What’s on your schedule for Sturgis this year?
We moved everything from the Full Throttle over to the Buffalo Chip. We’re racing off road and we’re selling guns. All kinds of stuff!
You’re making guns now?
About three years ago I bought a gun for $600, took it apart and messed around with it. Then I posted a picture of it online and it went viral. So the light bulb went off: Maybe I should build guns!
It feels like everything I was doing before was preparation for this – as a machinist and with metal finishing. It’s something I could never have done in California because of the regulations and permitting. But Texas is perfect for it.
So in your career you’ve gone from cars to bikes to guns: your canvas keeps getting smaller.
Yeah, and I can fit more of them in my garage. (laughs) The machinery keeps getting bigger and bigger though. For guns you need big surface grinders and a giant gun-drilling lathe. It’s all relative.
What’s happening with West Coast Choppers?
After shutting it down for four years I kind of soft re-launched the website about a year ago and everything instantly sold out. And I thought, What? People still want this s***? They’re not sick of it yet? Cause I am! So a couple months ago I re-launched a whole new site with a whole new line of parts.
So maybe it’s true that timing is everything.
Yeah, maybe it is. You know, I got real famous and successful before the f’ing Internet existed, thank god. I just barely missed it. I’m so lucky I made a name for myself before the mouth-breathers could use their keyboards to shoot me down.
What’s are you riding now?
I got a new New Orleans PD Road King that I lowered and cut the windshield down. It’s my daily bike back and forth to the shop. I can carry parts in the saddlebags. It’s like a truck.
Speaking of trucks, so you’re racing off-road these days?
I’ve been racing in the desert for a decade, I’ve been a consistent top 5 finisher. But those are thousand mile races, you have to pace yourself cause they’re like 30 hours long. These TORC trucks are geared for cornering, it’s like a sprint race. You just kill each other, it’s awesome. It’s so much fun and I’m excited about it.
Your wife is a racer, too, right?
She drag races an NHRA funny car but it’s two different things. For drag racing you have to be like a surgeon, a super precision driver. She’s super fearless. With truck racing or anything off-road you just have to be a knucklehead like me.
You sound great!
Yeah, I’m happier than ever.
Want to know what Jesse James’s opinion of big wheel baggers? Or how he thinks the gun making business is like the motorcycle industry? Watch for a follow up story in a subsequent issue of the Sturgis Rider Daily.
