Business Major Turned Grease Monkey
The Winding Road Of Dan Cheeseman
Story By: Dan Cheeseman
Photos: Provided by Dan Cheeseman
First off, what an honor to be asked to be the subject of this month’s Campfire Chat. This puts me in the company of the people that I look up to in the Off-Road world that have been subject of this feature in the past… and I am not sure I’m worthy. Usually I am a better “talker than typer”; but what the hell, I will give it a college try. Where to start…
The cliché thing to say is that “I have always had a passion for powersports… anything that burns gas and wrecks parts.” So be it. To be fair, the correct statement would be that I have always had a passion for mechanics and fabricating. Ever since I was little, I have enjoyed building or modifying things to make them better, stronger, and more efficient. I spent many hours with my dad is his shop tinkering. Motorcycles and powersports is just where I happened to find the outlet for this creative need as I grew older.
My career in the industry started when I was 17, just getting ready to start attending Dakota Wesleyan University and work towards a BA in Business Finance and Psychology. My dad (who is a lifelong metal fabricator) had told me a couple years previous that I was going to college, no ifs, ands, or buts. He didn’t know how I was going to pay for it, and didn’t care, he just made it clear that I was going. “You aren’t going to be a greasy welder like me” he exclaimed. So, I enrolled at DWU, but the summer before my Freshman year I started hanging out at a new V-Twin shop in town… Klock Werks. It was in the third stall of a residential garage about 1 block from campus. Brian Klock, the owner, and his curmudgeonish old Tech, John Patton, helped me build my first custom Harley that summer, and I was immediately hooked. I couldn’t believe that I could get paid (not much at that time mind you) to build works of rolling mechanical art… and then get to go out and “test ride” them. In other words, go out and whip the piss out of them. What more could a fella that isn’t even 20 years old want? Long story short- I continued to work at Klock Werks as I finished college and made a choice of what I wanted to do with my life. Brian promised me that he would starve before I would go hungry. That’s all I needed to break the news to my dad that I wasn’t pursuing a career at a bank or CPA firm and was going to stay with this “motorcycle thing”. He was less than impressed, and that’s a very mild version of what transpired when he heard my decision. Things have worked out as dad now works part time for Klock Werks in his retirement years and even my son Corbin, 16, has become a budding fabricator with even more drive than I had. Maybe something is in the water.
The ride between the garage days and present has been a crazier saga than you could believe. A large portion of the tales resemble something that Hunter S. Thompson would write. From numerous party fueled malays at bike rallies throughout the world, to Discovery Channel shows, to Salt Flat racing, countless magazine covers, to me getting stabbed in the neck at a truck stop. “Fear and Loathing in South Dakota” I suppose is fitting! Through the two decades in business, Klock Werks has ran the gamut of the powersports’ world. What started out as a small team of fabricators and mechanics building custom show pieces (always with waaayy more motor than needed) morphed into multiple Land Speed Records at Bonneville, to our first production parts line for On Road bikes (in 2005), to multiple Patents, and now over the last 3 years; into an expanding Off Road parts line.
Over the years I have went from chief floor sweeper to having partial ownership of Klock Werks. While much has changed since our MUCH wilder younger years… the one constant that our company has had since the beginning is the feel of family and it’s something that we strive to never lose. Brian and I know that we are very fortunate to have the team that have come alongside us over the years, none of what we have done would have been possible.
I have always enjoyed the V-Twin and On Road sector of our business, but I absolutely love the Off Road. Not only as part of our business, but as a lifelong hobby/pastime. Trophy Trucks have always fascinated me; the fabrication, the engineering, they are like the race bikes that I have built over the years—but on steroids! Then there was the inception of the UTV, I immediately saw an affordable (that’s debatable) version of an Off Road race vehicle that I could dive into. Just like everyone else, once I drove one, I had to own one. Just like my first Harley that I bought at age 17 and stripped down immediately (and my dad almost strangling me for doing so)- apart it came. A brand new Polaris RZR XP 1000 tear down; I loved the fact that there was so much fab work to do.
There is only so much that you can do to a motorcycle and keep it tasteful and simple. So UTVs have been a breath of fresh air for me; a much larger canvas for creativity and engineering. I have always errored to the side of form follows function when building projects. Race inspired I like to call it, or more accurately just straight up race vehicles for the street or trails! Over the years now, I have spent countless hours driving, fabbing and wrenching on UTV’s. From all of this has come our Klock Werks line of UTV Parts. As with all our parts that we have developed over the years, we try to pinpoint on areas of the vehicles that we can improve to create a better riding/driving experience. Our specialty is wind and air management, thus came our line of patented and function formed On and Off Road windshields. Check them out as well as the rest of our lines at GETKLOCKED.COM (nice plug huh!).
Just like it was in the custom V-Twin and Land Speed Racing world, people are always surprised that someone or some company specializing in premium powersports parts and builds comes from landlocked South Dakota. I always tell people that I like traveling but I LOVE coming home to SoDak. I am fortunate that when I travel for my job, it’s usually with one of our side by sides. So, over the years I have gotten to take in just about every type of terrain this country has to offer. But as the trails in The Black Hills of South Dakota have opened wider and wider, it has become one of the best UTV riding areas in the country. Right here at home. Lucky me!
Anyway, that’s probably enough rambling. If I were giving a live interview, they would be giving me the hook by now. Hopefully I will see some of you at a race or event sometime, and if you see me, stop by and say howdy! I’m old, sober, and boring now… BUT if you are lucky… and I am feeling up to it… I might regale you with some wild and crazy tales of my times in powersports, MMA, powerlifting, hiking, amateur baseball announcing, sound engineering, and hot dog eating contests. All 100% true of course….wink wink.
