You know Peekster and I were just talking about Wayne the other night. When I first got on this forum it was still really rough around the edges without a lot of rules in place and you'd run across the same raunchy talk and lewd photos and people spewing obscenities and hostility towards others..you know, the same garbage that you find on every other forum.
Wayne was the guy who every single time would stand up and say "hey guys try to keep it clean" or "hey guys there's no need for that on a mini bike site.... there are kids on here". He would beg them to stop. I was just a new guy and didn't even really understand how a forum worked but I'll never forget it was Wayne who was fighting the fight. The losers would always respond by making fun of Wayne's poor spelling and grammar...but Wayne would never back down. I remember I really admired him for it. Here was this old timer standing up for the old school values he was taught and these young dudes couldn't beat him down. Eventually people began to rally behind Wayne and the place started to take shape. I know it was Wayne's attitude that inspired me to get involved and start contributing in every positive way I could think of. Even if I didn't know much about all the different mini bikes, I knew it would bug those other guys if the place got respectable.
Eventually the riff-raff drifted away or crawled back under their rocks in large part because Wayne stood up to them. He fought to clean the place up, and in my mind he did more than anyone to help turn the tide and to help make it into the highly respected site it is today....40 thousand members strong! You think advertisers don't look at forum content and numbers ? You think they want their product associated with a forum full of degenerates? Think again.
This is not to even mention the vast amount of knowledge he passed on to others here and the treasures he shared..rare bikes, swap meet finds, museum photos. Did you ever look at all the factory ads and brochures that Wayne and Randy posted? Do you know how long it takes to acquire all that stuff...and then scan it in, upload it and label it properly ! Nobody has done more for the site than Wayne and Randy Keller. They have not been around as much in recent years so maybe the new folks aren't aware...but they laid the foundation for the OldMiniBikes archives.
I think Hent will back me up on this..every single member of the OldMiniBikes owes Wayne a debt of gratitude for helping to make this place a family friendly forum and a wealth of information.
We're gonna miss you Wayne...see you on the other side.