#ask monica ts

[randomnameless]

you know what could have been nice? If Whodislava had gotten some spotlight in Nopes, instead of Mistake... Like I still don't get who she's supposed to be (never played CF but i've heard there isn't much more about her there anyway?), but she's /established/. She's part of Supreme Leader's commanders, she's one of the closest she has, supposedly one of the best? (else SL wouldn't keep her) and she's loyal to the death to SL.

She's loyal to her, ready to die for her, but she's not a simp, the way Mistake is! She'd have been 100% more palatable than Mistake, while still being clearly blinded by her loyalty.

She'd also have been excellent to show SL's hypocrisy when it comes to her soldiers vs Faerghus's knights; Whodislava IS the equivalent of a Faerghus knight, and I'm pretty sure she'd go as far as Dedue is willing to go for SL (aka, burn a village if asked, kill children, etc).

I forgot where i was going with this, but i just think it's a missed opportunity not to have developped Whodislava, instead of propping up groupie #2397 of SL who counts the number of breaths her beloved emperor takes every minute

(Randomlph is a lot cause though)

Who?

Apparently Ladislava is supposed to be someone who became general without having the "adequate" family background, so she thanks Supreme Leader for giving her a chance to become the general she is.

Which is good, and an example of the meritocracy she wants to promote... except that, as you said, Ladislava is a general who, whose death is as mourned as Paul's the loldier.

Monica is interesting though, if only for her Hubert support where she shows a modicum of awareness about her duty as a noble, only to ditch it completely when Hubert assures her that with Supreme Leader's reforms, she won't need to give a fuck about her randoms anymore, and will be able to go to the Imperial capital to uwu about her idol all day long.

TBH Whodislava could have been someone like Avlora in TS - who ultimately has to confront her ideals about Supreme Leader and the truth of Flamey, and in the end, we off her (like a Camus archetype?) but that would have soured your cup of Hresvelg Grey :(

So she remains a litteral who instead.

[realhousewives-fan]

Why is it Okay for Heather to Lie?

“You’re not the hero in this, Monica,” Heather Gay told Monica Garcia at the reunion. But Heather isn’t exactly completely innocent herself.

Heather has lied for years about the black eye and made senseless jokes that was harmful to Bravo’s reputation and the producer’s careers.

She had implied during her book tour that a male producer had gotten into her room, and the black eye was the result of rough sex.

And Andy Cohen didn’t find anything funny about it.

He asked her at the reunion if the grace she deserved for lying about the black eye should also be extended to Monica, and it’s a fair question.

He tried to open the door for Monica by implying that Jen Shah could make people do things that was out of character for them.

But Heather shut it down fast. She didn’t think that Monica acted uncharacteristically. This was Monica’s character and was therefore impossible to trust.

The women stressed that it didn’t make them feel safe.

Especially Heather and Lisa Barlow accused Bravo of putting Monica on show to ruin them and not caring about their wellbeing or mental health.

Heather said that “this” had ruined her experience as a housewife. And by this, she meant the social media.

And to her, Monica was a huge part of that.

In her opinion, they would always worry that Monica would find a way to hurt them, for either money or fame.

But it was rich that Heather was accusing Bravo of jeopardizing their mental health for a storyline, when she had put the entire production team under scrutiny with her lies about the black eye.

At the reunion Mary Cosby claimed that the women ganged up on Monica without admitting to any faults in themselves, and maybe this was one of them.

On Two Ts in a Pod, Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave asked why it was okay for Heather to lie while Monica cannot.

Is it simply because Heather is owning it at least and is being apologetic about it?

She owned it, while Monica still don’t understand why she should apologize.

[thekingslover]

👻 and 📊

👻 What is one WIP you think you may never pick back up?

I was going to say my alien Cas fic, but I think about that one alot. So even though I haven't touched it since 2014, never say never there. But one that I just remembered that I probably will never touch again is my batman!Dean fic. Did I even post that on Ao3? Anyway, I remember I wrote all the way up until when they were supposed to have sex and I got so many messages telling me who had to top/bottom that I felt too pressured and couldn't finish it OOPS. Everyone felt so strongly and so differently! I was too intimidated to choose! And apparently too intimidated to even post it on Ao3. Maybe I should find that one! It's around here somewhere.

EDIT: I found it. I tagged v well, thanks past me! Here it is for posterity. It doesn’t exactly end on a cliffhanger I don’t think. I just remember I had planned to write more and then didn’t. 1/2/3/4/5

���� Current number of WIPs

for tumblr fics?

oops. A lot of the fics I start never get posted.

on Ao3? 2

Original stuff? 4

from this ask game

[monicashipsnickyjoe]

Just wanted to say I absolutely ADORE your long fics!!!! Let it flow :’)

haha, thank you! :) You will be pleased (maybe?) to know that I have plotted a sequel to the artist!joe/art thief!nicky fic I wrote :O

.... now I just have to write it haha

But thank you so much dear <3

[magicmagnus-blog]

big love of my life energy

SMOOTH?? why didn’t i think of this....

[halfway-happyyy]

Here's a musical overshare! I'm sending via asks because asks are nice and I love talking about music! Fave all-time songs in no particular order (may give away my age, but hey...). Maybe I'll go albums otherwise this list will never add:

Michael Jackson - Bad; Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation; Billy Joel - Greatest Hits; incubus - Morning View among many others.

Songs: Everclear - Santa Monica; James Morrison - Save Yourself; Jamiroquai - Main Vien; Kanye West - All of the Lights; Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble, Style, All Too Well, I Bet You Think About Me (these are peak TS for me); Billie Eilish - bad guy (that tempo change...); Ed Sheeran, Chris Stapleton, Bruno Mars - BLOW (how this song wasn't bigger... this is a massive inspo song)

Just these artists in general: The Weeknd, Dua Lipa, Beyonce. The list can generally go on. Music> tv/film.

ahhhh!!! please feel free to overshare about music anytime, friend

your taste is top-tier and there's a few things in here i'll have to check out so thanks for that!!

