about 9 or 10 a day. You could go anywhere you want it. And you get a new one every night and every weekend. So I never owned a street bike on a free bike. And I did that for a couple of years and then I was doing pretty good in motorcross. So they moved me to the competition department where I will work on the fact that I chose bikes and six seas bikes and the motorcross bikes. And that was a super, super job. I had a BSE, a gold star and I had a very good matches engine and a golden amabster. So if we make the special parts for the works by a seller, my two and I get one for myself.

15:51I always had a very good motor. Life was good. I mean, it sounds like you saw your dream job and then you ended up with it like right from the get go almost. I mean, from testing and fitting parts and getting a new bike every day. So the question kind of goes, where do you go from there? Ah, yeah. Well, you know, did get married and things changed, but I was still riding. And then the factory was the golden sort of days were wailing like 1959 was a bumper year. And then during the sixties, the British bikes were getting out out 80 by the Japanese. There was talk of a four day week and things weren't going very well. At that time, I set up, I had a good friendship with buddy, didn't see was a super desert rider.

17:01And he was asthained in proceed the queens, the grain escape and stuff. And, yeah, the legendary stunt guy, yeah. Yeah, brothers and sisters riding used to come to the factory to see his friends. And what do you succumb over for these six days? I would lend him my motor cross bike. He could do a few races in the mud, as opposed to he was a desert race. So he would go, sure, little mud experience. So after the race, it involved a bottle of scotch and a motor suffer party. He said, well, I don't succumb to California and do a little, little stasel race. At the time, I said, wow, that's a good idea. So, what?

18:02There were a couple of months, I sold my motorcycle and my band and packed up and went to Los Angeles. I got involved in the desert scene. I got a job at the motorcycle shop and stayed for a year. And this desert race is basically good for this. I enjoyed it immensely, then I went home back to England and then I'll talk about the RSTT in the Alabama. I was sponsored in California by the Imported Nick Nicholson on a group. So I had a free bike, free race bike. And I've had a lot of, I've been lucky. I've always had a lot of free bikes to ride. I've never had to hold a lot of them. And someone says, supply may be one. I went back to England and did the RSTT.

19:07Went back to Macsulis and it was coldest, wetest, miserable winter. I think I've had experience of coming from Southern California at Squire the Shop. And I decided what the heck I'd do here. I could be back to California. I went back and came back to 66, 66, yeah. And stayed. So it was really, it sounds like the weather was making, it made the decision for you. Oh, I loved the desert because there wasn't any pressure on any spectating development. The problem was say, what's wrong with you today? You're not going very well or whatever. It was wonderful road in New York, road, road, aerial hounds. And at that time there wasn't any BLM or anything. So you could go wherever you wanted. The desert was a big playground and yeah, a lot of fun.

20:12Man, was it a big learning curve to go from the mud and the woods of England to the deserts of Southern California? Or did you pick it up pretty quick? Yeah, well, mainly he was a heat. But I didn't breathe the strain very well and I could pass someone. And then I would pass him and then I wasn't sure I was going. And I'd use that to wait for them to pass me again. I like the color. But I'm like, so pretty easy. I had the right sand and everything. And yeah, it was totally different experience, which I really enjoyed. Because you kept out, you took your five gallons of water with you and you kept out. No body could sleep in the back of your pick up. Stars, you know, yeah.

21:13Cool. Life was good. Life was good. So you said you worked at a motorcycle shop while you were there in Southern California. But it seems like your expertise and your knowledge on working on motorcycles seemed to propel you farther forward after that. Am I right? Yeah, I worked at the shop for a little while and then I saw an ad for assistant service manager for PSA motorcycle, PSA and the trial had a very exotic building in Los Angeles. One side, one side was the blue door that was triumphant. The other side was a red door that was beer say, but in the back were all the same. So when there was assistant service manager for the 17 Western states, it's factory old.

