SAN DIEGO CUSTOMSÕ
SLEEK N EW S O FTA IL
ISSUE 3
2018
HOTBIKE.COM
EL GATO ROBERTO THE SKINNY ON SAN DIEGO CUSTOMS’ FATTY WORDS: ROB FORTIER PHOTOS: MIKEY VAN MODEL: KYLIE MARIE WALTON
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50 DRAG TURNS
DRAG SPECIALTIES CELEBRATES 50 YEARS IN THE MOTORCYCLE INDUSTRY WORDS: BRYAN HARLEY PHOTOS: PROVIDED BY EDGE ADVERTISING
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dmit it. How many of you have visited your local bike shop and drooled over Drag Specialties’ FatBook like a kid in a candy store? It’s hard not to thumb through nigh 2,000 pages of the latest parts and accessories for the cruiser market and not have your heart beat a little faster. Be it performance upgrades or basic maintenance, Drag Specialties has been shipping the hottest aftermarket parts to dealers and getting them in the hands of motorcyclists with the quickness for 50 years running. Heading into its golden anniversary, Drag keeps the throttle wide open, with its sights set on a century of success. True to its name, Drag Specialties was founded by a motorcycle drag racer, Tom Rudd, who competed in the A-Dragster class on a modified Harley-Davidson Sportster in the 1960s. Rudd’s bike was fast, and soon other racers began asking Rudd and a couple of his racing buddies for help in making their bikes faster as well. The story is a common one. The trio had a
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racing habit, which is never cheap, so they began doing engine work on the side so they could continue pursuing their passion. A story in the February 2018 issue of Drag Specialties Magazine states that one day somebody called Rudd asking if he was speaking to “Drag Specialties” and the name stuck. Turns out Rudd was a visionary who saw the potential of building and shipping out his own parts, an idea his two partners didn’t exactly subscribe to, so he bought them out. Rudd opened up a small parts and accessories store in Minneapolis called Drag Specialties. Before long, he
expanded his product line and brought on board more businesses that were eager to sell their parts to a larger market as well, and in 1968, a brand was born. “We were king of the castle at that time in the ’70s and early ’80s. We were on top of the world. When things started tumbling, CCI (Custom Chrome Inc.) became the top dog around the mid-’80s,” says Drag Specialties director of purchasing Tom Motzko, who’s been with the company since 1974. As with most small businesses, Drag Specialties endured the ebb and flow of the economic tides for 20 years before
Tom Rudd circa 1973. The man who started it all.
Tom Motzko (above left) has been with Drag Specialties since 1974, and continues to be one of Drag’s key players as the director of purchasing for Drag Specialties. Fred Fox (above right) helped turn Drag Specialties into the global giant it is today after purchasing Drag Specialties in 1988, joining Parts Unlimited under the LeMans Corp. umbrella.
it was sold to LeMans Corp. founder Fred Fox in 1988. This was the best thing that could have happened to Drag because Fox was already a magnate in the distribution sector thanks to the successful company he founded in 1967, Parts Unlimited. “That provided six warehouse locations at the time, which we only had one previously. Plus, it gave us access to Canada because he had a warehouse in Canada. Now we were North Americawide,” says Motzko. “We had a handful of people that they trusted, and gave the reins to us, if you will, and we began the rebuilding process with the
funding, the warehouses, and the trust. That’s how we rebuilt the company.” Another instrumental part in the rebuilding process was revamping the Drag Specialties catalog. Fox assigned this task to his in-house marketing team, Edge Advertising in Minneapolis. A primary goal was making the catalog more user-friendly so dealers and shop owners could track down part numbers and prices quicker and easier. Adding eye-catching pictures of products was prioritized as well. Story goes that Edge Advertising began referring to the massive undertaking as the “fat book,” and
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