[nerdy-as-heck]

!!! Look at this amazing commission I got from Monipandas on twitter! Shes such a fantastic artist, I asked for Huskniss mistletoe and they delivered BEYOND any of my expectations, I love these two so so fricking much

(This artist does not allow reposts of ANY kind, hence why I linked the original tweet they posted, please respect their wishes)

They're so fucking cute im emotional-

[the-slut-in-the-sixth-sense]

from the ask game

tell me who you ship me with

im bored lmao

alright soo you will totally be shipped with ts or mitski "cause you are beautiful and i guess you can really feel their lyrics i guess and relate to it,, AFTERALL YOU ARE JUST AS AWESOME AS THEMMMM!!!!! AND PEOPLE LOVE YOU AS MUCH AND I'M YOUR FANGURL!!!!!!! Also a lil with monica from friends

[newtaylornation]

Melbourne Masterpost

Here you will find everyone attending the Melbourne show on October 26, with their seats and costume posts (if provided)! If you are attending Melbourne and are not on this list*, send us an ask with your name, seats (Section, Row, Seat), and tour post (if you have one)!!

If you haven’t already, please fill out this google form with your tour information, and we will add you to the masterpost for your city, as well as reblog your tour post (if you provide it).

If we haven’t yet reblogged your costume post, send us an ask with the link to it! to send links in an ask just put parentheses around the dots: tumblr(.)com

If you have any questions send us an ask, or message Kristin or Han!

*people who have already met Taylor are not on this list; additionally, only people who actually use tumblr are on this list.

Everything is put below the cut. Visit our Rep Tour Page for more information!

Everyone is listed alphabetically by URL; if something is incorrect let us know! Also, if you want to add your tour post, send us the link!!

@blankspaces​ - Lucy, Section A6 Row E Seat 6 post

@calmsoft​ - Jess, Section D3 Row R Seats 8-12 post

@daesyjohnsons​​ - Amy, Section A5 Row H Seats 21-22 post

@darkandtwistymeredith​ - Tanya, Section A10 Row U Seats 3-5 post

@enchanted-wonderstruck​ - Jana, L1 Section 41 Row C Seats 19-21 post

@gracie-ts​ - Matilda, Section C3 Row 3 Seats 4-6

@i-dream-impossible-things​ - Sara, Section A13 Row A Seat 24 post

@lastpaqe​ - Simoné, L1 Section 25 Row F Seats 60-62 post

@lozswifty13​ - Lauren, Section B8 Row V Seats 5-6

@michhelleex - Michelle, Level 2 Section 35 Row C Seat 21

@officialtaylornation - Jacky, Section A14 Row E Seats 5-7 post

@onthewestside - Louise, L3 Section 36 Row N Seats 67-68 post

@red-era-swiftie - Monica, Section D3 Row Z Seat 11

@redliptightskirt - Katie, Section D3 Row A Seats 10-11 post

@softpluto​​ - Ace, Section A2 Row BB Seat 8

@starsthatshines​ - Claire, L3 Section 9 Row K Seats 48-49 post

@taylorvibes - Anna, L1 Section 11 Row E Seats 11-12 post

@thesonofneptune​ - Leanne, Aisle 34 Row P Seats 11-12 post

@typicaltuestaynight​ - Lisette, Section A7 Row V Seats 1-5 post

@wewereelectayfied​ - Shari, L1 Section Aisle 9 Row N Seats 47-48 post

[thekingslover]

🙂 and 📚!

🌝 Who is one character you haven’t yet written for that you would like to?

This is tough because I have no impulse control haha so if I find a pairing I like, I usually end up with a fic kicking in my brain that won't leave until I write it. But I guess I would say.... 007/Q. I've been a 00q fan since Skyfall, I read so many fics. But I am so painfully American that I am scared to try writing my own. Maybe someday! If you'd asked me a week ago I would have said Lokius but oops

📚 Do you read your own fic?

Yes, 100%. Validation through likes and reblogs and comments etc is absolutely great and sustains me. But, I think it's also important that a writer be their own biggest fan. After all, the only audience you are guaranteed is you. So I take that to heart, and I only write stuff that I like, too. (That's why there is so much fluff around here haha)

From this ask game

[monicashipsnickyjoe]

WS anon here - glad I could be of assistance lol to make it even worse // they ask joe when they first get capture “you or him? We only need one for the experiment” joe offers himself up and they just grin “okay , get the other one” joe starts screaming saying he said himself, to leave Nicky out of it. “Oh but you see, torturing you would be too easy. To break you we don’t need to lay a finger on you - we need to break him.’ Worst part is Nicky just tells him it’s alright, he’s glad it’s him

OMGGGGGGG WS Anon

[occasionallydiverting]

nobody asked for this but here’s far too many levels of headcanon/canon-adjacent musings. minor spoilers for all routes.

with the exception of TWS, House Rowe is the only enemy that every single route has in common post-timeskip. In Moon/Wind/Snow, the Rowe troops loyal to the Faerghus Dukedom ambush you at Ailell, while in Flower, they’re part of the defense of Arianrhod. Regardless of that, though, the head of House Rowe never actually makes an appearance; their troops are instead commanded by Gwendal, the Gray Lion.

I was a bit confused as to why Rowe doesn’t side with the Empire in CF until I thought it over a bit more and it hit me. Rowe isn’t loyal to any particular nation or ideology, but rather one specific person: Cornelia. (Bear with me here.)

From background conversations and reading various things in the library, the player is able to learn about a plague that ravaged Faerghus about 20 years prior to the start of the game. Furthermore, if you talk to Sylvain during a certain month pre-TS, he actually mentions Cornelia by name, saying that it was her applied knowledge that was able to put a stop to the plague. (Being Sylvain, he also makes a comment about how he hopes she’s “aged like a fine wine.”)*

Putting all of that information together gives me a pretty strong mental image of the leader of House Rowe. They were probably only a child when the plague hit, and lost most of their family to it, but thanks to Cornelia’s intervention, they were able to survive. However, the aftereffects of the plague left them infirm; unlike most nobles of Faerghus, who usually take to the front lines personally, Rowe delegated that responsibility to Gwendal, a reliable and loyal veteran.

When the war came, rather than immediately swearing loyalty to the crown, they followed the lead of Cornelia, who had proven herself to be a friend of the house all those years ago. And that’s the real tragedy of House Rowe. They had no way of knowing that she was no longer the person they had known—they simply sought to repay a debt, and suffered for it.

*While the Cornelia we fight in-game has certainly aged with [relative] grace, she’s a far cry from the benevolent healer we’ve been led to believe she was. My personal theory is that she, like Monica and Tomas, was another one of TWS’s stolen faces.

of all the minor characters in FE3H to suddenly catch feelings for, I did not expect the head of House Rowe to be one of them

[loveaningenue]

Hiddleswift Timeline 2016

The biggest fauxmance of 2016? As bad as Tayvin was, this was worse in terms of fakeness (IMO, but both were really fake). It’s fun to see how people actually believed in their relationship, but here we are, on Tumblr, where people believed not too long ago that they were still together. Enjoy this short timeline (and analysis)! 