22:14I had a nice air conditioning workshop, machine shop. I had about 10 motorcycles at my disposal. So I worked there and life was pretty good. And then they introduced a three cylinder, the rocket three and the tried and they decided that I would be the services truck. And I was not exactly a dammit with the three cylinder motorcycle. It's pretty complicated to see the muscle. How boring. I could do service school. I just repeat yourself. Sure. I got a phone call while even from the executive from North Villiers and North Villis Corps president. They were in Los Angeles and they were looking to open up a factory distribution.

23:19When I was working in the NAFC, North moved there from Birmingham, England in 1962. I was familiar with the North engine and stuff. I met with his people and Dennis Paul, who's ahead of North. I was very impressed with it with Susie as well. These guys were really Susie as they wanted a service guy, the headless service, and the competition service all of the kind of side of the corporation. And I said, yeah, I saw the opportunity of everybody at the PSA said it was crazy to leave their own. Really? Yeah, I was really proud of it. So anyway, first January 1969, we moved into a big empty warehouse.

24:22How did it go? No, it was just a little office on the side. We set up the disrepusions of Northern on the west coast, the west of the streets. I've never worked so hard in my life. I did road test flights. I saw the motor cross flights. I hired young kids to ride for us. The air track, Ascot Half-Moham was very close to us. I'd have guys riding on the air track. Yeah, worked my butt off for about seven years. And then the big collapse of the government involvement with the British industry, we had to take over tryout.

25:27And unfortunately, the industry in 1966, I had folded. That was the end of that saga. That was pretty cool. Quite a milestone to get the North Commandos on the map. That did everything. I wanted to ask you, obviously, I can understand maybe how at the time it didn't occur to anybody. The Northern Commandos was going to be such an impactful landmark motorcycle in the motorcycle world. We have a mutual acquaintance Peter Egan who launched his whole career on an adventure with a Northern Commandos. He lives about two hours from me. He's a great guy. One of the nicest guys I've ever met.

26:28Yes. He wrote that story in the 80s or the 90s. And I think he's still in love with the way the Northern Commandos look. What do you think the appeal is about that motorcycle in particular that makes it such a legendary status today? It was funny because really we had about one month or so to the market that we got tremendous exposure for like the cycle magazine, the cycle world, older magazines. And I think a lot of that is that we would ride over to the cycle magazine for lunch. We would ride on the cycles and cook deals and do still a very, very good friend of mine. Cook would say, oh, the guys from Honda, they're young men, they're great suits and they're Chevrolet. They come for lunch. You guys come in the motorcycle. So we would go for lunch and maybe feel chilling would be going to let me just cook a beer on a 750 SS to Cady.

27:39We would go riding for the afternoon in the hills up in a guru and we were swap bites and we just headed off good. We were still in buddies, we're still buddies. And it's like, same as cycle world, you know, we are, we actually drove motorcycles. That's the way we go at dealers. We would ride the motorcycles to a dealer and say to guys take it for a ride and they would ride the tomato and the compact. Wow, you know, that thing is really smooth fast. And you know, we had the inside cover of the magazines with the girls and we had a dealer in San Diego. We sell a ton of motorcycles and when these guys were coming back from Vietnam and then you're right in San Diego, they would go straight to the dealer.

28:40I command to ride at home, say, I want to y'all wherever. Oh wow. That was a dream of having those girls on the poster, you know, they would tear the cover off and stick it up, the baritps, whatever. And I think it is just, I mean, it's a good looking bike. It's sadly good. It's fun to ride. It had its quotes which kept you mechanically on your toes. But, you know, it just hit the spot at the time, I think. Yeah, just maybe right place, right time, right bike. Yeah, we were just kind of a niche. It was like the county was at the time, you know, small group of very enthusiastic dealers. The dealers were all races or bar and pop dealers. They were big bulties. Sure. Multivore dealerships.

29:40You know, it was like a joy of fraternity, you know, not known. I went to a not rally a couple of months ago, up in Virginia. It's the same thing, you know, is 200 of people. It's interesting. Half the bikes had electric starter converges. People are getting old. They don't want to kick them anymore. Right. Yeah. Just just just punishes. I think everybody was young and then so is the athlete. It's got to be cool to see those things still on the road every once in a while or at those meetups. Yeah, there's still I mean, the parts of availability is almost better than it was when they were new because you can build one other parts virtually. And you know, like 50 years ago, yeah, never dreamed that 50 years time, there'd be so much interest in the bike, you know.

