Not to throw you off your couch, workbench, or saddle, but this month's Busted Knuckles is going to be a little different. Instead of industry folks having this space to "talk"-vent, rant and rave, ramble...it's all good, we're going to give you a little storied background on Joel Felty of Headwinds in Monrovia, CA. Of course, we'll throw in some edgy, juicy details (all true) so we don't throw this department off too much.
We're willing to take some punishment-you can slap our hands with a ruler, as long as it doesn't break our typing fingers-for having this information about Joel and Headwinds in our possession for a while. However, our intentions were genuine to get it in STREET CHOPPER sooner, and we're doing something about it now. We do want to extend our apologies to Joel and the team at Headwinds for the lapse in time.
Let's put the tissues down and start off on the right boot. We're pleased that you read the tech sheets on the bikes featured on these pages, and more often than not you've found the headlight under the Essentials column to be Headwinds. You've certainly heard of Headwinds if you consider yourself a motorcycle enthusiast. After all, the company has been a leader in the custom headlight industry for more than 13 years.
What you may not know is Headwinds was in business while Joel was still working at Performance Machine. Now don't be making any booing noises, gasping for air, or assuming anything here. Joel and Performance Machine (PM) owner Perry Sands are in good standing and in fact, Perry is of great influence to Joel. "I started as an engineer for TRW for about a year," Joel said. "I was looking for a part-time job because I was trying to buy a Porsche. I found an ad in the newspaper that PM needed a mechanical engineer. I met with Perry and got the job, and after about six months, NASA cancelled its contract with TRW, so my position at PM turned into full-time. I worked as chief engineer, designing forward controls, wheels, and lots of parts. PM was growing and growing. I finally got a Porsche, but didn't want it after all. It wasn't for me at that point in my life. I bought a Harley, instead! While I was at PM, I heard about other people making and designing parts. I thought I could make something that wasn't a conflict of interest with PM."
Joel continued, "Back then there was no good headlights. I was looking through magazines and realized nobody was making a cool headlight. I also realized the machine shops were making the parts and people were having these parts made for them. I decided to start the whole thing [Headwinds] in 1992. I was also working at PM up until 1996, but only one day a week. Nobody at PM knew that I was actually Headwinds, and I started to realize that Headwinds was getting too big to ignore. I went back to PM, gave my two-week notice, and ended up there for another two months to help Perry out. He did so much to help me.