(More pictures are visible on the links that are on the dates. + I’ll add extra pictures later).

May 3, 2016: Taylor and Tom dance together at the 2016 Met Gala. 

May 16, 2016: Tom answers question about her in an MTV interview. (”How was dancing with Tay Swift? I sat next time to her at dinner that night, and she was very charming. I mean, I've seen a couple of her videos, and I think, I remember 'Shake It Off' was released around the time we made I Saw the Light. She's very cool, yeah.” “Would you be up for a duet? I don't know that I could stand up to her vocal talents, to be honest. That's what she does. She's a professional musician and I'm an actor. We'll see. You never know. But I'm pretty sure we won't do it.")

(June 1, 2016: Taylor and Calvin Harris break up)

June 15, 2016: Taylor and Tom are photographed together in Rhode Island which is quite funny because there aren’t paparazzi’s in RI, except if you call them...

June 16, 2016: Taylor and Tom are seen boarding her private jet in RI. Might I remind you of the airport they were seen in was the Groton airport in Connecticut. 

June 21, 2016: Taylor brings Tom with her at Selena’s concert in Nashville. Tom is mocked for dancing like a dad by the media. There aren’t any paps in Nashville usually, so seeing these made a lot of people raise their eyesbrows again. 

June 23, 2016: Taylor and Tom go on a date in Nashville with Holly Williams and her husband. 

June 25, 2016: Taylor visits Tom’s family in Suffolk, England. The paps suddenly appear in an English county that is quite unknown to the general public.

June 26, 2016: Taylor continues her visit in England. She meets Tom’s mom just 10 days after their relationship began.

June 27, 2016: Taylor and Tom visit Rome, Italy. It was a super low-key trip because they went to the Colosseum, a very unpopular touristic place in Italy. 

June 28, 2016: Taylor and Tom have breakfast together at a cafe in Rome. Tom was acting really well here.

June 29, 2016: Taylor and Tom visit yet another unknown place in Rome, this time, they go to the Vatican. They also eat at Piazza Navona and go on a helicopter ride. 

July 3-4, 2016: Taylor has her annual Fourth of July party and Tom gets the honour to wear an I ♥ TS shirt, later to be ridiculed by it. 

July 7, 2016: Taylor and Tom fly to Australia where Thor: Ragnarok is being filmed. 

July 10, 2016: Tom refuses to answer question about Taylor in Autralia (How is Taylor enjoying the beautiful Gold Coast? I'm not going to answer that, if it's all right.).

July 11, 2016: Taylor, Tom and eight bodyguards dine at Gemelli's Italian in Queensland, Australia. 

July 14, 2016: Taylor, Tom, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo and others watch Ghostbusters at the movie theater. 

An interview with Tom by Hollywood Reporter is later released (You're in the middle of a cultural frenzy right now because you're dating Taylor Swift. How would you respond to people who claim that you're involved in some sort of publicity stunt? (Laughs.) Well, um. How best to put this? That notion is — look, the truth is that Taylor Swift and I are together, and we're very happy. Thanks for asking. That's the truth. It's not a publicity stunt. ) He mentions Taylor as Taylor Swift, as her boyfriend of one month, you expect them to say Taylor, but Tom just couldn’t say it. The fact that he had to state that it wasn’t a publicity stunt is 👌.

July 22, 2016: Taylor and Tom are papped in LA. 

July 25, 2016: Tom gets questioned about Taylor at Comic Con and answers.

July 27, 2016: Taylor and Tom eat at Hillstone restaurant in Santa Monica. 

August 12, 2016: Tom follows Taylor on Instagram and an interview by the Hollywood Reporter and answers a question about Taylor.

August 13, 2016: He’s later papped boarding Taylor’s private jet in Burbank airport (where the paps were called to take pictures of him at a very secured airport). 

September 6, 2016: Taylor and Tom break up. 

After the Break-Up

February 8, 2016: Tom talks about Taylor in his GQ interview. 

[...] “Taylor is an amazing woman,” reads the prepared statement Tom Hiddleston has memorized and is now giving me at The Bull & Last, where his voice has gone low. “She’s generous and kind and lovely, and we had the best time.” But I didn’t ask that, I say. I asked something else. So I wait, and he says, “Of course it was real.”

I ask if he wants to say anything about Australia, about the Fourth of July party at which he donned that fateful tank top, about the rumors that she thought he was too eager. Does he want to say anything about any of it? And here he puts down his fork, a bite of my steak still on it. He looks off into the middle distance, and here is what he says:

“The truth is, it was the Fourth of July and a public holiday and we were playing a game and I slipped and hurt my back. And I wanted to protect the graze from the sun and said, ’Does anyone have a T-shirt?’ And one of her friends said, ’I’ve got this.’ The friend pulled out the “I ♥ T.S.” tank top that Taylor’s friends are contractually obligated to own. “And we all laughed about it. It was a joke.”

So that’s his statement on the entire relationship: an explanation of the tank top. “It was a joke,” he repeats. “Among friends.”

I can vouch for this depiction of Tom Hiddleston. He is definitely, without a doubt, someone who would put on an “I ♥ T.S.” tank top, both to protect a scratch from sun damage and to make his new friends laugh while th—wait, sorry, he’s still talking:

“I have to be so psychologically strong about not letting other people’s interpretations about my life affect my life. A relationship exists between two people. We will always know what it was. The narratives that are out there altogether have been extrapolated from pictures that were taken without consent or permission, with no context. Nobody had the context for that story. And I’m still trying to work out a way of having a personal life and protecting it, but also without hiding. So the hardest thing is that that was a joke among friends on the Fourth of July.”

He still isn’t looking at me. The last piece of my steak is now poised on his fork in mid-air. He is so sad, and I can’t take it anymore, so I put my hand on his and I say, “Tom, Tom, it’s okay. You don’t have to talk about the tank top anymore. I got it. I understand. I’ll tell the world.” But he can’t stop talking about it. He literally cannot stop talking about it.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I just, I was surprised. I was just surprised that it got so much attention. The tank top became an emblem of this thing.” It’s hard to tell me this, he says. He wants to trust me. He wants to trust that the world won’t use this to embarrass him again, but he doesn’t know. He just knows it will follow him until he talks about it. [...]

