Racing, Risk, and Resilience With David Schardt of Forgeline Motorsports

Episode 173

David Schardt

Forgeline Motorsports

David Schardt is the President and CEO of Forgeline Motorsports, a premier manufacturer of custom, lightweight forged wheels for high-performance and racing applications. In 1994, David co-founded Forgeline in Dayton, Ohio, alongside his twin brother, Steve Schardt — their passion rooted in the family’s long-standing involvement in the wheel business. With decades of hands-on experience in distribution and manufacturing, David has helped grow Forgeline into a respected name in motorsports and automotive customization. Beyond business, he’s a fan of muscle cars, racing, and the movie Tommy Boy.

In this episode…

Automobile wheel innovation has evolved from basic functionality to bespoke design and racing performance. Companies must deliver aesthetics and durability while customer expectations rise and technology advances. How do you create a product that meets the intense demands of professional racers and car enthusiasts?

According to David Schardt of Forgeline Motorsports, the key lies in customization, precision, and relentless quality control. By developing fully forged wheels made-to-order for specific applications, Forgeline has filled a crucial niche in the racing and high-performance vehicle market. David also emphasizes the importance of staying hands-on and leveraging strong partnerships, such as the company’s majority-stake acquisition by Lacks Enterprises, to scale responsibly.

On this episode of Gain Traction, Mike Edge welcomes David for a conversation about the origins of Forgeline, lessons from the wheel distribution business, overcoming anxiety in leadership, and what’s next for the brand. David also shares a behind-the-scenes story of a near-disaster with a high-end show car — and how his team saved the day just in time.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[03:13] The Schardt family’s multi-generational roots in the wheel industry
[09:50] Why Forgeline was created to meet the needs of grassroots racers
[10:29] How David and Steve found complementary strengths as co-founders
[11:19] Why Forgeline sold a majority stake to Lacks Enterprises
[12:24] Future goals: Forgeline wheels on OEM limited edition vehicles
[12:48] The power of the Forgeline website gallery as a sales tool
[14:18] How Tommy Boy resonates with anyone in sales
[16:45] The unforgettable story of a $300k custom Camaro getting rear-ended

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

“Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway — that book changed my life and how I approach business decisions.”
“We started with one wheel style and one finish. Now we have nearly 200 and countless options.”
“My brother Steve is the sales guy; I’m the guy who runs the business — it just works for us.”
“We’re aiming to have Forgeline wheels featured on limited edition OEM vehicles within five years.”
“The gallery on our website is our best sales tool — it shows people exactly what our wheels look like on their car.”

Action Steps:

Embrace discomfort in leadership: Use the “feel the fear and do it anyway” mindset to push through hesitation.
Identify and complement team strengths: Build a business where co-founders and team members focus on their best-fit roles.
Leverage product customization for growth: Offer personalized options to meet unique customer demands and increase value.
Use digital galleries as a sales tool: Showcase real-world product applications to build credibility and drive conversions.
Plan for strategic partnerships: Consider acquisitions or alliances that bring new resources and fuel business expansion.

Transcript

00:02
Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast where we feature top tire and auto repair professionals, shop owners, industry executives and thought leaders and share their inspiring stories. Now let’s get started with the show.

00:20
Hey folks. Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast, the official podcast for tire business. I am Mike Edge, your host. My guest today is David shard, founder and CEO of Forgeline Wheels. Forgeline formed in 1994 with the Express purpose of building custom, lightweight forged wheels for the road racing applications. But before we get started, this episode is brought to you by Tread Partners, our parent company. Tread Partners specializes in PPC marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops. Tread Partners works with clients that have hundreds of locations, down to five locations. As you know, you can spend a lot of time and money trying to master the art and science of PPC digital marketing. Let Tread Partners take a look for you today, such as just looking under the hood and give you a quick audit of your circumstances. It’s real easy.

01:08
Just head to treadpartners.com and reach out to us. Something else I want to talk to you guys real quick about. You know, Tread Partners had a lot of fun here recently and I mean Gain Traction has had a lot of fun here recently and connecting the industry in a unique way. Gain Traction love serving the tire dealers and shop owners of North America. We’ve been traveling recently to conferences and recording podcasts at these events while their trade shows have been going on. So for instance, we do interviews with members at these organizations. We create a compilation of short interviews and make it into one podcast that the organization can use for marketing and recruitment. And then we also air that on our podcast that gets published by Tread Tire Business.

