Jettribe

WetRacer: So where do you operate now?
Tony: We are at the same place, here in Moorpark, California where we’ve been for the last 12 years. Plus, we have had our own factory in Southeast Asia for the last 10 years.

WetRacer: Let’s talk more about something else.
Tony: Sure. Sorry for going on and on about myself.

WetRacer: In your opinion, how has the loss of manufacturers affected our sport?
Tony: Yes, it is tragic to see that so many OEM’s pulled back or disappeared from ourindustry. But I think most industries go through this cycle at some point. When any new sport like jetskiing gets rushes of new interest, many companies jump in and thrive for decades. They get thinking that the good times will last forever. Not true. When the industry peaks and starts to taper down, companies start to drop off. This is devastating for the sport, but it has to happen. It is business evolution and the ones that do survive this period are solid. I call it the weaning process.

WetRacer: Where do you see the sport heading?
Tony: That is a really good question. Are you referring to the market here in the USA or overseas?

WetRacer: Both!
Tony: With Kawasaki and Yamaha stopping production of the stand-up jet-skis this year, it is a huge indicator that sit-down “runabout skis are where our sport is heading. We have to understand that about half of our sport is family people who ride for recreation a few weekends out of the year with their friends and family. Which is cool, they bring the dollars and that is what keeps our sport going. On the other hand, I see a big surge of old school stand-ups making a comeback. Jettribe was at the Daytona Freeride the past few years in Florida every January. On that weekend stand-up riders came from all over in huge numbers. In regard to racing overseas, there are a lot of people who race jet-skis overseas and they have the money to spend. For example, at the IJSBA World Finals in Lake Havasu, AZ there
are more foreign racers than there are US racers. And when the Jettribe race team travels to Thailand for the King’s Cup jet-ski race, it was beyond words!

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Jettribe

The Jettribe Tour rig began creeping its way back from Colonial Beach,
Virginia to our home base in Southern California. The funny and odd thing
was that we counted over 68 adult XXX rated shops along the high way. We
weren’t quite sure if these rural folks are just too lonely or do not have
internet service? The sad thing was that we only saw about 5 watercraft
dealerships along the way.

When we passed through Oklahoma it was hot and humid! But our dually
pulled hard and passed through Oklahoma pretty easily! When we entered
the huge state of Texas the coolest thing was that the diesel is so low. In
Texas it was about $3.68/gallon but in California it’s around $4.89/gallon!

On the 5th day of hard driving…or hardly driving…we spear headed into New
Mexico. We thought about visiting Pro-Am Ski racer Bridget Poper but we
didn’t want to just show up out of the blue. Unfortunately, as soon as our
Jettribe rig crossed into New Mexico we noticed there were some nice shiny
blue and red lights behind our trailer. It turns out that the New Mexico police
wanted to check us out. We were escorted back to the weighing station and
discovered that our truck is considered a commercial vehicle…hhhmmm. We
never knew that we needed a commercial license to drive our truck! After an
hour of hanging out at the station we had signed some cool paper work,
ended up with 5 infractions, some cash paid for some permits, and our ticket
totaled around $350. This tour is costing more and more!

On top of getting our ticket in New Mexico, we also received a $500 ticket
from the city of Montgomery for parking our trailer at Dawn’s house for one
day after the Colonial Beach race! The ticket was for parking a commercial
truck in a residential neighborhood!

During our trip back home we spent a night in Flagstaff, Arizona. It’s a cool
town on top of a mountain off the 40. The next day we had to catch a flight
in Vegas! On our last day of the journey from Colonial Beach back to sunny
SoCalwe made a detour to cruise the Vegas Strip! Plus, Dawn had to catch a
flight back to the East Coast. (Many thanks to Dawn for helping drive the
Jettribe Tour rig over 2800 miles with her broken foot, which has not healed
yet and it has been over 2 months!)

On the home stretch, our Jettribe trailer blew one of our trailer tires. Thank
goodness, with the triple axle six wheels (I mean five wheels), it was pretty
stable and gave us plenty of time to pull over. We were about 4 hours from
home. The bummer thing was that Derek our team rider had bought us an
extra spare tire but we forgot to bring it along. Plus Jeremy S., another team
rider, had given us a huge lug wrench for such an occasion…but we left that
behind also! It was a huge pain not being prepared. We figured that the
trailer tires were only two years old so what could happen?

Needless to say, we were thrilled to finally be back home in sunny California
again!

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