30:47It was a stopgap motorcycle to save the company. It had to be built within about 30 months. It was like a young designer's a built a saver. It worked. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, that's just, you know, one one chapter in your kind of illustrious motorcycle career. I want to skip ahead a little bit. How did you get involved with the art of the motorcycle exhibit? Well, you have to go back to your foil, one of the curators. Yeah. Yeah. He was a command. He still owns a command though. Oh, that's right. Yeah. He was one of my customers when I had my green show shop in Southern California. I did a lot of, a lot of bail order. And he was a customer at Charlie Falco used to, he went to, went to college in Orange County in Los Angeles.

31:51And he would hang around my shop. He was doing away guy with a lot of throw and young guy. He would hang around my shop. So I knew these guys. So when I was at the barber, you see the old museum. So we had a call and you know, they said we're looking for motorcycles for this show coming up the art of motorcycle. And I see, well, you better come down and see what we have. So Charlie came down and I said, my God, we can do the whole show for what you've got. We were the, we were the major land as well. We loved 20 motorcycles. So, I want to say, look, we need some help with these motorcycles because my guys are used to handling art, the painting and pottery and so yeah, yeah.

32:57By self and my boss Jeffrey, we went to New York about a month before the two of us installed every motorcycle there. Oh, no way. We actually 140 motorcycles. So we were there and then you went to the trade outing and this barber paid for everybody. Everybody employed them on the go there and they're probably for the brother and nobody and that's pretty cool. And then they said, well, we're thinking the movement is so dispane to go and spend and the good behind there. So would you guys go and help with these installations? Yeah. So to have a diet off to Spain for a couple of weeks and installed it. And that was fantastic. The building was absolutely incredible display there and then once they missed the barber offered any of the employees wanted to go and they failed to go for the opening.

34:10And so we did that well, after the after the good time in New York, it went to the field museum in Chicago. That was okay. The building wasn't best. It was just a big convention hall. But maybe went to Spain. I mean, that fabulous building there. The big time was, you know, that set the stand and then and then the show was going to come back to Las Vegas. But we thought the bites have been a way for, you know, quite a few, few months more longer than that than the library of friends of the bites back. And when we got back into Alabama, Mr. Barber said, you know, why, why couldn't we do that here? I mean, you see, we said, well, if you're going to build a museum, we need a little test right to run these bites, you know, because we were, we were, we were staying, and there's no way to run them. So, yeah. So it started off as an idea and ended up with the museum as it is.

35:38The museum as it is today, which is incredible. Yeah, yeah, I didn't know that was a result of the art of the motorcycle exhibit. Yeah, the old one, George Robinson. This is fantastic. But, you know, to bring people into Birmingham and Alabama, you know, we could build the best motorcyclist museum in the world. Yeah, let's do it. So we did it. So yeah, yeah, that was just trying to be 20 or years ago. Okay, that's crazy, because the building I was there for for vintage festival last October. And I mean, it the building and the track, I mean, still looks brand new, man. Well, yeah, it's, we take a lot of pride in keeping the building and the grounds and everything. And you know, no one has to go there. But if they go there, you will make sure it's good experience. And we don't have any, hey, use everybody treats people like you want to be treated.

36:44And yeah, it's, we hope that people have a nice experience, but we've never advertised a lot with, we got some good ride up to magazines, but we've always used a referral. One guy comes down as a good side tells his buddies they come back. The vintage festival was interesting. I did, I was very involved with our, but the vintage racing group. Okay, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was a trustee and I was on the technical committee. And I used to run a lot of off road events with the band and chef Smith, we traveled a lot. And like we would go to the sea boat springs color, either. We had a multi, we had road race off road trials.