01:52
And if you’d like to contact us, you can reach [email protected] and we’ll be glad to set up a time to talk and let you know the process. So let’s get this podcast started. David, welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast.

02:06
Yeah, glad to be here.

02:08
Yeah. So I can’t be remiss here or I would be remiss if I didn’t mention his name. But Sonny McDonald introduced us and I think he’s a mutual friend. Long time on both. For your side at least.

02:19
Yep. No, Sonny’s great. I’ve known him from my old business before Forgeline. We were a distributor for Toyo and met him there and been good friends ever since.

02:29
Oh, you’re going back probably 30 years then?

02:32
Yeah.

02:32
Oh, wow. All right, well, I only got about three with Sonny, but I’ll tell you, I feel like I’ve known him a lifetime. We. We run into each other at a lot of conferences, Sema as well. And he’s. He’s a jewel in the industry for sure.

02:46
He definitely is.

02:47
Yeah. And if you don’t like Sonny, it’s your own fault.

02:51
Yeah. You can’t not like Sonny for sure.

02:53
But now he represents Toyo very well, and I’m glad he introduced us. But, David, I always like to find out a little bit about our guests, and I think our audience does too. Tell us a little bit about yourself. You know, where did you. Where did you grow up? And what was your first job? What was. Where was your career path originally?

03:11
So I grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and I’m still here. Been here obviously 50, 58 years now. And my first job out of college, I got a job at. Well, actually, let’s say, let’s. Let’s go back a little bit before that. In 19, my father worked at GM, and in 1970, he was actually doing some repair work on wire wheels for people out of the back of like Odd Week magazine for like triumphs and spitfires and stuff like that, and true them up in his garage. And he went down to Dayton Wire Wheel, and the bank had closed on Dayton Wire Wheel on for bankruptcy.

03:50
Oh, wow.

03:51
So in 1970, my dad took that business over in turn with the, you know, he talked to the vendors, talked to the bank and made a deal to open the business back up, which he can’t. You can’t do that kind of stuff these days, but you can do 1870. And then he resurrected that company, you know, all through my middle school and high school years. So every summer, you know, starting in middle school, Steve and I, my brother and I, we would work at Dayton Wire Wheel in the plant as the business is growing. So in reality, I’ve been in the wheel business my entire life.

04:22
That is a. That is a very cool story. And the fact that you’re right about your dad, I mean, you can’t just go down work deals with banks anymore like that.

04:32
They had like five employees at the. At that point in time. And he grew to a relatively. I think in the end he had 120 employees.

04:39
Man, that’s impressive. That’s a great story.

04:41
Very impressive. And so Steve and I got all the really crappy jobs like cleaning out. Cleaning out plating, tank lines and when.

04:48
Hey, in that. What you’re supposed to do with family, right?

04:53
Yeah, exactly. But in the long run, really good experience from what we’re doing today.

04:59
That’s awesome. So as we migrate up to where you’re at today, is there anything that you guys, maybe you live by, a mission statement as a company where you personally live by or got a mant kind of motto that’s to your core?

05:13
Yeah, yeah, I do. And, and this is something about me that not a lot of people know. And I feel more comfortable as I get older talking about it because I do think it helps other people that have the same issue. But I, I struggle with anxiety at times and I really did when I was in like high school. And so I saw a psychologist while I was in high school when they gave me a book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers. And I read that book and it changed my life.

05:44
That is impressive.

05:45
And I say that all the time. And I still say it to myself all the time. You feel it, you acknowledge it, and you just do it anyway. And you know what? You always feel better on the other side.

05:55
So that’s, that’s pretty, it’s pretty simple too.

05:58
Pretty simple. It’s very simple. Easy to remember.

06:00
Well, you know, I’m gonna, I’m a simple minded guy and I, you know, I think the more complex things are. I don’t know if this is the right word, but it’s kind of like it gets a little hairy or dangerous or dicey. I think when you keep things simple, it’s kind of like the old KISS motto, keep it simple, stupid. You know, and.

06:18
Yeah, exactly.

06:20
It works. Right? But no, I mean that’s a, that’s a. Say that book one more time for audience. I think that’s pretty good.