General Conclusion A failed PR stunt that only Taylor benefited little from. At least, compared to Calvin, Tom was nice and a decent human being. Probably sounded great at first, as if nothing could go wrong (Taylor Swift dating and British actor), but the acting was over the top and too many paps were called. The media didn’t believe much in it, having various articles about it being PR, but they were still a lot of positive stories about them. The general public could easily tell it was PR, so only the Swifties really believed in it.

Swiftie Side Tom was the nice Englishman that danced with Taylor at the Met Gala in May 2016. Right after her terrible breakup with Calvin Harris, she was spotted kissing Tom in RI and the rest of the summer was a wonderful world tour, from Nashville to England to Italy and to Australia. Taylor, not ready for another serious relationship, decided to break things off with him just a month after their trip to Australia. 

Another theory about them was that they either never broke up and were dating secretly (or that they did break up, but got back together quickly after). Some fans believed it when Tom was working in LA while Taylor was there as well. Though it was said by Tom that he was single and the theories were proved to be wrong. 

PR Side Taylor had no new music to promote, but she had Kimye to deal with. The perfect way to hide the bad press was by stunting with Tom. Tom wasn’t known in North America and a relationship with Taylor surely upped his profile. 

N.B. Taylor was still allegedly with Karlie at this point, so it was PR and bearding.  Tom is rumoured to be gay, but since I don’t follow Tom, I can’t confirm this. 

How It Went Down (Overview of the Timeline) Taylor and Calvin broke up June 1, 2016. 

June 15, Taylor and Tom were spotted in RI together and the media was all over it, overlooking Kim’s negative comments on Taylor. 

Taylor brought Tom to Nashville where they went to Selena’s concert and danced together. Tom was completely ridiculed for his dancing and looking like he could be Taylor’s father.

They continued their romance to Suffolk where Taylor met Tom’s family. Talk about moving too fast.

Then they went on what the media called a private vacation in Rome, Italy. Spotted kissing, taking pictures, and eating together, everything felt forced.

Tom even brought Taylor to Australia, where he was filming the new Thor movie, but not too long after, Kim released a series of snapchats of Taylor and Kanye’s phone conversation about Famous, Kanye’s controversial song. 

Nothing going well for Taylor, her and Tom were reducing their pap pictures and ceased them in August, though Tom was seen boarding one of her private jets. In early September, it was publicly announced in the media that they broke up.

My Thoughts Hiddleswift is what I like to call a failed fauxmance and possibly one of Taylor’s worse one. In my first post, I said that it was the first time I looked at the pictures could say it was fake. 

I barely knew Tom before and I feel bad for the embarrassment he got from the stunt. For now, he’ll be known as Taylor Swift’s ex-boyfriend. I hope he can get out of that title. This is a situation in which saying “was it worth it?” just fits perfectly (“if the high was worth the pain”??) (for Tom: “Grab your passport and my hand”). At least he got what he wanted, exposure in the US. 

I could only hope that this is the last PR stunt that Taylor does, but I highly doubt it will (a girl can dream). 

The Aftermath (will be updated) Tom tried to find an excuse for his I ❤️ TS shirt which caused him a lot of humiliation on the Internet, but it failed because no one cared. He said many positive things about her in his GQ interview (see quotes👆) but now refuses to answer questions about her. 

Pretty sure there are other timelines about them, but I think this is the most completed one (Larrienation stopped when they arrived in Australia, but she has a pretty good post about them that is linked in my 2016: The Bearding Timeline). 

[asafilmstudent]

Who are we?

We ask ourselves the same question every day.

We are Monica and Nicholas, two students of film. Well, Nick is like half a film student, it's complicated.

Wait, don't scroll off just yet! We know that these things come a dime a dozen, so we've got some arguments as to why you should give us a chance!

1) We're Australian, so our sexy accents will fill your earholes

2) We actually do analysis into the films, we're not just wanking off and thinking that our mediocre oipinions are interesting to other people

3) Sometimes we say funny things that are actually funny

If that didn't work? Eh, just follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram so that Mon's graphic design degree goes to good use (and by good use we mean validation)

[manekinekopro]

sit-down with graffiti artist pesky oner (Courtesy overtheedgebooks)

On this day, I get the privilege to dig into the mind of a dear friend, an entrepreneur and Los Angeles based Graffiti artistPesky Oner, well-known for her usage of colorful vivid characters; letters and dragons. But not only does she elaborate her skills on walls; she does some amazing body painting as well. For the first time ever she will sit down and talk about her lifestyle as well as fond memories of the Belmont Tunnel and where it all started. Enjoy every bit of it because let me assure you that it was a challenge to have her open up and speak about herself as an artist and her involvement in this Graffiti Art Movement; she is a very humble person and I admire that about her the most.

Early Years

Pesky Oner was born in Monterey, California at Fort Ord Army Base to mother from Costa Rica and father from Mexican-Filipino origin. At only months of age her parents moved to Echo Park, California where Pesky spent half of her life living there until the age of 16 when she moved to Cypress Park and eventually Highland Park which is where she still resides at the time.  Her childhood was influenced by both artistic parents as she reminisces on her mother painting and her father playing music. I must say that it is always inspiring to learn that the best traits and influences are learned by artistic parents as role models.  Pesky’s mother was the one that taught her the usage of colors and acrylics before she even entered kindergarten; she always advised Pesky to never copy anybody else’s styles. Therefore she took it upon herself to always stay original with her styles and characters. For Pesky, one of her early memories as her interest for art evolved at an early age. “I remember being young and in school I would always draw during breakfast and lunch breaks, I would always have a little crowd around me, watching me, asking me what I was drawing. I would always say the same thing: I don’t know, I’m just doing it. And then after being done some random person asking for it; while everyone else would be sad and mentioned that they also wanted it. It was nice!” (Pesky).

The Beginning of Graffiti

Her first interest for Graffiti began after she met Aone an ex-boyfriend of her sister, whom Pesky still sees as a brother till this day. So this was around the age of 12! Her sister would have to take Pesky along as she was younger more like a third wheel, so Aone would bring a friend to distract her while her sister was trying to kick it with her friends. Hahaha. “Those were the DTW’s and I always remember them “catching a grill” or “hanging a grill” and catching spots, I loved it! But it was more of a fantasy for me to do something like that; I was young and dumb so as I got older my sister was the one that had a strong influence on me because she had “real Graff Writer friends” from FCT that would always be doing pieces for her at the Belmont Tunnel along with BBQ’s and good times”(Pesky).

