Trail Rider Magazine

12 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com According to Mary, the trip had some bumps. Mary said, "Preston con nued on alone, which was prob- ably a good thing. I don't think I would have fared as well as he did in the Bagdad and Bombay incarcera- ons." - A story we'll have to revisit another me. In 1976 Preston and Mary relocated to Sco sdale, Arizona. When they relocated, they were close to the Sco sdale Airport and kept the plane in a han- gar with a small office. Mary tells us, "We were in a transi on period then. There was no manufacturing done in Arizona. A couple of years later, we moved to Camp Verde and built an A-frame log house on a private airport. The hangar was huge, and besides accommoda ng the airplane, it also housed some equipment and an office. The hangar was three mes the size of the house. It was at this me that the Sco Goggle sale took place, and I moved to Utah." The sale to Sco took place in 1977. It was then that Mary went to work for Sco in Utah as Compe on Racing Director and Export Sales Manager, while Preston stayed at Camp Verde. Mary also said, "The Newburg opera on con nued right up un l the sale, and Sco moved the en re plant to Clearfield, Utah. That included the molding machines, current produc on, everything, even our produc on manager. I didn't go immediately to Sco . They had a lot to do before they got up and running, and they were also in the process of selling Sco to new investors out of Chicago, which we were never told about. It wasn't un l a er the new people took over that I moved to Utah, and this was because they didn't have anyone with a motorcycle and expor ng background in the company." Ownership under Sco didn't last long. Mary con- nued. "The day Sco no fied the employees that they were closing, we were told to clean out person- al items and leave, and that was it. I moved back to Arizona, and we tried to pick up the pieces. Without any equipment, manufacturing was a problem, so we went back to the company that we had molding the products (Medway Plas cs) prior to the move to Or- egon. I moved to California and set up shop in their loca on, and we were back in business. By then I had taken a job with Wheelsport, our distributor based in Portland, Oregon, as the Warehouse Manager for their Arlington, Texas loca on. Preston stayed in Camp Verde in the modified A-frame log house we built on the private airport. He spent some amount of me trying to resurrect the company with the new people, but soon he moved back to the San Fernan- do Valley." Back in California, Preston went back to working on computers and enjoying life. I first met him in 1999 at Mid-Ohio. Preston was with Jim Pomeroy, as they were both being inducted into the AMA hall of fame that evening. In 2003, I called Preston and asked about the Preston Pe y Products trademark. It had been abandoned since Sco le it in 1980. I had an idea to a empt to produce some of the Preston Pe y Products that were used on the Hodaka motor- cycles. I asked Preston for his permission to secure the trademark so we could try and move forward. Preston's response was, "Paul, you know that I do not own the Trademark." My response was, "Yes, Preston, it has been abandoned, but if you prefer that I don't move forward, I will not." He asked what he could do to help, and I replied that if he would be kind enough to write a le er that I could present to the U.S. Patent and Trademark office sta ng that he has no objec ons to this it would be great. Preston sent me that le er which I presented to the trade- mark office, and in 2004 it was finalized.

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