John Snead - Keeping the Past Functional & Fast

from AHRMA MAG May 2020, Vol. No. 2, Issue No. 4

Chairman of the Board

KEEPING THE PAST FAST! functional &

By: John Snead & Joe W. Koury

I’ve often referred to people who contribute substantially to a cause, an activity or a function as

“spokes in the wheel.” These are dedicated individuals whose efforts and influences generate successful results, put things ‘on the map,’ and well, just make whatever it is, better. There are many spokes in the AHRMA wheel: riders, AHRMA staff, committee members and volunteers, family and crew members who collectively make our organization exciting, prosperous and everexpanding. At our core? Vintage motorcycles. Those of us who find, build, nurture and race these bikes know how challenging it can be to keep them track-worthy month after month. As these seventy- and eighty-plus-year-old motorcycles age and wear, finding replacement parts can be a major headache. Enter another ‘spoke in the wheel’: John Snead. To begin with, John is a racer—a vintage racer. Yeah, I suppose he’s old enough to qualify as ‘vintage,’ but he also races vintage bikes and competes regularly with his wife, Kandy. She rides a KTM RC 390 in Sound of Singles 3. They started racing with AHRMA in 2016. John rides some of the finest vintage iron one could hope to throw a leg over: Molnar Manx Norton (Classic ‘60s), NYC Norton 750 Seely (BEARS), and Malcolm Tunstall, of Syd’s Cycles, is currently building him a 350 Ducati. He’s knee-deep into his passion, but he has another passion that qualifies him as the aforementioned spoke: machining one-off custom motorcycle parts for vintage motorcycles. John was a motorcycle guy before he entered the machinist profession.

He competed in motocross and desert racing events in California and Arizona in the ‘70s and then began redirecting his funds away from motorcycle parts toward machine equipment. His machine shop know-how all came about while in high school, working at an automotive machine shop. Military service (1970 through 1974) would interrupt his newly chosen avocation with a stint in Central

America. He’s also a veteran of that time period’s Southeast Asia War Games (AKA: Vietnam and Thailand). Upon his return home, he would resume his calling, working in multiple machine shops with grizzly old machinists teaching him the trade. From 1980 to 1985, he worked at Lawrence Livermore Lab as machinist and mechanical designer for high energy physics research and development. John would then spend the next fifteen years overseas doing extensive work as a field engineer in China, Korea, Southeast Asia, Middle East, and Africa working in nuclear, oil and gas, petrochemical, and power generation industries. After several tough jobs in Africa and the Middle East, John decided there was enough work to keep him busy in the US. He opened a shop in 2000 at the urging of several clients; it started in his garage, 350 square feet and 1 employee (John). This steadily progressed to 2018, ultimately with 80,000 square feet and over 100 employees, when he sold the company to one of his customers and AHRMA Series sponsor, Palmetto State Armory. John continues to run the company for Palmetto State Armory to this day. He tried to pull the plug last year, but new owners convinced him to stay and run the company as he saw fit— which is important because it meant he would still be able to make motorcycle parts! With 85 CNC machines at his disposal, John needed to keep the spindles and the workers busy, so he began producing motorcycle parts employing scanners

Triumph T120 and TR6 billet primary cover Norton billet primary covers

to assist with precise parts duplication. Motorcycle parts currently make up about 5% of their production which includes 1990s Ducati cylinder heads for AHRMA racer, Chris Boy and various Ducati parts for Malcolm at Syd’s Cycles. They also build custom Norton electric start conversion kits. An interesting recent project, to support another vintage motorcycle discipline: crankpins for a 1906 Reading Standard entered in the Motorcycle Cannonball antique, cross-country endurance race. The list of specialty parts ‘keeping the past fast’ continues to grow as demand presents itself with billet Norton cylinders (crafted on a 5-axis CNC machine), Triumph T140/TR6 cylinders and clutch baskets and gears for the Norton Manx and Norton Commando. They even make parts for vintage off-road motorcycles, for example, kickstarter knuckles for Husqvarnas.

Safe to say there would be fewer vintage machines circling racetracks at AHRMA events if these parts didn’t exist. Computer aided design and manufacturing generates parts that are more reliable and eye-appealing than the originals. Hopefully, this particular ‘spoke in the AHRMA wheel’ will continue to help maintain the current old bike population and also encourage other vintage bike owners to consider joining in on all this AHRMA vintage racing fun. Thanks, John, for sharing your story.