Fred 08', a campaign that never really started

Ever watch one of those Biker Build offs on tv?

The ones where custom motorcycle builders start from scratch and in five days they have to ride their new creation a hundred or so miles, to make sure it actually works, to a biker rally where thousands of motorcycle fans vote on who built the best custom bike?

I have watched a few of the programs and the motorcycles they build are awe inspiring. Some guys make their own frames from raw tube steel and hand build almost every piece of hardware that goes on the finished product. It's really cool, but 5 days to build a complete working motorcycle is a challenge even if you have been doing it for 20 years.

On a few shows, one of the builder has a great design, truly innovative and beautiful, but when midnight comes on Friday, the deadline for the build, they can't get the motor to fire up. As the clock strikes twelve, the builder looses the build off to his competitor.

If Fred Thompson was on this type of show, here is how that would play out.

Fred has a wonderful design, he may be the best bike builder of the bunch, he has great ideas and the finished product would surely win, except Fred took Monday of the build week off. He wanted to stay home with his wife and kid to pick out wall paper for the new bathroom remodel.

On Tuesday he came into the shop around noon and doodled some ideas for the bike on a napkin and went to have lunch at Hooters never to return that day.

Wednesday morning he showed up around 10:00 am and starts to order parts for his project, but the really cool parts will take time to get and the ones in stock had already been purchased by his competitors. Hmm, Fred calls around and finds some parts that he can tweak to fit his project and gets them ordered then he takes the rest of the day off.

Thursday rolls around and Fred shows up at the shop and waits for the parts to arrive. Fed Ex rolls in at 10:30 and it seems the parts he ordered were all wrong for this particular project so he pulls one of his old bikes out of the back and decides to borrow a few pieces off that one to get the ball rolling. He works on the bike until 5:00 pm and goes home because everyone else did and he's hungry.

Friday he starts at 7:45 am and is working hard for an hour or so until a buddy shows up at the shop and they go to lunch at Hooters, Fred loves their wings you know, he comes back at 2:15 to resume work. He works feverishly, with a few breaks for snacks and a phone call from the wife to remind him to pick up the dry cleaning. He works on for hours until something resembling a motorcycle is sitting on the build bench at 11:45 pm.

He steps back and says, you know, I thought this would be easier, I have been doing this for a long time and I always thought I was pretty darn good at it. With time winding down Fred kicks over the engine and remembers that he didn't hook up the fuel line. He connects the fuel line with two minutes to spare and again tries to start the engine. And Again. And again. No dice.

The clock strikes 12:00 midnight and with a small group of folks standing around his bike, he quietly concedes the bike isn't going to start. He heads off to Hooters before they close.

That is the Fred 08' campaign in a nutshell, or a biker build off analogy.

Anyone want a Fred 08' yard sign? I'm taking cheap, make me an offer.