Dog Gone Hot Dogs for Forgotten Angels
What do you do when the life you’ve known for the previous 16 yrs as a service member of the United States Army comes to a halt because of a medical condition? Well, if you are Jared Weems of Weems Motor Co. you’ll eventually build a motorcycle, raffle it off and give all the proceeds to a Charity. Meet Jared Weems and this is his story.
Before we tell you all about the amazing machine you see here, we need to fill you in on the man behind the machine. Jared Weems was bitten by the ‘Triumph Bug’ at the early age of 7 years old when he and his brother started helping out their Father working on the families 1949 Triumph and he hasn’t stopped riding them and rebuilding them since. In 2003 Jared enlisted in the U.S. Army to serve his country, and less than a year later he was deployed to Iraq. Upon leaving for his first of several deployments, Jared told his Father that ‘if’ he returned, he wanted to start rebuilding another Triumph. When he returned, his Father had a 1972 Triumph waiting for him as a welcome home present. The Triumph brand runs deep in the soul of all the Weems men. Check that, ‘God’, ‘Family’, Country and ‘Triumph’ are what fuels the fire within the soul of Jared Weems and his family. In 2014, U.S. Army Parachute Rigger Jared Weems was diagnosed with a Brain Tumor. Life as he knew it was about to change dramatically. Two years later, as he was going through the treatment process for his tumor, he had his first seizure. The following onset of seizures led to an early medical retirement after 16 years of service. Not knowing what the future held, he sold his Triumphs and focused on his health and family.
Nearly a year had passed when a close friend gave him a two-page David Mann painting that was featured in the center of the July 1983 edition of Iron Horse Magazine. The significance of the painting, called ‘Dog Gone Hot Dogs’, featured a rainbow-colored Triumph Chopper. As Jared focused on his recovery for a few more years, his health conditions seemed to have reached a plateau and his seizures were becoming less and less frequent, the ‘motivation’ to wrench on a Triumph again was starting to slowly work its way back into his system.
Cut to November 2019 and Born Free organizer Mike Davis announces a ‘Pre-Unit’ Triumph Build Class for Born Free 2020.
After nearly four months of being seizure-free, Jared realizes that maybe a new build for the event could be almost therapeutic, and that creating the Triumph in the David Mann painting was the bike he set out to bring to life. The build began with a very abused 1952 Triumph Speed Twin and in the period of nearly 7 months of meticulous, painstaking labor the bike evolved into the beautiful machine that grace these pages. This could have easily been the end of a beautiful story, but there’s so much more… As a Life Skills Instructor at his local church, Jared was introduced to a charitable organization called Forgotten Angels. Forgotten Angels helps Foster Children who have aged out of the system and are still in need of guidance for basic life skills, help with getting jobs, and continuing their education etc. Part of Jared’s build process was to bring some of the boys from Forgotten Angels to help with final assembly. As his relationship with the Forgotten Angels grew, so did his desire to do something ‘more’. He felt a need to ‘pay it forward’, so he decided to raffle off the Mann Build and give 100 percent of the proceeds to Forgotten Angels.
As news of the Mann Build has grown throughout the motorcycle community, the Mann Family has reached out to Jared thanking him for his hard work in bringing one of David Mann’s bikes to life. They also noted that it was particularly meaningful because David Mann himself had adopted a child while he was living in Clearwater Florida, and that building the bike, and raffling it off to an organization that further helps Foster children was a beautifully touching way to bring David Mann’s life and his work back to full circle.
For more information and to purchase raffle tickets, head on over to www.weemsmotorco.com/raffle You can also get more information or donate directly to the Forgotten Angels by going to www.forgottenangelsflorida.org To stay up to date on the build, where it will be on display, and to keep up with Jared, you can find him Instagram @weemsmotorco.tampa