06:27
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers.

06:30
Cool. Very cool. So as you came out of high school in college and you’re working for your dad or whatever, did you really, did you want to stay in wheels or was it kind of like a family thing and you felt obligated or. You know, I always talk to, you know, generational, you know, kids are taking over after dad. Sometimes they kind of step away for a little bit and then they realize now I missed that.

06:52
Yeah. Which I did. I mean, there wasn’t really, you know, when I graduated from college, I didn’t, there wasn’t really a job available for me there. And I think my father, you know, wanted me to go try to do something else anyway, and so we, I actually was hired at Tire Discounters, which was a. They had like 10, 12 stores here in the Cincinnati, Dayton area. And I was a store, one of the store managers.

07:15
Okay.

07:16
So I did that for about two years. And they sold a lot of wheels in this part of the country. They were a wheel and tire store, which wasn’t a lot of back then. And they got all their wheels from a place called From America. American Racing was the only local warehouse that you could buy wheels from. And then everything else had to be shipped in from California. And none of the other real brands had a lot of representation in the Midwest or even south, that means. And so I reached out to a couple of those companies to see if they would be interested in distribution in this country, in this part of the country. And a lot of them said yes.

07:57
And so my dad and I went out to SEMA and spent a couple of days and talked to DP Motorsport, bbs, Momo Giovanna, you know, a lot of wheel companies that didn’t have representation here. And we set up, I set up a business called Wheel Source, which was a distribution business for other wheels. And, and we started in Dayton, Ohio to a year and a half later, really, we got a warehouse in Atlanta and then Chicago and Orlando. So we had four warehouses within four years. Doing a really good business with a lot of different brands.

08:30
Man, that’s fantastic. So where, how’d that happen?

08:32
That’s how. That’s where I met. That’s, that’s where I met Sunny.

08:35
Okay. All right.

08:36
We were a toy distributor too, at that point.

08:38
That’s awesome. It says something about Summit because Sunny’s been there forever, right? At Toyota?

08:42
Yes.

08:45
So you did that. Where is that business today? Is that connected to Forgeline or.

08:50
No. So. Well, yeah, that was in 92. That started in 92. And in 94, after doing that for a couple years, we realized that there wasn’t a custom made racing wheel.

09:00
Okay.

09:01
You could really buy other than bbs. And bbs, you know, was interested in selling to race teams and professionals, but they really weren’t, you know, the smaller guy they weren’t really interested in selling to. And so there were a lot of smaller professional racing series that were cutting apart wheels and welding them or using spacers to make things work and all that type of stuff.

09:20
Yeah.

09:21
And then that’s how Forgeline was born. We said let’s see we can do about making a custom made wheel. So it started out as just a, a center that we had Completely forged in the shape of the center itself in California. And we’d bring it back here and all we would do is drill the holes and do the center bore. And then we would have. We had an automatic welder that would weld it anywhere you wanted in the. In the rimshell.

09:43
Very cool.

09:43
Yeah, there are a lot of wheels that are still made that way. No racing made that way now. A lot of truck wheels.

09:48
And so were you able to use your dad then? Were y’all in your dad’s original facility, the one that he bought?

09:54
No, this was. We started a little 9,000square foot facility. And then you mentioned that I was the. I was the founder of Forge Line and. And that’s not entirely true. My brother Steve was actually the founder.

10:04
Okay.

10:05
I was still running wheel sources.

10:06
I haven’t met Steve, but. Sorry about that. Steve.

10:09
Yeah, no problem. We’re twin brothers, but we don’t even look like brothers, let alone twins, but.

10:13
Oh, that’s funny.

10:14
Yeah. But then I was brought into the business very soon after that. He realized real quick that running a business was not his forte and that sales was so, you know, it’s been a partnership ever since.

10:25
That’s awesome. So he’s the sales guy then?

10:28
He’s definitely the sales guy. Yeah.

10:29
That’s awesome. Maybe we get him on here one of these days. Does. So where is he? Traveling? Traveling.

10:37
You broke up there a little bit, yeah.

10:38
Where does he travel in regards to sales?

10:41
He’s mainly here now, but we do a lot of rate. We do a lot of race, you know, professional racing. So he, you know, 24 hours of the Daytona, he’s going to the 24 hours Le Mans this year. So he’s doing, he does a lot of racing. California, wherever the races are.

10:55
That’s fantastic. So where do you see Forgeline in the next year? Three years, five years. I mean, what’s your.

11:01
What’s.

11:01
What’s the goal of the company plan.

11:03
To grow and hopefully. So in August of last year, we actually sold, Steve and I sold the majority share of the business to a business called Lacks Corporation out of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

11:15
Okay.

11:16
They do the opposite of what we do.

11:18
They’re.

11:18
They. We do all aftermarket at this point and they do all original equipment wheels and a lot of trim. A lot of their businesses. Trim pieces, grills, fancy trim pieces on the inside and stuff like that. Significantly bigger, significantly bigger company than we are still 100 family owned in the Midwest, a lot of synergies and were doing some, doing some work for them making centers for their carbon fiber barrels and stuff.

11:43
So it sounds like a good fit for them and a little diversification at least.

11:48
Yeah, it is. And, and it’s a great fit for us. We love them and they want to grow the business. They’re going to help us grow the business with the resources that they have that we didn’t have before. And they make a carbon fiber barrel that we can make the centers for. And that’s our big thing moving forward.

12:06
Man, that’s awesome. Where do you see, where do you guys see yourself in five years?

12:12
In five years, we hope to be on some limited edition vehicles for some big automotive.

12:19
Awesome.

12:20
Yeah, like if you saw it, for example, and a TRD truck with, you know, a limited TRD truck with a forged line branded wheel or something like that.

12:31
Very cool, Very cool. If somebody wanted your, if they want to know more about the Forge line, I mean, obviously go to the website, but it. Does the website have a place or like a location finder where they can buy forged on wheels?

12:44
Yeah, the. It’s a very expensive website. We have hundreds of pictures. The best part about the website is the gallery. Like if you have a Corvette or a Porsche or a Ferrari or Camaro or Mustang, whatever it is, you can plug that in and you can see hundreds of other cars with all of our styles and wheels and options and you know, we have 200 wheel styles almost at this point. And the options that you can have on our wheels and everything is 100, totally custom. You can do basically anything you want.

13:14
Man, that’s fantastic. That’s got to be exciting for you guys. I mean, from where you guys started and now where you’re at today are your, do you have kids yourself that are getting in the business, you and Steve?

13:25
Yeah, together. I thought we started with one wheel and one finish and now we have like 200 wheels.

13:30
I know.

13:31
Unlimited amount of finishes. Yeah. So we’ve come a long way. Go ahead.

13:36
Yeah, I was just gonna say. So do you have children that want to be in the business?

13:39
I have, I have kids. I have. My daughter is a school psychologist and she’s really good at it. And my son works for RSM in accounting for Netsuite and he’s, he’s making a whole lot more money doing that than I can ever pay him. He’s doing really well. I think he’s going to continue to do it.

13:58
So you’re like, hey, stay over there. Because you. My backup plan. Right.

14:03
He’s doing quite well.

14:04
That’s awesome. You know, just to let the audience know you a little bit better. Is it? You got a favorite movie?

14:11
My favorite movie. I love Tommy Boy, but, oh, my.

14:15
Gosh, dude, I did not know that. This, that’s awesome. I, I, I think anybody that’s ever been in sales, your brother probably loves that movie.

14:22
Oh, loves that movie. Yeah. For sure. Absolutely.

14:25
Yeah, I could talk about that movie all day. There’s so many things that. I’ll tell you a funny story that happened to me one time. I had a buddy of mine and I, we got into the cellular accessories and we made a die that would, you know, we made the board that would hold accessories. And this is right before convenience stores really start carrying them. And we busted into this convenience store chain, and we thought were off to the races. Then were going to this other one, but mind you, we’re still new, so we’re broken. We had to put out a lot of money to have a die made to make this type of board that we wanted to hang cell phones on and then or cases and all that other stuff. And this is early 2000, late 1990s, early 2000s.

