April Calendar Photo

[BrianTaylor]

Looking at the POG Calendar today can anyone fill me in on the people in the photo [?]...... Thks BT

Brian Taylor

[Paul Danik]

Hi Brian,

  Sorry for the slow response, initially I thought their names were on the back of the original Jerry West photo, but they were not. A search turned up the photo along with the names of those folks in the no. 15, June-July 1974 issue of "Keeping Track", the Penton Owners news letter that Matt Weisman put together for Penton Imports "back in the day".

   Those folks in the photo ran Penton Central in Amarillo, Texas. From left to right, Joel Wolfson, Sam Wad, Harold McDaniel, J.R. Horne, Jackie Horn, Eddie Brashier, Mike Terry and Don Parker. J.R. Horne was the man who headed up Penton Central.

   From what I understand, a young Texas Penton rider who will be narrating the John Penton movie, first met John Penton at a dealer meeting at Penton Central when he was a young teenager. As the story goes, a young Lyle Lovette accompanied Penton dealer Richard Sanders whom he was working for at the time to that meeting where he met John, and became a life long fan of everything Penton.

   The late Richard Sanders once explained why John Penton chose Amarillo as the location for Penton Central, the railroads. He went on to state that as far as he knew Penton never did ship anything to Penton Central by rail, but the rail lines were there if needed, as this info attests to.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarillo,_Texas

   I remember the night that Penton Central almost burned...it was in 1973, we had ridden the Fort Hood ISDT Qualifier and then traveled in the Cycleliner to Penton Central to prep our machines for the Potosi, Missouri 2 day Qualifier the following weekend. I am pretty sure it was Tom who was washing some parts in the laundry tub with some type of solvent, the gas fired hot water tank sat next to the laundry tub and it lit at the worst time possible and the open flame ignited the solvent.

  I had packed almost everything I owned into all sorts of containers for the trip, my first with the Team, and fortunately had a small bottle style fire extinguisher in the mix. Once found it was tossed to Jack and he quickly put the fire out.

Paul

[BrianTaylor]

Paul thks for identifing all the folks and thks for the story .Brian

Brian Taylor