This was the beginning of Pesky’s real exposure to the Graff scene and as many remember, the Belmont Tunnel was the place to be when it came to bombing yards, many fond memories for a lot of Graffiti writers from previous generations as well as to becoming a historical landmark for new Graffiti generations to learn about. “I remember going to a “battle”, I can’t remember who it was against whom but that battle, that moment was it for me, right there! After that, I was going to Melrose and admiring Graff buying can control, hanging out with my generation of Graff writers at Virgil, Belmont and Franklin. Buying piece books and claiming to be a writer because I had some means streaks and my BF at the time would hit me up; whoever that may have been ha ha ha . But at this time yes, my art was Graff but just in books or would catch spots on the RTD’s”. (Pesky)

Shortly after she began getting up around her neighborhood and that was as far as she went during the first stages. She used to go to the Belmont Tunnel and hit up because she knew she could get away with it there. Pesky would search for scraps and hit up her name and would start doing small characters outlines on bridges, sidewalks and anywhere where she felt she would not get busted for. The Belmont Tunnel was at times a scary place especially for a female writer, she used to go paint and take her sister along and would have to be quick and get out of there before the sun would go down. Pesky mentioned that there were times that if some of the fellas were there; they would wait for her to finish up so she could get out of there safe. Such homeys that would do that for her would be Fearo, Pryer and Phib from UTI among many others that looked out for her.

I think I was about 21 years old when I finally said to myself that I needed to really start getting up!! So I talked my EX into going to the infamous “River” with me and I busted a dragon, it was really whack but not bad for my first real character piece, after that it was nonstop whether it was Belmont, Venice, an invite’ mostly Keo and Visions. Then I started to work at Crewest Gallery and meet all kinds of peepz and connects. Man One would take me to “hired walls” and show me techniques and I would help him do fill ins. I learned a lot from him and a lot of other peepz and legends I was getting to meet.” Pesky.

 Body Art Painting Phase

I call this my “body painting phase” this started when the Belmont Tunnel was literally taken from us. Body painting had always been something “guys” did on some random female as something sexual to brag about as a “flik” and show off their hoochies; it was never something I really wanted to get into but the only reason I did was because I had met some ladies that were in the process of making a Graff magazine called “Piecez” a little group of cool chicks, it was Rosa, Chelly, Jessica Rabbit and Daniella. (Pesky) They had offered her a spot and article in their magazine but they wanted to know if she also did body painting; she was offered to do a section of body painting for the magazine. Once this picture was posted on MySpace, Pesky had both males and females making requests for her to paint them. Even friends and family wanted to partake in this new experience.  Pesky saw this as an opportunity to make money since she had previous experience in working on Halloween events and painting faces and what not. Body art painting became a profession for her while it lasted.

“Body painting was the thing to do, it started to grow and it really began to blow up, as Huskey Radio had shows on the regular and had me as a guest painter almost every week; it was fun while it lasted. But in my opinion it just blew out of proportion with the whole Graff scene, EVERYBODY who was anybody was doing it. Then it wasn’t fun anymore because it lost its class. So I said to myself either I make a career out of this or I abandon ship before it sinks. I think it sunk when I decided to paint a very muscular man at a graffiti event.  I think me and Ezo were disqualified because we never got judged or considered for a prize; I honestly think because he was a man. I don’t know I could be wrong but he never made it to the stage for judging. So after all that, I kind of just said I’m done, this is a man’s world anyways. Guys don’t want to see that but the females didn’t mind at all and that is what I was aiming for; I think I made my point!. It’s not just a man’s world. So anyways, I don’t really do it anymore but if I do is for a favor for a friend or getting paid at an event, that’s the only way I really go there anymore. -Pesky.

2007 to Present

So you might be wondering what Pesky Oner has been up today, well today is the year of 2013. She had countless art shows, live wall painting, live body painting and many opportunities to express her love for the arts in all mediums and venues.  She is well-known and loved by the Graffiti scene not only for her talent but her humbleness to the Graffiti sport.  “I am trying to get back into painting again; I had to settle down for a bit doing the family thing raising my 13-year-old, 6-year-old and 2-year-old. During home time I had begun doing more canvases with acrylics. Now I want to start using some different mediums like oils which I have never used before but willing to try. And maybe gets some more hands on air brushing and pin stripping. My plan is to go back to school and maybe have a nice career by the time I hit 40. So that’s my story. I just want to say thank you to God my kids, my family and Gordo, Fridge all my friends and acquaintances who have been supportive through this journey. Those of you that have had my back and still do! It’s because of you that I am ME! Because of all of you I will succeed, ha-ha thanks for the love and support! Pesky Oner.

We can all agree that we are all happy to see her getting back in the Graff scene, as she is gradually preparing herself for art shows and events; we are all eager to see what else she brings to light!. Thanks Pesky for letting me dig into your mind for a bit and share some special events of your life as an artist with us all.

Stay posted with me as I will keep you all updated with any of her on going projects coming soon to a city near you!

You can also follow her on her Fan Page on Facebook. Pesky Oner

https://www.facebook.com/peskyhttps://www.facebook.com/pesky.oner.7?fref=ts.oner.7?fref=ts

Monica Smiles Tobon

sit-down with graffiti artist pesky oner (Courtesy overtheedgebooks)

[usamotorscycle-blog]

The Life Electric: Preston Petty

Preston Petty is one of those rare souls that is capable of embracing his own motorcycling heritage while also being a cutting-edge thinker who maintains a fascination with the latest and greatest technology, and that includes Zero electric motorcycles. “I think Zero has done just an excellent job integrating a variable frequency, three-phase electric motor into a battery-powered motorcycle,” the 74-year-old AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer opines while trundling his Zero flat-track bike to the starting line for a race at Southern California’s Perris Raceway, a hallowed ground for local motocross and flat track racers. “With the controller, and the way they put it all together, it’s just an excellent package. It’s better than anything else out there. When we started our electric flat-track project, we were wide open, we could buy anyone’s electric motorcycle. We chose Zero because they were already in production, and the bike worked well.” If there’s an irony to be found in such enthusiasm, it’s that Petty’s praise for his Zero – a 2013 MX model that’s been specially tuned for the rigors of American flat-track competition – comes from a man who has burned a lot of gasoline on the trail to becoming a motorcycling legend. Petty attained that status by always thinking slightly ahead of the curve. As a young racer in the 1950s and ’60s, Petty was motocross when motocross wasn’t cool – at least not in America. He was also a successful professional flat-track racer and an off-road star, representing the United States in the notoriously difficult International Six Days Enduro, which was known as the International Six Days Trial back in his day. In the 1970s he revolutionized the off-road aftermarket through his perfection of plastics for use as dirtbike fenders. And after selling his business in 1980, he became one of the early technology adopters by working with microcomputers, now known as PCs and Macs, before practically anyone had one in their home – and long before those mysterious devices developed into digital age marvels such as the tablet or smartphone upon which you are most likely reading this.

