What do you get when you cross a tennis playing, stunt bike rider with a Rock Zombie? Answer: Phil Licciardi, shock-tuning master. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
3:33 – they had the Green Police, I got pulled over for pushing my bike to town, they tried to hold my dad off at gunpoint, and he wasn’t even mad yet!
9:41 – the film, The Firm was based on a guy who owned the company my dad worked for, the controlling aspects of this guy were crazy
17:48 – I definitely got a PhD in partying!
21:48 – “How did you learn to fab?” Just did it, I went and got a Home Depot weld pack 100 Fluxcore machine and just started doing crappy work.
32:44 – the thing about sport bike stunt riding is you either get good pretty quick or you die trying.
49:23 –I left KOH saying, there is no way in hell I’m ever getting involved in that situation. Two months later, Doug called, “hey, so you want to build an Ultra4 car?”
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:39.870] – Big Rich Klein
This week’s guest on Conversations with Big Rich is Phil Licciardi, shock builder and tuner, FAB guy, rock zombie 4×4 club member, ex-sport bike stunt driver, dirt bike rider, and all things America. All right, Phil Licciardi. It’s going to be Good to have you on the podcast here and learn more about you. I first met you quite a while ago when I was hanging out with Bob Roggy and starting Cal Rocks, and you were out and about. So good to have you on here.
[00:02:16.220] – Phil Licciardi
Thanks. Glad to be here.
[00:02:17.690] – Big Rich Klein
So let’s jump right in and find out where you were born and raised.
[00:02:24.170] – Phil Licciardi
I was born and raised partially in Plainville, Massachusetts. It’s the northeastern on the tip of Rhode Island, pretty much, just over the border. I was there for 14 years. Yeah, 14 years. I think we left in ’95 or ’96. ’95.
[00:02:44.270] – Big Rich Klein
That’s about right. ’95, ’96, and you were in northeast, well, in Mass, but in close to Rhode Island, huh?
[00:02:53.390] – Phil Licciardi
Yep.
[00:02:54.450] – Big Rich Klein
See here, I thought you were a Cali boy the whole time.
[00:02:57.080] – Phil Licciardi
No, no, it sure wasn’t. I had accent and everything. I did two years in Memphis as well. Right after Mass, I was in Memphis for those two years. Then I was out in California for, I guess it came out in ’96 or ’97 to California. I was there for longer than I was in Massachusetts. I guess it makes me that.
[00:03:27.230] – Big Rich Klein
Tell me what it was like growing up in that part of the Northeast?
[00:03:33.510] – Phil Licciardi
It was a different world there back then. The town I was in was a really cool dirt bike community. We had a New England Trail Riding Association, raced through our property. There was trails everywhere. I could ride my dirt bike to school. There was off-road opportunities everywhere. From what my friends who still live there say, it’s all built up. It’s all city now, and there’s barely any trails or anything to go recreate on the commies have taken over. They were taken over back then. They had the green police the first time I ever heard of anything like that. So obviously everyone in California knows what a green sticker registration is for your dirt bike. Well, I believe Massachusetts started that first. I got pulled. I just got a brand new dirt bike from North County, Yamaha, got shipped out, put my front wheel on, put the fender on, put the bars on. And then I was pushing it to town. I was just going to Coast into town and get oil and gas and start breaking it in. I got pulled over like that. They tried to impound the bike.
[00:04:39.200] – Big Rich Klein
For pushing it down the road?
[00:04:41.330] – Phil Licciardi
Yeah. I’m like, This bike has never been fired. It’s brand new. I’m going to town. I’m rolling down. It’s basically downhill all the way to town a few miles. I didn’t think much of it. Obviously, couldn’t run because the bike didn’t run yet. It didn’t have any gas in it. They came and they I don’t know. It was a man and a woman, the Green Police, they called them. They had a XL 200 dirt bike, nothing that was going to catch anything if my bike was running. Then they were towing it behind some makeshift police car at the time. Pull me over, I stop. Obviously, can’t do anything about it. They read me the riot act, and I’m just a kid. They call a tow truck, big flat bed comes and loads the bike up. My dad’s going home, and he drives by. He’s like, shoot, that’s my son. And he stops. Well, the female cop pulls a gun on him and is trying to hold him back at gunpoint, and he wasn’t even mad yet. Well, then he got mad. So they weren’t going to get away with that in his mind. Then they had me They were writing me a ticket for being underage and not having registration, all this different bullshit. READ MORE
