Local motorcycle shop owners appearing in national magazine
?The more a writer knows about his or her subject, the better the writing.
Gregg Dahl, the owner of GMS Racing Engines in Uniontown, is taking that journalistic axiom out for a spin.
Well known locally and in competition circles for building, modifying and racing motorcycles, Dahl will appear in an upcoming issue of Iron Works magazine, which focuses on customizing Harley Davidson motorcycles, as a writer and the subject of a story in the September issue.
Dahl keeps his friends close and got several of them involved with his venture with the magazine.
His mentor, Bob “One Arm Bob” Kotarsky, the owner of Tom’s Kustom Shop in Uniontown, will have photos of two three-wheeled trikes he built, including his famous “Red Woodie” featuring a handmade wooden body, and articles he wrote about them in the same edition.
Dahl’s girlfriend Stacey Bortz, an insurance agent who has become a racer and won an American Motorcycle Racing Association (AMRA) drag race since she’s been dating him, edited the writing.
He wrote brief articles about four race bikes that he built and were photographed for the magazine. He said writing about bikes requires a different perspective than working on them.
“What I didn’t realize is I had to step out and look at it from the outside,” Dahl said. “It’s been a real experience.”
Dahl said Iron Works Editor Stephen Berner, who came to Uniontown in May to conduct interviews and take photos, talked to him about possibly becoming a regular contributor to the magazine.
“He (Berner) gave me some pointers,” Dahl said.
Future editions of the magazine will feature photos of a 1966 Harley with a shovelhead engine customized by Dahl’s chief mechanic Don Glover, a chopper that Kotarsky built from a 1960 Harley panhead and a bike built by Kotarsky’s brother, Tom Kotarsky, who founded Tom’s Kustom Shop.
A Hopwood resident, Dahl has been making race bikes, installing performance upgrades, customizing and doing routine maintenance work on motorcycles for about 30 years. He started out as an auto mechanic and built race cars, and still works on cars during the winter.
He races his highly modified 1985 Harley Super Glide in the AMRA’s outlaw street class, which consists of bikes that can driven on the street, and the pro-gas class, which is for bikes designed for drag racing. He has been a national champion and set speed records in the outlaw street class.
“I’m leading in points in both classes,” Dahl said.
Berner’s article about Dahl will appear as the magazine’s “Spotlight Feature.”
“It will be good for business,” Dahl said.
In addition to the articles about the bikes he built, Dahl wrote an introspective article about him and and Bob Kotarsky, who wrote an article about his shop and short pieces about the two trikes that were photographed for the magazine.
“We support each other,” Kotarsky said.
Dahl and Kotarsky became friends when Dahl and a buddy rented an auto garage across the alley from Tom’s Kustom Shop in 1980 and they have collaborated on bike projects since then.
Kotarsky left his job as a mechanical draftsman to take over the shop from his brother in 1970.
Despite having his left arm amputated as a result of a sled- riding accident in 1958, Kotarsky said he rode two-wheeled motorcycles for several years before he started building trikes.
“I love motorcycles. They’re a lot of fun,” Kotarsky said.