AGV Backmarker: Leno Helps An Old Friend

Jeff Palhegyi (his name rhymes with “apology”) has a custom shop in El Cajon, where San Diego’s sprawl eastward is blocked by the mountains. I rode out there to see the Star V-Max that he’s customizing for Jay Leno. I found it easily enough, but it’s pretty low-profile. The “No Public Restrooms” sign is more prominent than the Palhegyi Design sign. Considering that the place is kind of out of the way to begin with, I wondered if he could possibly be pestered by people dropping in and asking to use the loo.

“Make sure you don’t take any pictures of that red bike in the background,” was almost the first thing he said as I prepared to snap a photo of Leno’s V-Max, which was sitting on a work stand looking fairly sparse.

As I changed my position, he added “And definitely don’t take any pictures of that white bike.”

That was a shame, because it was a bike that most Backmarker readers would be interested to see. Oh well, I’m sworn to secrecy. Finally, rather than tell me what I had to avoid, he picked a spot and told me if I stood right there and shot Jay’s V-Max, I’d miss all the top-secret stuff.

Then it sunk in for me: Palhegyi’s work is often seen in magazines and at bike shows—his personal Star touring bike was on the cover of the Robb Report motorcycle magazine in 2007, and one of his V-Max project is in the current issue of Cycle World in their regular “American Flyers” feature—but his shop’s really a Yamaha/Star skunkworks. Most of the time he’s working on product planning for Yamaha in both the ATV and motorcycle areas. The shop’s carefully laid out so that you can’t see the work areas from the parking lot, even if the loading-bay door is open.

Palhegyi grew up admiring hot rods and working on off-road race trucks. That was probably a good background for his first job at Yamaha, which was as a product planner on the ATV side. “In ’95, I saw the first, wooden mock-up of the Royal Star,” he told me. “Yamaha had already contracted with a customizer—a guy who worked on Harleys. I said, ‘Get me involved.’ Ed Burke gave me a bike and two weeks. Until then, I’d never had anything chromed in my life.” He’s basically never looked back since then, although he still provides input on lots of four-wheeled vehicles.

He does virtually no work for private customers. I guess there’s an exception made for Leno, especially because his V-Max is not actually going into his collection but will be auctioned in Las Vegas to support his current favorite charity.

The whole thing came together quickly, and Palhegyi will only have the bike a week before trucking it up to Jay’s place in Burbank where, if things go according to plan, it will make an appearance on his show. From there, it’ll be sent straight to Vegas, where it will be auctioned as part of the Barrett-Jackson classic car auction, on Saturday of next week.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave somewhere, you know that Leno’s been a little busy the last few weeks. NBC just launched the Jay Leno Show, five nights a week in the 10 p.m. time slot. It wasn’t really a secret that he was a little disgruntled with the network’s desire to move Conan O’Brien into the Late Night host’s chair.

That would not have left Leno puttering around his garage, with his hundred or so bikes (and an equal number of cars). It probably would have resulted in a rival network hiring Leno to go head-to-head with Conan. So instead, NBC offered Leno the 10 p.m. slot. The move promised to save them money; even though Leno’s obviously well-paid, five of his shows are a lot cheaper than five scripted dramas, or even five reality shows. If the strategy works, it may almost be the death of scripted drama on network television. The L.A. Times, which dissects TV programming the way the Wall Street Journal analyzes stocks, wondered, “Is this the end of prime time?” Time magazine went as far as to say that fate of the entire NBC network—and possibly network television as a whole—hangs in the balance of Leno’s ratings. No pressure, eh?

Still, he’s taking time out—flying to Vegas for the auction, where I’m guessing he’ll be on stage, egging on the bidders. All this effort to raise money and awareness for a Brooklyn arts-education program called Bailey’s Café.

I’m definitely not buddy-buddy with Leno, but I know him well enough to know that while he loves his job, he hasn’t made many friends in the entertainment business. Most of the people he really trusts are people he knew growing up. Stefanie Siegel, who founded Bailey’s Café, has known Jay since they were 18 years old, in college. She became a teacher and realized that there are a bunch of tough communities where there is no sense of, well, community.

It’s an arts program, and more; it focuses on using the arts to bring kids together with older people who serve as advisors and role models but who also need help in other ways. One Bailey’s Café program is called Errands for Elders. Giving kids responsibility encourages them to take responsibility. It’s a simple idea, but those are the ones that work.

My wife is a dancer and she knows that art has the power to transform people’s lives in the same deeply personal way that sport transformed mine. She and I have both spoken to Stefanie about her program, and have come away totally convinced it’s worthwhile. So in the spirit of full disclosure I’ll say that I’m not just reporting the story of Jay Leno and his V-Max going to Barrett-Jackson’s classic car auction. I’m doing everything I can—including using this column—to support this very worthwhile cause.

So here’s what I want you to do: Spread the word about this cool bike being auctioned off. Right now, Bailey’s Café needs to raise $100,000, which will allow the organization to find a permanent home. I don’t think that too many of my Twitter followers or Facebook fans have that kind of dosh kicking around, but if you know anyone who does, tell them to buy it. Point out that Jay has said he’ll give the buyer a personal tour of his garage, which I can tell you is a very cool perk, that could be auctioned alone for a pretty good price. The garage has a full restaurant-spec kitchen, and I’ll personally volunteer to cook dinner after the tour.

I think there’s still time to register as a remote bidder, so you don’t even have to go to Vegas to bid on the bike. Even if your limit’s well under what the bike will sell for, it’d be cool if there were a storm of bids early on that got the high-rollers’ juices flowing. So register and bid. Post a link to this story on your Facebook page, Tweet about it. Post it on forums. Jay Leno is one of American motorcycling’s best and most visible ambassadors, and this is A Good Thing that he’s doing. Lend your support.

In the meantime, Palhegyi tells me that the bike will be going back together on Monday, so I’ll make the trek down to El Cajon again and post a photo of the finished machine next week.

On other subjects…

I’m still absorbing the news that Honda says it has essentially pulled out of AMA Pro Road Racing. Personally, I think the decision was at least as much about cutting costs as it was about the OEMs’ fractious relationship with DMG, now dba as AMA Pro Racing. But either way, it’s not good; Edmonson can spin the story that he’s going to have Buell, Aprilia, BMW… but—and by saying this, I mean no disrespect to three brands that I really admire—even in combination, they lack Honda’s clout. A passion for racing is a selective filter for big egos. That’s great when the sport’s healthy; it makes for good racing. That’s not so great when we all need to work together to ensure our survival. Sometimes strong leadership means saying, “You know, I might have made a mistake…”

Speaking of Buell, I had an interesting off-the-record conversation with Erik Buell yesterday in which he spoke at length about the controversial decision to make the 1125R eligible for the Daytona SportBike class. There’s more to consider than just displacement, if you’re wondering about fairness. The tires available to the DSB class didn’t allow the Buell to exercise its torque advantage, which explains why only Eslick—a really good dirt tracker—extracted much potential from the Buell in that class. And there was more than met the eye in terms of the way the minimum-weight rule was applied in that class. I’m hoping to get Erik to go on the record with his insights and experience of the 2009 season in some later column.

Last but not least, I’m starting a social movement of my own. Or should I call it civil disobedience? I’m not sure. There has recently been a spate of commentary about distracted driving. Motorcycle advocacy groups are making presentations to legislators, etc. But my concept is simple: When you see someone driving along while texting (especially) or talking on the phone, pull up as close to them as you can and lean on the horn. Let distracted drivers know that what they’re doing is inappropriate.

Honk if u h8 txtng