Fly Racing teams up with Leatt for neck brace

Off-road market share leader makes debut at WPS Show

By Dave McMahon
Senior Editor

Phil Davy, general manager of Leatt Corp., knows how important the Fly Racing house brand is to Western Power Sports. That’s why it was an easy decision when it came time to decide how to bring the company’s new neck brace for off-road riders to market.

“I used to sell Renthal to Western way back when, and even farther back I sold O’Neill to Western,” Davy said. “I was always impressed with the organization. They’re very, very good, easy people to do business with. When this thing came up and we were looking for increased distribution above and beyond the dealer direct sales that we were doing, we were looking for a big distributor who could add it to their line of existing apparel — that’s why we put the Fly name on it instead of just Leatt. And we honestly felt that Western had the best sales force out there. They’re not the biggest, and they’re not the biggest book, but these guys seem to spend more time selling in the stores.”
The Fly-Leatt unveiling was a well-kept secret. In fact, that when WPS officials introduced Davy to sales reps in August at the WPS National Sales Meeting in Boise, Idaho, they were thrilled to be able to enter a segment that already includes Alpinestars, EVS and Omega.

“It was a big surprise,” Davy said. “The reps had no idea. We only introduced when they introduced me up on stage [earlier in the week]. I didn’t even have a Leatt shirt on. What I have I heard from the sales staff? ‘Thanks for giving me a raise!’ Because they think they’re going to sell that many.”

Combining the two brands provides the sales staff with even greater assets.

“The biggest single thing for a sales rep is putting the Fly name on it and co-branding it with Leatt in a very bold way,” Davy said. “We’re combining the two. Since it’s part of an existing line that these guys focus a lot of energy on, it’s an obvious gimme.”

The Zenith motorcycle version will retail for $359.95. A bicycle version, the Velocity, also is available through Fly. Leatt sells its own brand dealer direct.

“In order to add Fly, we made an exclusive product,” Leatt said. “We took some pieces from both our less expensive and more expensive braces, and we put them together to make something unique. It’s unique to Fly, and it has its own price point.”

Davy said dealers won’t need to stock a lot of the new Fly-Leatt neck braces.

“Two part numbers cover virtually every size of every off-road rider that’s ever going to come into the store. Two sizes — two part numbers, for riders from 50 pounds up to about
270 pounds,” Davy said.

Davy said Leatt Corp. sales are up 50 percent this year compared to 2010, and that the company claims 80 percent market share.

“The neck brace market is up and it is growing all the time. It’s going to get to the point at some point in time where every dealership that stocks anything like a helmet or a glove is also going to have a neck brace. It’s a question of whose brand and how deep they want to get into the whole thing,” he said.