Team USA receives donation of new rims for Sochi

           

By Terry Kolesar | Oct 15, 2013, 12:00 AM ET

 

Team USA will be sporting fashionable new rims for Sochi as the national wheelchair team received a donation for the upcoming season.

 

Precision Billet Co., an Arizona company, has donated five sets of rims to Team USA. “We have been manufacturing our custom wheelchair wheels for several years now as a sideline to our other products. Our goal in creating our custom wheels has always been to offer everyone a chance to ‘pimp out their ride,’” said David Shano, owner of Precision Billet. “We realized the need in the market for a one-piece wheel that had better glide than other wheels that were available; in addition we wanted to add a cool factor. We incorporate our knowledge of the custom Harley Davidson accessory business (which is our core customer) to create wheels that have design elements that set them apart from everyday wheels. Just recently, we have really made a push to market with our wheels, our ultimate desire is to make full wheelchairs.” 

 

The company was contacted via Facebook by Patrick McDonald (Madison, Wis.), skip for Team USA. “Well, that was all it took for our team to get busy on a design,” Shano said. “We were all inspired by the opportunity to create such a special wheel that would represent the USA in a very cool way.  We hope to somehow put a program together to reach out to other teams and make the wheels available.”

 

Team USA is preparing for the upcoming 2014 Paralympic Winter Games with camps and competitions throughout the U.S. and Canada after competing in Denmark last month.  

 

“I called the guys at Precision Billet over the summer and asked if they could help me come up with something really clean and cool and that would stand out while we curled in Sochi, and they said yes they wanted to be on board with Team USA,” McDonald said. “So we tossed around a few ideas and in the end I really liked how the rims turned out. With the help of David and the rest of the hard-working guys at Precision Billet, the 2014 U.S. wheelchair curling team will be wearing my signature Team USA rims while competing in Sochi.”

 

According to Shano, when the rims become available to the public in November, 10 percent of all sales will be donated to the U.S. wheelchair curling team.

 

For more than 15 years, the Precision Billet family of brands has been bringing to market the finest quality and most innovative billet accessories for Yamaha Rhinos and Polaris Rangers, Polaris RZR, Kawasaki Teryx and Harley Davidson motorcycles. They also offer high-quality wake board towers and wake boarding accessories. To find out more, go to http://precisionbillet.co.  

 

Visit the USA Curling website at www.usacurl.org and connect with USA Curling on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Foursquare.

 

 

For more information: Terry Kolesar, USA Curling, terry.kolesar@usacurl.org, 715-344-1199, Ext. 202, or 608-338-9900 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 608-338-9900 FREE  end_of_the_skype_highlighting (cell)