CrashBomb
Registered
Since the early days of our beloved sport, motorcyclists have been seen not only as outsiders or "rebels," but often as dangerous thugs by a less than informed public. The recent explosion of the cruiser bike culture has done a lot to quell that attitude, but a large part of the population still believes that bikers are not to be trusted. The reemergence of the last F.A.S.T. debacle has gotten me into a thinking mood about the state of the turbo sportbike market and how this affects public perception.
I'm not saying there aren't good builders out there. There are a lot of turbo customers who are very happy with their purchases, and their confidence in the companies they buy from and subsequently support does wonders to shore up the legitimate market and attract new customers. But on some days it seems like there are just as many crooks in this market as legitimate builders, and this surprises me. I've been involved in the high performance car and bike world for most of my life, and on the whole the saying that "car people (or bike people, in this case) are good people," usually holds true. So why do we have so much trouble with crooks like Andrew from F.A.S.T. and his ilk? And I don't think anyone needs to be reminded of the massive amount of fraud that Dennis perpetrated.
Very little of the ensuing conflict spills over to this site, I think largely due to the fact that the people here are simply more civil, better informed, and on the most part more intelligent than the patrons of the other sites. But it doesn't take very much reading in any of the turbo threads on any of the sites in question before you run into anger, theft, fraud, unfounded opinionatedness, poor business practices, and various criminal activities that make the turbo sportbike market look like a two wheeled version of the Nixon administration.
Some people may argue that forced induction as a whole is a tricky science that takes a lot more than just bolting a blower on an engine, as so many turbocharger/supercharger "kit" manufacturers would have you believe. But I would counter this with the fact that I don't see this kind of thing happening anywhere near as often in the roots blown classic/muscle car market; the forced induction "modern" muscle car world doesn't have the same problems (i.e. Trans Am and Mustang); the turbo Buick guys don't seem to struggle with similar rip off artists; the turbo RX-7 population is largely well informed and perpetrators of scam deals don't last long; the turbo Supra market doesn't suffer from these problems, although it's become inflated (especially MKIV) so far beyond the car's intrinsic value that it's actually funny (I recently saw an asking price of twenty thousand dollars for a non-running '93 NA Supra with a salvage title that was actually UNDERWATER for at least twelve hours during Katrina.) So why does the turbo bike market have to put up with one of these clowns every few months?
Others may argue the point that it's the anonymity the internet provides which allows people like this to swindle basically decent, just poorly informed, customers out of their hard earned dollars and cents. But the question remains: Why is it largely relegated to the FI sportbike market and less prevalent in the ones I mentioned above? The high performance auto communities certainty have their own websites and web based businesses who don't seem to take their money and fail to deliver, at least not as often as I see in this world.
I suppose in the end, my point is that the cager community doesn't need an excuse to see bikers as thieves and morally reprehensible characters who are a danger to civilized society, they have felt this way since the early days and will continue to for as long as the industry exists. I believe the division itself represents a kind of glitch in human behavior that says it's easier to distrust, marginalize, and hate that which you fail to understand than it is to understand whatever it is in the first place. We are fundamentally different from these people in the way we see the world, and few of our differences are reconcilable in the mind of the average minivan driving, cell phone happy soccer mom. But when the outside world sees us ripping each other off and preying on lesser informed consumers, it only serves to provide them with more ammunition to use against us. You can't blame them for pursuing the flawed logic; "Wow...if the way they treat each other is any indication, what chance does a square like me have when approached by a group of leather clad, scary looking "bikers" on a dark street?"
What are your thoughts on this? I'm not looking for recommendations of turbo tuners, or posts that simply state "I'm perfectly happy with my turbo setup that XYZ built." I'm curious as to the thoughts of this community about what is wrong with this market and how we can fix it? Let's discuss it intelligently (a hallmark of this site, as opposed to the others, where a post like this would be met mostly with angry rhetoric and epically poor grammar) and perhaps this discourse may begin to facilitate some form of change in a business that has had more than its share of theft and fraud.
I'm not saying there aren't good builders out there. There are a lot of turbo customers who are very happy with their purchases, and their confidence in the companies they buy from and subsequently support does wonders to shore up the legitimate market and attract new customers. But on some days it seems like there are just as many crooks in this market as legitimate builders, and this surprises me. I've been involved in the high performance car and bike world for most of my life, and on the whole the saying that "car people (or bike people, in this case) are good people," usually holds true. So why do we have so much trouble with crooks like Andrew from F.A.S.T. and his ilk? And I don't think anyone needs to be reminded of the massive amount of fraud that Dennis perpetrated.
Very little of the ensuing conflict spills over to this site, I think largely due to the fact that the people here are simply more civil, better informed, and on the most part more intelligent than the patrons of the other sites. But it doesn't take very much reading in any of the turbo threads on any of the sites in question before you run into anger, theft, fraud, unfounded opinionatedness, poor business practices, and various criminal activities that make the turbo sportbike market look like a two wheeled version of the Nixon administration.
Some people may argue that forced induction as a whole is a tricky science that takes a lot more than just bolting a blower on an engine, as so many turbocharger/supercharger "kit" manufacturers would have you believe. But I would counter this with the fact that I don't see this kind of thing happening anywhere near as often in the roots blown classic/muscle car market; the forced induction "modern" muscle car world doesn't have the same problems (i.e. Trans Am and Mustang); the turbo Buick guys don't seem to struggle with similar rip off artists; the turbo RX-7 population is largely well informed and perpetrators of scam deals don't last long; the turbo Supra market doesn't suffer from these problems, although it's become inflated (especially MKIV) so far beyond the car's intrinsic value that it's actually funny (I recently saw an asking price of twenty thousand dollars for a non-running '93 NA Supra with a salvage title that was actually UNDERWATER for at least twelve hours during Katrina.) So why does the turbo bike market have to put up with one of these clowns every few months?
Others may argue the point that it's the anonymity the internet provides which allows people like this to swindle basically decent, just poorly informed, customers out of their hard earned dollars and cents. But the question remains: Why is it largely relegated to the FI sportbike market and less prevalent in the ones I mentioned above? The high performance auto communities certainty have their own websites and web based businesses who don't seem to take their money and fail to deliver, at least not as often as I see in this world.
I suppose in the end, my point is that the cager community doesn't need an excuse to see bikers as thieves and morally reprehensible characters who are a danger to civilized society, they have felt this way since the early days and will continue to for as long as the industry exists. I believe the division itself represents a kind of glitch in human behavior that says it's easier to distrust, marginalize, and hate that which you fail to understand than it is to understand whatever it is in the first place. We are fundamentally different from these people in the way we see the world, and few of our differences are reconcilable in the mind of the average minivan driving, cell phone happy soccer mom. But when the outside world sees us ripping each other off and preying on lesser informed consumers, it only serves to provide them with more ammunition to use against us. You can't blame them for pursuing the flawed logic; "Wow...if the way they treat each other is any indication, what chance does a square like me have when approached by a group of leather clad, scary looking "bikers" on a dark street?"
What are your thoughts on this? I'm not looking for recommendations of turbo tuners, or posts that simply state "I'm perfectly happy with my turbo setup that XYZ built." I'm curious as to the thoughts of this community about what is wrong with this market and how we can fix it? Let's discuss it intelligently (a hallmark of this site, as opposed to the others, where a post like this would be met mostly with angry rhetoric and epically poor grammar) and perhaps this discourse may begin to facilitate some form of change in a business that has had more than its share of theft and fraud.
We can hook you up with no drama or worries.