AMA Hall of Fame member Preston Petty skids his Zero electric motorcycle into a corner during a Southern California Flat Track Association meet at Perris Raceway. Petty, 74, has always favored technology over tradition. He is the first motorcycle racer to adapt an electric bike for use in flat-track racing. Photo by Scott Rousseau When Petty looks at a Zero, it is evident that he likes what he sees. Electric motorcycles? Preston Petty says heck yes! Such forward thinking springs forth from a mind that was molded, at least initially, by a conservative Mormon father, a lawyer by profession. Motorcycles? They would only be a fad, a phase. Surely, Dad must’ve thought, young Preston would make better use of his time once he grew up and became a man. Perhaps the earliest warning sign that young Preston was a gearhead should have come when witnessing him ride his mother’s vacuum cleaner as a child in the Petty’s Los Angeles home. There were better contrivances, of the two-wheeled variety, and the motor-minded Petty soon latched onto them. He got his first real motorcycle, an Ariel Colt, at the age of 13 in 1954. Just three years later, Petty would lay tire tracks on Perris Raceway’s dirt for the first time. By then he was already an accomplished scrambles and off-road racer.

Petty rode TT Scrambles in 1957 at Perris, the very first year the track opened. Photo from Preston Petty Collection “My first race here at Perris was in 1957, the year that this place opened,” Petty says as he looks around the timeless venue. “The word ‘motocross’ wasn’t even used back then. It was called a TT Scrambles. Then in 1959, ’60 and ’61 I rode a lot of half miles (flat track) at Ascot. Then I didn’t ride any more half miles for 40-plus years until my sponsor got me back involved in it. I was just helping him because he was interested in flat track, and then one day he asked me if I thought an electric motorcycle could be competitive. I thought that short-track racing would be well-suited for an electric bike. So about two years ago he went and bought a Zero MX model, and we adapted it – lowered the suspension and changed the wheels and tires – for flat-track use. Then after I got done with it, he said. ‘Hey, great. You can be the rider, too.’” That’s all Petty ever wanted to be when he was younger, and as a 15-year-old kid, he certainly knew who to pester for the right riding advice. “In 1956, Bud Ekins opened up his first Triumph shop on Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana about two miles from my house,” Petty says. “That place was heaven, man. I went down there all the time. In fact, when Bud was putting up his first sign, I was there to help him out. I’m sure I was a pain in his ass, but he taught me a lot and later sponsored me in the late ’50s.” Armed with the lessons of tales told in Ekins’ shop, Petty spent his youth blazing trails in the Santa Monica mountains aboard that little Colt before eventually succumbing to the lure of racing.

Preston Petty crosses the finish line on his BSA Gold Star at Southern California’s Ascot Park in 1961. Petty led all Novices in 1960 and might have won the track championship if he hadn’t elected to go on a long vacation in Europe with his father. Photo by Dan Mahony “The Colt was basically a 200cc version of the BSA C15,” Petty recalls. “It was an air-cooled, pushrod, two-valve Single, and it was gutless. The Zero makes way more power than a Colt ever could! Later, I got an NSU 125, which was a German-built two-stroke, in 1957, and I rode the Catalina Grand Prix with that in 1957 and ’58.” Petty excelled in American off-road racing, but he was really fond of European-style motocross. “In 1960 I got to go over to Europe to race one of Dave Bickers’ Greeves, and I loved it,” Petty says. “I thought it was great, but it was a championship that the U.S. had no part of. I thought we needed to be part of that world, but motocross pretty much floundered here until 1966 when (250cc World Motocross Champion) Torsten Hallman came over here and blew everybody away, and then in ’67 Edison Dye brought over the Husqvarnas. That got motocross going.”

Preston Petty became a top Southern California motorcycle racer by honing his skills while trail riding in the Santa Monica Mountains near his home. Photo from Preston Petty Collection But well before motocross exploded in America, Petty shipped off to Utah’s Brigham Young University in search of a better education and – at least his father hoped – a clean break from his motorcycle addiction. Much to Dad’s chagrin, Petty’s earliest college lessons were applied in the field of backstreet economics. “My dad had bought me a Volvo to get around, and when I got to school I met a guy who had a Buick Roadmaster, and he was willing to trade me his Roadmaster plus $500 cash for my Volvo,” Petty recalls. “I told my dad what I did, since it was basically his car, and he told me I could keep that 500 bucks for school expenses. Well, the first school expense I could think of was a motorcycle. So I went up to Wayne Moulton’s Triumph dealership in Salt Lake City and bought a Tiger Cub.” Petty snuck his new pride and joy into his dorm room to keep it out of the elements, but he soon learned that Tiger Cubs and dorm rooms don’t mix so well when one night, after adjusting the Triumph’s timing, he leaped on the Cub’s kickstarter and it fired-up on the first kick. The roar from the Cub’s tailpipe brought the dorm mother running and hastened the Cub’s return to the cold environment of the BYU parking lot. Already feeling like a square peg in a round hole anyway, Petty says that incident was the last straw. He loaded up his belongings, strapped his motorcycle to the Roadmaster’s bumper and left BYU for Los Angeles.

Clad in his blue coveralls, Preston Petty can easily be spotted whenever he attends a motorcycle racer, although he is rarely heard. With little more than a whine from his Zero’s electric motor, he is often able to swoop past his competition before they even know he is behind them. Photo by Scott Rousseau As the sun begins to set against the coastal mountains, Petty gives his Zero flat-tracker the once-over in preparation for racing on a warm night at Perris Raceway. He is clad in his familiar blue mechanic’s coveralls, which double as his racing uniform, but in reality he has very little in the way of tuning adjustments to make at the track. The machine’s direct drive means there is no transmission, which equates to fewer moving parts and less maintenance. It’s almost too simple. No need to check the gas tank because there isn’t one. All Petty has to do is flip a switch and roll on the throttle, and the Zero will silently come to life and begin rolling through the pits toward the staging area. Rather than rev his engine to clear a path through the pedestrians in front of him, a simple “excuse me” suffices. “When we first started this project, we had no idea how long it would even run on a battery charge, whether it would last us five minutes out at the racetrack or all day,” Petty says. “At first we thought that the battery life would be very short, so we brought it out to the track with gasoline generator and a charger and both 2.8 Kilowatt-hour lithium-ion batteries (Petty’s MX model, the precursor to the current FX platform, utilizes two swappable 2.8kWh battery packs and can operate with just a single battery installed -TS). It worked so well that I was able to remove one of the batteries and just run it on the other one. That way I save 45 pounds and can still ride the whole night. Smaller and lighter is always desirable in racing.”

