Bryancd wrote:
I wish Jordan luck finding a career in this sport when he retired from racing. He's burned a lot of bridges. And asking for his legal bills to be paid is a good reminder of the need for personal responsibility.
I will speak to this. I have asked for HELP with my legal bills. I expect to pay the majority of the bill here. GoFundMe has refund options - both bulk and individual. Should it become clear that I do not require this assistance, I will more than happily reverse the GoFundMe.
As far as asking for help, I was reticent to do it. I still am. However, by that same token, I believe I have offered help - and not just "advice" - repeatedly throughout my tenure in this sport. One significant source of income for pros is selling old equipment. Certainly I've sold my fair share. And yet I've given away a great deal. If I'd sold the Shivs I gave away, if I'd sold the 808s I gave away, if I sold the parts I gave away, I'd have more money to defend myself from a lawsuit. I gave those items away gladly. I was happy and proud to be able to support someone else, because I was able to pay my bills with the money I earned. While everyone always "needs more money," I didn't need more money, and I was happier giving that stuff away than I was selling it. Maybe I should have thought, "hey, I should sell these because someday I might get sued and will need to pay a lawyer to defend me." But I never wanted to think that way. And, in spite of this, I still don't.
Now I am asking for that kind of help. Is it the result of my own actions? To a certain extent, but I did not choose to get sued. But I am asking for help as someone who has contributed to the ability of others in the sport to do it. If I did not have a track record of that support, I would not be asking for help in this way. But I do. And so, with great hesitation, I am.
Further, as to finding a career after sport, one of the great lessons for me here is to be extremely careful about who you do business with. If my actions here result in someone not wanting to hire me, that's not someone I wished to work for.
Ultimately, once I signed a contract and discovered the bikes were defective, I had three bad options:
1) I continue to ride bikes that I know are defective and do not trust.
2) I resolve the separation "amicably" and keep quiet about a problem that I know exists
3) I go public.
As I look back over the past two years, once I entered into this agreement, there was no way that this was going to end in a way that I was happy.
The only good solution I see now is that Dimond acknowledges the issues that I - and many others - have seen and works to correct them. So far, they do not seem to be interested in doing that.
"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp