[Torquemonster]

To write it all nicely would require a small book, so the condensed version is going to seem either detached or harsh and brutal, however I will try to keep it professional. I will do it in parts because I only have so much spare time.

As someone pointed out when two people mud wrestle both get mud on them. That is true. However in this case, the mud will wash off me as quickly as it got on me. That will not be the case for the other party.

I discovered that Jason Heffner found running a business stressful and he wanted more time with his family. He had an established business but it wasn’t going to enable him to get what he wanted. Owning a small business is like owning a job that has more worries and longer hours.

I offered to help him. I had the skillsets to grow a business and systems, I also had a much larger vision than Heffner. It looked like an opportunity to help him get what he wanted, while at the same time doing something very cool for the high performance market. It was a 50/50 deal after giving full credit for the full value of what Heffner had to date. i.e. we would only share the increase.

That is the setting.

So, who am I anyway? I am a CPA by trade, been a CFO of a heavy engineering plant and steel foundry, a car enthusiast since childhood, and self-employed most of the last 18 years. I’ve had successes in life, and failures.

Speaking of failures - Jason Heffner. I had spent a year checking out Jason Heffner before I prepared and sent him a 10 year plan and proposal. I trusted him. He was recommended by everyone that dealt with him, I could find nothing on him that would make me nervous, and he presented himself well to me online and by phone (we lived 12,000 miles away). He pumped me for information and ideas, expectations were raised.

I made the mistake of accepting his representations to me at face value and not demanding verification – the financial position of his business in particular. There was always a reason why the actual figures were not available, and I bought it as, I trusted him. That was a mistake. I guess after 20 years of business I had never been deceived like that before so did not believe it would happen. Silly me.

I dragged my family in haste at Heffners request half way around the world from the southern hemisphere to the northern, because he could not wait to get started. I would have liked more time to get some more personal money together. I had secured some growth funding.

Trusting Jason Heffner cost me everything I had, this caused me and my family to end up with debt, no support, nothing to feed my family with, and no way to get back to my home country where I had 4 more children missing their daddy. Anyone want to make fun of that?

I accept my foolishness to expose my family and myself to such risk and learned a valuable lesson. I trusted a man unworthy of my trust. He broke a contract we had agreed on, and waited until I had exhausted my own resources to do that. He was foolish to agree in the first place to any proposal because he did not at that time have what it took to make a Joint Venture work. The first requirement is a willingness to share. He said ‘yes come as quickly as you can’ without counting the cost or taking any risk himself.

My family and I paid the price for his selfishness in calling me over there when he did not have the commitment to last more than 5 weeks. He should have been honest when we arrived because the Jason Heffner we met on arrival was not the one we left our home country to see. Something fundamental had changed and he would not man up and tell us he didn’t think he wanted to share a bigger vision. At least then we could have turned around and gone home.

I took no wages, no drawings, he made no preparation for us personally, we used our personal resources to start again, find somewhere to live, make commitments, buy everything a household needs, find everything in a new country we needed.

We felt unwanted from the day we arrived, Heffner could barely look me in the eye. Yet we’d just sold everything to commit time and energy to helping him set his family free by building a bigger, broader business that would enable him to step back over time while enjoying an increase in income. .

When later pressed why he changed his mind the best he could come up with other than he did not want to share control was that apparently I didn’t look how he imagined. Wow. I was only 6 inches taller and 50lb heavier than him, perhaps I should have been 12 inches taller and worn a suit instead of dressing like him to make him feel comfortable??? Whatever.

The proposal he accepted prior to my departure called for 3 months for me to get “carried” to give me a chance to get set up in a new country, get my feet wet, lay some foundation, and time to start seeing some results. 3 months from scratch is a fast period to expect enough improvement to be earning a return on investment. But it was all over within 5 weeks.

I also had independent financial backing to boost the business to the next level, waiting for me to identify how best to invest it. Heffner started hedging on having money invested. To be clear – he had nothing at risk re what he already had. I only gained if I added value.

Back to arrival: When I arrived there was nothing prepared for me or my family. We knew nobody local. At Heffners I had to sit in Jasons desk when he was up, sit at reception when he was in (where there was no computer until I badgered him into getting a 2nd one), so I started by taking his calls and emails to free him up to get more work done in the workshop.

I met Krazypsi the first day at the workshop. He was there to pick up his beautiful looking SRT10 TT. It was the first SRT10 TT from the Heffner shop. Krazypsi was the friendliest face I had seen, at least someone was pleased to meet me that day.