Petty’s Zero is capable of carrying two 2.8 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery packs to power the motor, but the battery packs store so much energy that he only needs to carry one to “fuel” his machine at short-track races. Jettisoning the other, which he keeps handy as a backup just in case, shaves precious pounds from his racebike. Photo by Scott Rousseau When it comes to electric motorcycles, desirability is ever-increasing. Charged by the success of Zero and other companies, electric-powered motorcycles have even begun to excel in the ultra-competitive world of motorcycle racing. By way of example, 2013 Pike’s Peak International Hillclimb Motorcycle Champion Carlin Dunne beat all of his gasoline-powered competition on an electric road racer. For several years there has been an electric-powered race class at the legendary Isle of Man TT, where modern electrics average 100+ mph over the 37.7-mile mountain course. The electric segment is gaining more and more followers despite the fact that new ideas and out-of-the-box thinking can often be a hard sell. Petty knows that as well as anyone. For while electricity didn’t make Preston Petty a household name in the motorcycle industry, his revolutionary plastic products did. “In 1969, I went up to the Cal-Poly Enduro, and I was riding along and dropped down into a rain rut when the dirt just grabbed the front fender and bent it all up,” Petty recalls. “I bent it back straight, but within a few miles it just broke off, and I had to ride the rest of the enduro with mud in my face. I thought, ‘There has to be a better way to make a fender than that.’ So I remember looking around for better fender material, and a painter friend of mine had this plastic paint bucket that you could beat on with a baseball bat or a hammer, and it wouldn’t break. So we knew the plastic was there, but it was just a matter of finding a way to mold the fenders. So I bought an injection mold and started learning about plastics.” Thus, Preston Petty Products was born. Success was not immediate, however, as Petty went through a lot of trial and error to perfect the right formula for his new fenders.

Petty pioneered the use of unbreakable plastic fenders in off-road motorcycling, and he turned Preston Petty Products into an aftermarket empire before selling the company in 1980. Photo by Scott Rousseau “When I went to a plastic place and told the guy that I needed a plastic that was really tough,” he remembers. “The guy said, ‘Okay. We should make them out of high-impact polystyrene.’ I said, ‘Sure. Poly anything. Polly wants a cracker – I don’t know the difference.’ He made one, and I rode with it on my DKW, and it held up just fine. Then I went down to the quarter car wash to wash the bike, and I put Gunk all over it like I always did. So then I went and put my quarter in the machine, and when I turned around the front fender was laying on top of the tire. The Gunk had just dissolved it same as when you put gasoline in a Styrofoam cup. We went through a number of plastics before we got the right one. By the summer of 1970, we had selected polypropylene because it had good low-temperature impact resistance and good memory so it would go back to its original shape after an impact.” By that time, Petty had begun competing in the International Six Days Trial events in Europe, and he was extremely competitive at his ISDT debut, where he rode a DKW to a silver medal in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, West Germany in 1969. Subsequent ISDTs in Spain (1970) and while riding for Team USA in Great Britain (1971) ended with disappointing DNFs.

Petty regularly battles with a pack of competitors on gasoline-powered motorcycles at Perris Raceway, and he often wins. Photo by Janice Blunt “I was on our Vase team in 1971, and my sponsor, Ted Lapadakis, had put me on a Puch,” Petty recounts. “The only one of us on a Puch to last all six days was Billy Uhl, and that was because he wasn’t considered an important enough rider for Puch to put their ‘specially hardened gears’ in his transmission. He had regular production gears.” Worse yet, Petty had brought over a load of his new plastic fenders but failed to generate any interest in them among the Europeans — or so he thought. It wasn’t until a few months later that British specialty motorcycle manufacturer Eric Cheney called Petty and asked for another load of the fenders. The Europeans were amazed at the durability of the product, and Petty was soon inundated with orders. To fill the demand, he moved to Oregon, set up a factory and proceeded to ramp up production to a zenith of 2000 fenders per day. By 1980, the Preston Petty brand was one of the best-known in the off-road aftermarket segment, and Petty decided that he was ready to retire, so he sold his plastic business on an installment basis. It should have resulted in a happy ending to a fantastic career, but life isn’t always so kind. The deal fell through, and Petty lost millions when the buyer went bankrupt. It led to some tough times, but today Petty says there’s no use in crying over it.

Although it has brought him a fair share of ups and downs during his amazing career, motorcycling has always brought a smile to Petty’s face. Photo by Scott Rousseau “I made a number of mistakes, let’s leave it at that,” Petty says, and then adds, “When you get screwed, you’ve got to have two people involved, the screw-er and the screw-ee. If either one of those is missing, then you didn’t get screwed.” Rather than try to rebuild his empire, Petty elected instead to worm in the emerging field of micro-computers, which would go on to become as common a household product as televisions and washing machines. “As early as 1977, I was working with a guy who was going to machine some of my No-Dives (fork torque arms devices) who told me, ‘Hey, I’ve got this friend at work who is in a computer club, and he is working on making his own computer and needs a case made for it. He doesn’t have any money. All he can do is give you stock in his business. You should come over to his garage and look at it.’ So I did, and the guy’s case design looked ugly to me, so I passed on it. The guy’s name was Steve Jobs, and the company was Apple. Of course, that didn’t mean anything back then.” Today, whenever Petty works on one of his personal computers or tinkers with his Zero motorcycle, he can’t help but be amazed at just how far technology has come in the world.

