The John Penton Movie Preview

The John Penton Story

(The movie)

Monday, June 23^rd, I attended a sneak preview of the movie ‘The John Penton Story’.  It turned out to be an even better time than I expected because of the array of riders and motorcycle industry people that showed up.

I talked to riders, shop owners and friends I had not seen in many years at this screening. It was a blast catching up with some of them for the first time in a decade or two! I saw faces from a distance that I couldn’t put a name to (maybe too many concussions?) and didn’t get a chance to walk over to talk to all of them because of the number of people that showed up. I would estimate there were easily over a hundred people there.

I did get to catch up with a few from ‘Back in the Day’, like Dave Duarte, Hi-Point West CEO in the 1970’s and 80’s, who has just gone through a life changing illness and was out here attending the special screening. Then I figured it out when during the movie Dave’s face shows up splashed all the way across the big screen while he is being interviewed/quoted a couple of times! Everyone in our audience cheered at Dave’s cameo appearance.  What a HAM!  But it was great to see Dave up and doing much better than last year when it was touch and go as to whether he would even be with us. That alone was enough to make it a great evening.            God Bless you Dave.

Then there were the usual suspects of riders, shop owners, mechanics, etc.  Bob Messer, Billy Deprado, Mark Gibson, Bob Pearson, Dave Coupe’, Pat Wilson, Brad Teegarden and many others. So many people and not enough time, literally, because the movie was fairly long especially for a motorcycle oriented flick.

The movie was very interesting and covered a lot of ground in both time and people during John Penton’s life.  A great source of information and history much of which I was never aware of until now and I have been riding since the early 70’s. This covers Penton’s life all the way back to his earliest years as a boy even his service in WWII.  It contains a lot of interesting facts and some great old footage and photos of events and races. I would recommend if you like motorcycling and have any interest in the roots and history of our sport that you make an effort to find where it is playing and go see it.  A last tidbit is that it is narrated by the country singer Lyle Lovett and it is revealed how as a kid he worked at a Penton dealership just to be around motorcycles. Now that is my kind of guy.

#33

“A bad attitude is like a flat tire, you will never get anywhere until you change it”