Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128320
AHRMA Executive Director David Lamberth STORY AN D PHOTOS BY SCOTT RO USSEAU because it was typically the type of environment that I got into whenever Iwent into an organization that need ed help or was messy from a financial perspective. You neve r get a procedure manual. When yo u surveyed t he scene, w hat are some of t he posit ives and negatives t hat yo u saw? A The positive attributes are that we have just the JIoIlbest people that you can dea l with . I thought my hare scram bles folks were good people , and they are , but the AHRMA folks are even bett e r. The level of knowledge that these people have, especially our board of trustees, is phenomenal. They can debate what size carburetor came on a 1961 Jawa, and they 're right. And they have always bee n so positive, even when things from a business pe rspect ive haven't gone so well. On the other side , it was a typical nonprofi t organization wh ose membersh ip had started to decline, and it had slipped into a slightly negative financial position. You're dea ling with all volunteers, and there were issues with some dated software and some dated procedures. The re were some... not challenges... but opportunities. AHRMA had been struggling for the past couple years, but we have been able to get it turned back arou nd now. We were profitable last year for the first time . Q From the public rel ations standpoin t , it w o uld seem as t ho ugh AHRMA was strugglin g there as well. A They we ren't doing any, and there had not been any JIo'adve rtising. As the mem bership was declining, they were looking fo r things to tr im back, and that was one of the things that sto pped. I can't say when that was - I'm guessi ng it was about two years, but when I got involved, I didn't really have time to go back and look into what happen ed back then , and I really didn't care . When an orga nization is in a negative financial position, w hateve r they are doing is wr ong to begin with. But we have worked rea lly hard to go the other way from that. What we have to rem embe r is that AHRMA is in a customer service business, regardless of what anybody says. We serve primarily for the enjoyme nt of our membership, and if the membership is not happy, then they are not going to hang around with us. Q 42 ' AHRMA e xec ut ive directo r David Lambe rt h of Good letsville , Tennessee, is the first AHRMA e xecutive director to be younger than the Beatles - or e ven Led eppelin for the mat ter. In fact, he is five yea rs younger than the median age o f the AHRMA membership he serves. How this pink-cheeked , silver-tongu ed former corporate CPAgot to be the head ofthe world's largest vintage motorcycle racing sanct ioning body is an inte resting tale in itself: He started at the top, rather than work ing his way there. More important, though , is how Lamberth's positive outlook and corporate-bred financial se nse have given AHRMA a much -needed tune-up. He is quick to avoid taking all the credit for the IS-yearold club's recent growth and newfound financial solvency, but his fingerpr ints are the re nonetheless. For him, it's all abo ut getting the house in order so that the parties can be more fun. A Q How did you ge t invo lved in AHRMA? make a long have since was A Toyears old, andstory short, Isince riddenIn the Imid7 I've raced 1977. 42 APRil 2 1, 2004 • CYCL E N EWS I980s, as a hobby I started getting involved in hare scrambles racing here in Tennessee. There is an organ izat ion called the Mid-South Hare Scrambles Series that Cycle News covers and that a lot of the big factory guns like Hendon, Summe rs and Plessinger wo uld come and race . I enjoyed it and got involved, and they found out w hat I did, and I got sucked into the organizatio n and wou nd up taking it over in the early '90s. It was just a hobby. I didn't do it for a living. The n my company went through another buyout, and I was kind of tired of that , and I was looking for something new. A friend of mine told me that I needed to try vintage racing, but I didn't even know where to start. I said "Okay, tell me where to go look." They gave me the address to the AHRMA website [www.ahrma.org] , and I was looking at bikes on there when I saw that they had an ad where they were looking for an executive director. I thought, "Gos h, that wo uld be kind of fun." I sent them my resume, with my Mid-South backgro und, and I guess I must have fooled them because they hired me (laughs). I was hired in November of 200 I, and I took over Dece mber I of that year. What w as the t ransition period like for you? Q A Well, I literally got tossed out into the river with no Mraft or life preservers or anything. That was fine, 40th Anniversary It 's interesting to hea r you say that, because t here a re large r sanctioning bodie s in t his country who, it could be a rgued, have lost touch with that philosophy. A Well, sometimes growth does that. W hen you get ~o many members and the organ ization loses touch, I don't reallythink that it is because they want to . I know a lot of those peo ple, and they are great people, but there are only so many hours in the day, and I'm sure tha t they don't get paid a ton of money. T hat can cause Q