Don’t get me wrong, I am no pussy. I backed myself to see this venture through and do whatever it took to make it work. I glossed over Heffners indifference as I was just excited to make things happen. I took no offense to anything to start with, just put it down to him being different in person than on the phone or in writing. It took me a lot longer than my wife to recognize he had not counted the cost before agreeing to our contract (which was agreed as to terms, intent and scope both verbally and by email. To complete formalities it required a business valuation.)
Prior to us arriving, I had sent a friend of mine – an engineer – to work with Jason. Our motto was to build and be the best of the best. Marks skills would be needed to streamline operations, improve work practices and efficiencies, and build a growing team under him that would in turn lead to bigger profits and productive capacity, and better quality. He arrived a week before we did. By the time we got there he was pulling his hair out and ready to go back to New Zealand.

This was a guy who maintains multi-million dollar complex and precision production machinery. He is a guy used to having teams of technicians under him, a guy who also races and builds his own engines, getting over 1000hp out of a 540 mopar wedge on 1 carb, gas, no power adder. He was the most likeable guy you could meet and an extremely good teacher. Any workshop would learn a lot from him. It was a huge step down for him to work at a place like this. He only agreed to do it because of the long term plan and vision.

Heffner set him up in an apartment that was in a rough complex, below street level so never got any sun, with an air conditioning plant that kept him awake at night. Nice. Add to that Heffner hated being taught anything. So here we have a 25-27 year old mechanic not willing to listen to a 42 year old engineer that had forgotten more than Jason knew. Trust me, Mark was an easy person to learn from, great manner with people.


THIS THREAD HAS BEEN EDITED FROM ITS ORIGINAL POST. WE ALLOW 1ST HAND INFORMATION ONLY HERE. 1ST HAND INFORMATION REGARDING THINGS THAT HAPPENED DIRECTLY TO YOU.


As someone who had sacrificed a lot, especially separation from my wonderful children back in New Zealand on the basis that there was enough funding and potential to see them during the year, we were not even invited to his home for a dinner. No invite to ride with him in the cars being tested, no inclusion in any social event other than the first day we met and they were off to the zoo and said we could come… which we did despite his best efforts to lose us trying to keep up with him in a strange city and in traffic where he’d dive for gaps only big enough for him. Nice. Hey I’m a big boy I can take it, but it kinda took the shine off the excitement meter. It paints a picture of true character.

The first TT I drove or rode in was back here in NZ, never was allowed in anything at the shop unless to park it. Boo who? Nah – just pointing it out so you can imagine yourself in my shoes. Hard to assert and even motivate yourself when treated as a boy and you’ve got no leverage. Dominating behaviour would only make it worse. I’m no cry baby or bully.

As for the funding – the business was not even close to the level Heffner had intimated to me. I will not disclose the real figures as that is confidential, but I can tell you that I grossed more last year for my employer from my personal charge out than Heffners entire company was doing back then. Oh crap I thought when I saw the real figures! After all costs it could barely pay Mark who had to almost beg for his wages in the end so he could leave and go back to NZ. Even Jason was missing odd weeks of pay, so there was no way I was drawing out anything.

Had I known the truth about the financial situation alone I would never have gone over there!! I had asked for the figures, but there was always a good reason I couldn’t have them, and, yes, I trusted him.

So, there we were in a business that wasn’t making a good earnings for its owner, and I was expected to turn that around on a dime. Do-able in time, but not in 5 weeks, especially not with a guy who does not want you there, won’t share control, and was backing out of his word.

Am I bitter? Hell no. He did me the biggest favour and I’m so grateful now I am not in partnership with him because the bigger the business got the less he would be able to contribute (as he reached his skill ceiling) but the more important he would think he was.

So why talk now after being silent for over 3 years?

Because Heffner has gone on to screw with my buddies on top of the fact he put us through hell. There was a time we could not even buy a milk or bread. You think I called him? Hardly. Yet we never missed a meal, and amazing things happened that make us live life on another level now. It ended up being a precious time for us, but really intense. We got to know who our friends were, while Smokin and a bunch of assholes in Jasons pocket mocked us, while we tried to survive as an alien in a foreign land. Not bitter, but we do not forget.

Am I and Mark alone with a negative experience? Not at all… but I’m done writing for one night. And again – this has NOTHING to do with UGR before some clown mentions it again. This is all about telling our story because the 3rd buddy getting screwed was the last straw for me.

Would I spend my money at that workshop?

Are you kidding?

Should you?

Help yourself.