15:05
I mean, it was early. And we took it to this meeting. In the whole way there, my buddy kept saying, listen, no matter what, this guy’s going to ask for this. He’s going to ask for this showpiece, and we can’t give it to him. I said, I’m good with that. I’ll just tell him no. He goes, no, I’m serious. We can’t let him have it. Okay. We get in the meeting and this guy says, hey, y’all sitting down? I’ll be right back. We sit down, comes back, and he says, man, that’s a good looking board. I love the way you got it displayed and everything. Yeah, we’re going to have these made, et cetera. This is a sample we’d like to show you. And he says, y’all mind if I have it? My buddy speaks up and goes, yeah, go ahead. He says it.

15:43
Now, mind you, the meeting only lasts like five minutes. The guy’s totally ripping us off. We’re young and we’re walking out the door. I go, what the hell was that all about? You told me the whole way up here not to give it to him. And this guy then. So you just fold it. I mean, and you Know, and if you’ve seen the Tommy Boy movie, it’s just a total Tommy Boy situation.

16:02
Yeah, exactly.

16:05
Yeah, it was. But that movie, it’s just got so many one liners in it and then the. And. And so much of it’s real. Like, I mean, you know, you can. Anybody.

16:14
It is. You can relate to a lot of it, right?

16:16
Yeah. Anybody that’s been in business and anybody that’s done not just business, but then sales and then traveling sales, I mean, they really. They sprinkled it with so many truths that you’ve encountered before that. Yeah, just. I love, I love it. Well, I’m just curious, along the line of stories, do you have any memorable work stories that have ever affected you, maybe. Maybe even humorous?

16:42
We have a. We have a Camaro. We have a. We have a 70 Camaro. We do a lot of business in. When we. The muscle car market. Yeah, we have a 70 Camaro. And we sent that car out. It was one of those projects that wasn’t supposed to be as big as it was. And it kind of got totally out of hand. So it was total body dipped. I mean, every. There’s no Camaro left on it other than the body. And then most of the body’s carbon fiber. So perfect paint job. So it was. We were waiting on it forever. Three years. Took three years to get this car and it. LT4 Detroit Speed Chassis, adjustable shocks, you name it. And so we finally got it back just before the Raleigh Good Guy show. Now we’re.

17:25
Super Street’s gonna shoot the car before the Good Guy show. We’re going a day early because Super Street’s gonna shoot it for the COVID of the magazine and do a full magazine spread. So the car is absolutely perfect. I’m backing him out of the garage to put it in the trailer and I’m slowly backing out of the garage and one of my employees comes blowing down the. The back lot way too fast and hits the.

17:47
Hits the back of the.

17:48
Hits the bumper of the car and almost takes the bumper completely off the car. Oh, the trailer. I. I don’t think I’ve ever been as like, angry and emotional and just. I got out of the car, you know, you. I wanted to run over there and just kill. Kill my boy. And I actually walked away and literally walked around the block to just calm down. And unfortunately, my shop manager, who I couldn’t live without, he. He sprung into action, drove the car up to the body shop up the street. They were able to basically repair the car by buffing it out and doing some stuff to the point where you could still see it if you really look. But for the photo shoot and all that type of stuff, it was probably going to be okay. And, and brought it back.

18:36
We ended up making the photo shoot. Everything was fine.

18:38
Oh, good.

18:39
That was just one of baby.

18:41
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And you’re thinking, oh my gosh, did he hit it with like a forklift or just a car? Another car?

18:49
Yeah, his car. He’s going home. He’s coming back from lunch.

18:51
Oh my gosh. Yeah. That’s a. Wow. You, you must have been very mature at that time because you knew you just had to walk off and that’s awesome that you had figured that out about yourself.

19:04
Yeah.

19:05
I mean, that could have been like assault on an employee type situation.

19:10
Right? It was gon going to be.

19:15
Well, I tell you what, David, I’m really glad that Sonny introduced us. I’m glad you joined us on this podcast. I appreciate you being a guest.

19:22
Yeah. Well, thanks for having me.

19:23
It’s been a pleasure. Absolutely. To all listeners out there. Thank you for being part of the podcast. We are always grateful for you. If you’d like to listen to more podcasts like this, you can find them at gain traction podcast.com Till next time, be safe and have a great day.

19:40
Thanks for listening to the Gain Traction podcast. We’ll see you again next time. And be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.

Contents hide

1 In this episode…

1.1 Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

1.2 Resources mentioned in this episode:

1.2.1 Quotable Moments:

1.2.2 Action Steps: