Greetings,
It is a little after 6am on Sunday morning and the big day is here. Yesterday the POG display was set up with just a few minor details left to handle this morning.
Last night's PVR / AHRMA banquet was even more incredible than last years event with the likes of "Super Hunky" Rick Siemen, Paul Clipper, "The Professor" Gary Bailey and John Penton entertaining the sell out crowd with their stories.
Hats off to the Potomac Vintage Riders, Fred Guidi and the AHRMA folks as well as each and every person who has contributed to this incredible weekend / event, a job well done !!!!
The swap meet vendors were setting up all day yesterday with many set to arrive this morning. The bike show was set up yesterday as well and it looks as incredible as ever. I was told that the organizer won't let the same bikes in each year and he is strict about the machinery brought in for display, and it shows....:D
There are many POG / Penton folks here at York and I ask them to please feel free to post their observations here as well.
Paul
I just got mobile and upright from the weekend,Being 80 I don't function so good anymore.The swapmeet set up was very nice with many Pentons on display.Plenty of pictures,memorabilia and vintage shirts on dislay.John signed a ton of autographs,Our main men Jack Penton,Paul Danik and Dale Fisher along with Scott Brogan,protected John from all the ladies,and told stories all day.Thank you to all who helped set this up.Thanks to Dale and Al Buehner for the goodies.See you in March.
this was first time I was able to go to York! a very good event .penton display good as always worth the drive
dennis l.brown
I just got mobile and upright from the weekend,Being 80 I don't function so good anymore.The swapmeet set up was very nice with many Pentons on display.Plenty of pictures,memorabilia and vintage shirts on dislay.John signed a ton of autographs,Our main men Jack Penton,Paul Danik and Dale Fisher along with Scott Brogan,protected John from all the ladies,and told stories all day.Thank you to all who helped set this up.Thanks to Dale and Al Buehner for the goodies.See you in March.
this was first time I was able to go to York! a very good event .penton display good as always worth the drive
dennis l.brown
Greetings,
As with Bob above, I too am just getting back into it after the weekend...
I would like to start off by thanking Rick Snyder and Lee Buffenmyer for setting up an incredible display of Penton memorabilia inside the POG display area. Not only was it extensive, it was so very well organized in such a way that volumes and volumes of materials were on hand and were very easily viewed. Thank you so much Lee and Rick for your efforts and surely your displays at the March event will be just as impressive.
Lee and Rick also had some out standing Penton machinery on hand, as did Jake Fischer, Steve Dance, Richard Colahan and a few others who's names escape me at the moment. Someone please help me with the names of the other Penton owners who brought their machines... Richard also had a very nice tribute to Doug Wilford included with his Penton Steel Tanker on display, well done Richard.
Then there was the Penton display / museum that Bob Gilman set up in his personal booth space right near the POG area...once again, simply incredible. The posters and photos along with some very interesting Penton items that Bob displayed were like a Penton art exhibit.... and it was proudly attended to by Curator Bob :) Bob also had his trusty 125 CMF machine tucked inside the walls of his Penton Art exhibit. I do believe that Curator Bob will have his Penton Art display at the POG March event.
Scott Brogan and Tom Worchester hauled the newly created Scott Brogan designed POG shirts and hats to York and they sold very well, I do believe the hats on hand sold out but more will be ordered and will be on hand for the March event. As usual Scott, great job and your efforts are greatly appreciated.
If there is an "Iron Man" award to be given out for the York event it surely would go to Dale Fisher. Iron Dale hightailed it from Michigan to York and manned the POG strongbox / membership / shirt - hat sales / book - DVD sales all while fielding questions.... Dale Fisher, you are one hell of a worker and your efforts are truly appreciated.
I know I missed some folks, surely not intentionally, and if you guys can help fill in the blanks I would appreciate it.
To all of you guys above and to everyone who helped in any way, the Penton Passion that each and everyone of you have, and displayed at this event, is very much appreciated. I had the pleasure of traveling with John and Jack over the weekend and those two continuously expressed their heart felt appreciation and indebtedness to each and everyone of you fine folks.
Speaking of traveling with John and Jack...
May every Father have such a caring and attentive son as John Penton has in Jack. That says it all, and I will simply stop right there.
John Penton was without a doubt the hit of the show. There was a constant line at the POG booth of folks who had stories to share, items to have signed, or as I personally witnessed time and time again, folks who simply said to John as they touched his hand, THANK YOU !
John sat for hours on end and graciously and with great humility gave each and every person his total focus.
There are two things about the banquet on Saturday night I want to share.
John Penton got a standing ovation from the sell out crowd as he finished telling his heartfelt stories.
I watched as John walked over to Rick "Super Hunky" Sieman's table and sat and chatted with him a bit. When John got up Rick got up as well, and then they embraced for an extended period of time. How about that !
Paul
Admittedly there was some "work" involved primarily staying awake behind the wheel. My son and his wife arrived Thursday from Seattle and we enjoyed a nice meal together on Friday prior to departure. Leaving home about 7:00 I grabbed about an hour nap somewhere just a little east of Amherst around 11:00 pm. Another couple of hours more sleep sometime later I rolled into York at 8:00 am Saturday morning. It worked out to be just in time to bump into, yak, and have some wander around time with Ted Guthrie and Bob Wentzel before the venue opened up for general setup. I thoroughly enjoyed my first visit and merchandise sales were very brisk with John signing items and mugging for photos the entire day. Surprisingly, we were all on our way home earlier than what I expected not long after 3:00 pm. My driveway appeared in the windshield at almost midnight nine hours later.
Any time spent with JP and representing the POG family far outweighs the effort made to do so.... Mostly recuperated it's back to Amherst for the meeting Thursday [8D]
After a couple of days figuring out how to get my photos from my new phone to my PC here are some from the PVR York event.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/79756468@N06/albums/72157663187466597
Dale Fisher
Penton Owners Group - Memberships - POG Merchandise
Mudlark Registry
Facebook - Penton Owners Group - Administrator
Facebook - Cheney Racing Group - Administrator
Thanks Dale for the great Pictures.
Ron Carbaugh
Did anyone score any good deals on Penton/KTM parts?
I picked up a Sachs bottom end and a bunch of small engine parts needed to finish some of my motors from Dan and some clutch plates from Jake.
Thanks guys.
The Penton display was nicely done. It is good to see different bikes each time. Every time I looked over from my space John was busy. I had comments from people walking around that they enjoyed hearing him talk at the banquet.
Time to get repairs done. Rocket Raceway is only a couple months away.
Rick
Here is a link to some photos from the PVR Facebook page. Once they post a link to their standard website I will share it.
https://www.facebook.com/PotomacVintageRiders/photos/pcb.1543754668993649/1543753942327055/?type=3&theater
I grabbed this photo from someone's feed. Note: we sold the current inventory of the 50th anniversary hats on Sunday [:p]
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4721/40002910171_d00c8cf4d8_z.jpg)
Dale Fisher
Penton Owners Group - Memberships - POG Merchandise
Mudlark Registry
Facebook - Penton Owners Group - Administrator
Facebook - Cheney Racing Group - Administrator
Great stuff! I am going to have t make it there next year. Curious, whose bike is on that cool mag cover poster in the background?
Rob,
Do put York on your bucket list, it is an awesome event. As far as the Penton on that cover, I would bet a dollar to a doughnut that it is Jack Penton's race machine from "back in the day". The link below should take you to a photo of it in the POG photo Gallery.
I am sure you will notice the corners cut off the cylinder fins, that is an indicator that Jack's topend is a specially tuned Carl Cranke job. Possibly today there are some "copycat" topends with that feature, but not the one on Jack's machine, that is surely the real deal.
http://www.pentonusa.org/GalleryServerPro/default.aspx?moid=231&hr=1
I would also like to comment on the Mettco replica that is in the flickr album that Dale Fisher posted. Numerous folks at York asked about the rivets in the gas tank and over the years numerous comments have been made about them.
The late great Al Born and I used to attend the AMA Life Member breakfasts together at VMD and usually we sat with Fred Hayes and his wife and Craig Vetter and his wife, as Fred and Craig are the very best of friends. I asked Fred about those rivets one morning and he said he just did that to make his machines stand out, nothing more ! They were NOT put into the tanks to keep them from splitting.
Anyone know what METTCO stood for ?
Paul
PS
A few years back a friend of John Penton's told John he had a Penton he wanted to give him and eventually the machine got into John and Jack's possession. Jack noticed that the machine was very, very similar to his race machine discussed above, and curiosity eventually drove Jack to compare build dates / serial numbers. To Jacks amazement the machines have consecutive serial numbers !
YES THE YORK SWAPMEET WAS A VERY GOOD EVENT, WE TOOK 9 MOTORCYCLES SOLD ALL BUT ONE,BUT BOUGHT 3 OTHERS 2 PENTONS ONE HUSKY JUST COULD NOT RESIST THE GOOD DEALS AND TWO SACHS ENGINES , WE WERE THE EARLY BIRD BUYERS ON SATURDAY FROM THE PARKING LOT, PLUS SOLD A LOT OF SACHS NOS. PARTS, WILL SEE YOU ALL NEXT YEAR,PLUS THE VERY GOOD PENTON DISPLAY :D JAKE