“I’ve always thought of myself as being a forward-thinking guy, and I’m amazed,” Petty says. “Look at the power and capability of a cell phone,” Petty says. “It’s overwhelming. I remember back in the middle 1960s we were trying to stuff a computer numerically controlled (CNC) machining program into a Honeywell computer, and we had to get the whole thing to work within a tiny 12k memory capacity. We thought, ‘God, if we just had 16k it would be so much easier.’ One of the guys we were working with said. ‘Listen, one of these days you won’t have to worry about that. You’ll have 128k!’ I said, ‘whoah!’ Bill Gates used to say that nobody would ever need more than 640k!” Plastics. Computers. Electric motorcycles. All represent technological advancements of the kind that excite Petty and make him feel just as alive today as he was when he was a youngster, riding that little Ariel Colt in the Santa Monica mountains. So it’s no wonder that he has become fond of his Zero. He’s just as amazed with it as he is with other emerging technologies that might stimulate a forward-thinking individual such as he is. “This is the MX model, which they don’t make any more, but they do have another version called the FX, which is the dual-sport version of the MX,” Petty says of his racebike. “They also have the DS, which is a completely different chassis, for their streetbike models. But you could take an FX and turn it into one of these with no problem. The real plus side of these is the electricity and the instant torque that it has.”

Petty’s Zero flat-tracker is based on the company’s discontinued MX model, although it has much in common with the company’s current FX dual-sport machine, which makes even more power than the MX. Petty has made a few minor modifications to the MX chassis to adapt it for flat-track use, but its air-cooled, three-phase AC electric motor is stone stock. Photo by Scott Rousseau And the 2015 Zero FX boasts a number of improvements over Petty’s discontinued MX model, with an upgraded Z-Force motor that boasts more torque than ever. The compact, sealed, brushless, air-cooled motor produces 44 horsepower and 70 lb.-ft. of torque through a clutchless direct drive – no shifting is required. The new FX also benefits from Zero’s partnerships with respected OE suppliers such as Showa (suspension) and Pirelli (tires). The FX is also now offered with a Bosch-made anti-lock brake system (ABS) to improve its braking performance in a variety of riding conditions, and the system can be switched on or off to suit rider preference. The FX’s styling, fit and finish have also evolved to give it a sleeker look and improve the rider interface. Zero’s constant refinement of its products continues to generate a buzz for electric motorcycles, even though you can barely hear one when it rides by. That’s something Petty’s competition has told him when he passes them on the track.

“If this was an all-electric motorcycle race out here, you’d actually be able to hear the announcer during the race! ,” Petty says. “I know that for some people the appeal of the internal-combustion engine is the noise and the smell, and there’s a giant world for the internal combustion engine out there, but electric power has a definite place in society, especially in urban transportation.” But what about their utility? Isn’t the biggest knock against electric motorcycles the fact that they can’t make it as far on one charge as a gasoline engine can between fuel stops? Mentioning the catchphrase “range anxiety” to Petty when talking about current electric motorcycles is likely to elicit a chuckle. “In urban traffic, where you’re starting and stopping all the time, you actually get better duration than you would on the freeway at 70 mph,” Petty says. “It has a three-phase AC motor, and when you back off, it actually reverses the poles and turns into a generator to put some energy back into that battery. To me, it’s the ideal urban commuting machine. When I go home on mine, I just plug it into a standard wall socket, and when I wake up the next morning, it is fully charged.”

Petty gets ready for a practice session at his good friend John Hateley’s Southern California Ranch. Because his Zero is so quiet, it is the only full-size motorcycle that Hateley will allow on his private test track. No noise means no complaints by the neighbors. Photo by Scott Rousseau Petty knows that he can’t spin as many laps as the gasoline burners, but he can get in all the laps he needs. A typical night at Perris requires about 25-30 laps for practice, a heat race and the main event. Petty accomplishes that on just one of the Zero’s modular power packs, and his FX has room for two packs. He always carries an extra pack just in case, or for longer, more demanding courses such as half-mile tracks, but he rarely needs to use it. His propulsion system may be different, but Petty says that his bike works as well as any gasoline-powered machine on the track, and he has proven its capabilities via multiple main-event wins in his class. The reliability and the simplicity of the Zero’s powerplant allows Petty to focus less on tinkering and more on riding technique, although the Zero does feature a switchable regenerative braking feature that he can that he use to his advantage on the track. “I can adjust the regenerative engine braking to whatever I want,” Petty says. “I can go from practically zero engine braking, like a two-stroke, to more engine braking than your typical four-stroke,” Petty says. “Either way, it accelerates so quickly that I have to be careful with the throttle to get it to hook up on a dirt track.”

Always hailed as a natural talent when he was younger, Petty still rides hard enough to get into trouble occasionally. Now, let’s see, where did I put those darn gloves! Photo by Janice Blunt Indeed, and Petty reinforced that point as we watched him hone his skills on a very slippery dry decomposed granite backyard practice oval on a friend’s Southern California ranch the week after Perris. It is clear the Zero has way more motor than it needs. The bottom line is that it works, and Petty said he won’t be surprised to see the technology improve along a similar path to that of internal-combustion engines. “Electrics use the end electron in a molecular chain and run that through an electric motor, and they already make pretty good power,” Petty says. “How about if some smart physicist says, ‘Hey, let’s not just take that end electron, let’s take all of the electrons in the nucleus and run them through the motor?’ You’d almost have atomic power then, though it would still be electric. I don’t think that will happen in my lifetime, although I’d love to see it. I do think that it won’t be long before we see a battery that’s the size of a pack of cigarettes that can power your car or your house all year. “Let me put it this way,” Petty adds. “For Elon Musk to put billions of dollars into a battery manufacturing plant north of Reno, Nevada, over the next two years, that tells me he knows something.”

Petty says it will take time for the mainstream to gain awareness and the acceptance of electric motorcycles, but they will come around just like Petty’s father did long ago when he conceded that maybe his son’s motorcycling efforts weren’t such a bad thing after all. “In the summer of 1960, Dad and I took our only long trip together, a month-long journey through Europe,” Petty recalls. “We bought a Volkswagen to drive around over there, and we stopped by the NSU factory in Neckarsulm, Germany, Dad got to know the export manager there, and he got to see the enormity of it all. He wouldn’t say much about it. We finished up in London, and I told him that I wanted to go to the Greeves factory, so we went there, and I got to meet Dave Bickers and race one of his motorcycles in a race that weekend. When we got back, I finally asked him what he thought of it all. All he would say is, ‘It’s impressive.’” Looking at Preston Petty’s life accomplishments, one can’t help but say the same. Making an electric motorcycle competitive in flat-track racing is just one more highlight to add to the list. It fuels his motivation, and he is more than willing to share his enthusiasm for his project with anyone. In fact, during our time together he answered every question we asked of him, save one: What does a gallon of racing gasoline cost these days? “I don’t have any idea,” Petty responds with a grin. Click to Post