37:45Third track, but everything was spread out. So when we went to the new museum, I thought, you know, we've got everything here. We've got a sales at a cause we've got all the ingredients to do. A multi event here. So I couldn't sold it all out. And I say, well, let's call it. Barber vintage festival, because it's a festival celebration. Modestyles get together. So I got some of the local guys. I got the Japanese vintage Japanese club, VJMC, and the flag. So to do a show, I got motorcycle class. It's a good. The ABC, I entered motorcycle show. We are now the race in off road road race trials. And I got a ball of bass and put together the vintage festival. And we were so that's what we are that summer. I went rail with blah, blah, associates to every agency beat motorcycle and they in the day.

39:06I was a patient and how about posters and talk to people and handed that fly as a piece of heavy hope because it get like maybe 40 people. Well, that first year, we got completely over the world. Oh, no way. Oh, gosh, it was like chaos. And there was like four of us trying to run this event. We got a few people. Well, we got an undead with all these. And it's just bro to grow the grown in so an annual event. And this is a twenty first, I think. And we get like 80,000 people over the weekend. It started off Saturday and Sunday. And over the years, the people started arriving wins there on May. I mean, I was going to be all the vintage wheel because they didn't appear to me. Yeah, it's a it's a really good event. October is good.

40:16It's starting to cool off a little bit. The wasm. We've had a heap of ice with a flood, with a tornado. But you know, it's it's been every year we have a celebrity speakers, you know, the grandmaster, which is fantastic. So yeah, still going on. We had the dinner Friday night museum, but I'm like the dinner. This year we're going to celebrate this bar. It's like this is a celebration slide. So and also we're going to have a special exhibit that all your files curated a hundred years in the county. Oh, wow. We can do 40 years of the Suzuki GSXR. So we've got how especially the local up that we can.

41:20Nice. Well, it's something going on always something. I mean, I have to ask I mean, like as a motorcycle mechanic for what what's it like to just be able to look at like as many bikes as you guys have and to work on them or to. I don't know, maybe throw a leg over them every once in a while. Yeah, I've purchased as a lot of motorcycles. So I've been on purchase quite a few hundred. So we had about. You have about two thousand motorcycles. So I purchased quite a lot. And each one really has a story because. You know, when you when you purchase a certain motorcyle say like a crocker or something exotic. There's always a chase. You know, the. Oh, sure. The chase. The look of it. The bike is the ball. You never know it might be pieces of joke. What years treasure. It's like a treasure hunt. Sure.

42:24And sorry, each one want to walk around. I go to the museum now. I go to come to the days away. Not special events. But I walk in and look at this one of that. Like each one has a story. Each one has a background and at the moment I'm very fortunate. I share off his space. That technology center with PS to launch. The caddy designed the caddy. Modigals. You're all in field. And I call it the energizer money. Come in. This guy. This guy is amazing. The talent of his like super mono. We have a super bonnet. He's a nut. He's a super bonnet. What he thought it would be like in 30 years time. And 3D printing. We've got a bit 3D printer. And it's a full size 3D printing.

43:31It's a level of modern super bonnet. So I mean, this is. This is like fantasy land. You know, it's wonderful. You know, I mean, yeah, it's for a gear head. And don't you know, we've got last year. We negotiated with caddy robots. We are Kenny. Kenny and junior. We acquired all their motorcycles. The protons. He's Yamaha. He won the World Championship on 1980. All the KR motorcycles. So they're in the shop. And when he was the ride or some was the right. He get the bike out. Far off. I mean, I'm a five cylinder. Four strokes and two stroke. Models. Your GP bites. Pretty exciting.

44:36Yeah. Last year I was I lucked my way into being down in the basement there when they fired him up for vintage vest. And not only was it amazing to see obviously Kenny Roberts and Kenny Roberts, you take these things around a couple laps. But just the crowd of people that was around. It was like a hall of fame of motorcycle people just watching. It was it was it. It kind of took me a back. I was I was kind of overwhelmed, which doesn't happen to me very often. But I mean to you know, Kenny said that you know, he had all his bikes a lot of stuff in the warehouse in Lake Habersoup. Now I got to see it. And he wanted to to have an exhibit to show him what the Roberts family have contributed to. And I was told to say, I tell you, so is his cramches and their brain. It's good to see. See what they're done. You know, the bike said, Bill, pretty impressive. And so he, but you know, but he feels like they could come in and get the bikes fired up by the people.

45:44Not a bad gig. Yeah. Well, well, shifting gears a little bit. I mean, talking about everything that you know, you mentioned that the Roberts family had kind of contributed to the motorcycle in world. I mean, obviously you've contributed a few things here and there to the motorcycle world to where you are inducted into the AMA hall of fame. If I'm not correct. Yeah. Yeah. How did that make you feel to get inducted into the AMA hall of fame? I didn't think I deserved it because I, I don't know. It was just that the things I'm done. I've done because I love doing. You know, you just, I love the people. I love the feel of being on the motorcycle, the freedom of the site. But I've a lot of bits of people. The people that ride motorcycles. I don't know. I just feel very comfortable. But when I knew I was going to be inducted into the AMA, oh my God, all these famous people around me. And it was funny. I was doing an audit rough session. And once I was Malcolm, I used to ride degrees with Malcolm.

47:11Malcolm was one side of him. Teddy Roberts is the other. And I thought, oh my God, it doesn't get much better than this. You know, the two of them both those guys. I'm really nice guys. I've spent a lot of time just chatting with them. I think we're all on the same wavelength. You know, I think when you're around on the cycle people, I think within a few sentences, you can sell whether they're real or not. If they really know what they're doing or what they're saying, just a very comfortable environment around motorcycle people. Don't want what you've brought. It's just, I don't know. It's just a very fortunate to have had some really wonderful friends. And that's a my to the world. I mean, I'm new to a mutual love of motorcycle under what it is. I mean, the other side was in the same car, they said, not for this. You put a talented person on it. Like little by heroes with stick back.

48:27Yeah, the most honest man I've ever met in the world. I share a lot of hotel rooms with him and half of the people to meet him. I don't know why anybody will want my autograph. I'm smart guy, smart singer, smart, right? Super person. And then the sort of people you meet, people that you want to be friends with and associate with. So might be good. Well, Brian, I think that's probably the perfect note to end on. So, you know, thank you so much for your time and kind of sharing your stories. I mean, we didn't even probably cover half of everything that you did. I mean, there's so much more to talk about. Yeah, there's a lot more there, but it's a base is sometimes and I think everything that I've done. Boy, the years go by and you know, it's like a it's like a book and you turn the page, you know, yeah, yeah, just do it. Do in the next thing. And I mean, it's crazy because it sounds like I mean, I don't know if you would agree with this or not.

49:38It sounds like you just were kind of the right guy at the right place at the right time and, you know, had a lot of fun to a degree. My philosophy said, like, I know that for my father, you know, if you get an opportunity, you try it. It might not work. But you can never say I didn't try and you can always go back to what you were doing. But if you don't try, I take an opportunity, then you could kick yourself for the rest of your life. So it's a little diving for the first quarter of the range, you know, you can try it. Yeah, no, I love it, man. I think I think that's probably the the X factor that that got you to all these adventures and stories and everything like that. So that's that's the mind thing. So enjoy it. Yeah, yeah, if you're not having fun, then what are you doing? So, yeah.

50:38Well, Brian, thank you so much for the time. I hope we get to talk again sometime soon. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it. It's been fun. Thanks for listening to Driven to Ride. Interact with us and check out full, unedited conversations, photos, interviews, video interviews, plus other goodies on YouTube or Instagram at Driven to Ride Podcast. Or you can check us out at DrivenToRidePodcast.com and make sure you leave us a rating and review from wherever you get your podcasts, too. If you have an idea for an episode or a guest or you want to invite us out on an adventure, email us. Hello at DrivenToRidePodcast.com. DrivenToRide is wholly owned by Flintrock LLC, made possible with help from Matthew Miles and written, hosted and produced by me. Mark Long. We'll see you out there.