Roland Sands (born August 12, 1974) is the 1998 AMA 250GP National Champion road racer, an award-winning designer for Performance Machine, and owner and founder of Roland Sands Design.
Sands is from Long Beach, California. He began his life with the upbringing and diverse experience in the motorcycle industry. His first motorcycle was a RM 50 dirt bike, given to him on his 5th birthday, to which, after just minutes of riding, he broke a bone, but fell in love with it anyway. He literally grew up in the Performance Machine shop, and started working there at age 14 sweeping floors. Quickly moving up to assembly, sanding polishing, wheel designing, eventually working his way as Director of R&D and Design at Performance Machine. In 2005, after the tremendous success Sands found on Discovery Channel's Biker Build-Off vs. Arlen Ness, Sands founded Roland Sands Design. RSD designs concept motorcycle parts and accessories and builds custom motorcycles. RSD works with major motorcycle manufacturers to design concept and prototype motorcycles and promote benchmark product in the motorcycle industry and beyond. Sands’ designs are described as being a mixture of sport bike and chopper influences to create the ultimate custom bikes.
Roland (Frankish: Hruodland) (died 14 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. Historically, Roland was military governor of the Breton March, with responsibility for defending the frontier of Francia against the Bretons. His only historical attestation is in Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni, which describes him as Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus ("Roland, prefect of the limits of Brittany") when narrating his death at the Battle of Roncesvalles, when the rearguard, under his command, and the baggage train of a Frankish army was beset by rebellious Basques.
Roland's death during retreat from the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in Iberia was transmogrified in later medieval and Renaissance literature. He became the chief paladin of the emperor Charlemagne and a central figure in the legendary material surrounding him, collectively known as the Matter of France. The first and most famous of these epic treatments was the Old French Chanson de Roland of the eleventh century. Two masterpieces of Italian Renaissance poetry, the Orlando innamorato and Orlando furioso, are even further detached from history than the earlier Chansons. Roland is poetically associated with his sword Durendal, his horse Veillantif, and his horn Oliphaunt.
Arlen Ness is an American entrepreneur and motorcyclist, who is best known for his customized choppers and hot rods. Ness is internationally recognized as a master builder.
His first customs were made in the garage of his home in San Leandro, California, but by the early 1970s he had moved to a storefront on East 14th Street. Ness was recognized for his unique painting style and for developing a line of custom motorcycle parts. His popularity grew as he built new custom bikes and then had those displayed on the bike show circuit and featured in motorcycle magazines.
After more than three decades of custom bike building and developing his business to the point that it supports a several hundred page parts catalogue, Arlen Ness, Inc. moved to a Dublin, California facility that included a museum featuring more than 40 of his custom motorcycles. The museum displays his famous Untouchable, the twin motor Two Bad, the antique inspired Ness-Tique, Blower Bike, the Italian sports car inspired Ferrari Bike, the '57 Chevy sports car inspired Ness-Stalgia, the Bugatti-like Smooth-Ness, the Discovery Channel's Biker Build-Off bike Top Banana, and his jet-powered Mach Ness.
Harley Leland Race (born April 11, 1943) is a retired American professional wrestler and is a current promoter and trainer. During his career as a wrestler, he held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship 8 times. He worked for all of the major wrestling promotions, including the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), the American Wrestling Association (AWA), the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), and World Championship Wrestling (WCW). He was the first NWA United States Heavyweight Champion. Race is one of six men inducted into each of the WWE Hall of Fame, the WCW Hall of Fame, the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame.
Race was an early fan of professional wrestling, watching programming from the nearby Chicago territory on the DuMont Network. After overcoming polio as a child, he began training as a professional wrestler as a teen under former world champions Stanislaus and Wladek Zbyszko, who operated a farm in his native Missouri. While in high school, an altercation with another classmate led to the principal kneeing Race in the back of the head as he tried to break up the fight. Enraged, Race attacked him, resulting in his expulsion. Already 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) and 225 lb (102 kg), Race decided to get his start in professional wrestling.
Philip Andre "Mickey" Rourke, Jr. (born September 16, 1952) is an American actor, screenwriter and retired boxer, who has appeared primarily as a leading man in action, drama, and thriller films.
During the 1980s, Rourke starred in Diner, Rumble Fish, and the erotic drama 9½ Weeks, and received critical praise for his work in Barfly and Angel Heart. In 1991, Rourke, who had trained as a boxer in his early years, left acting and became a professional boxer for a period. He had supporting roles in several later films, including The Rainmaker, Buffalo '66, The Pledge, Get Carter, Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Man on Fire.
In 2005, Rourke made his comeback in mainstream Hollywood circles with a lead role in Sin City, for which he won awards from the Chicago Film Critics Association, the Irish Film and Television Awards and the Online Film Critics Society. In the 2008 film The Wrestler, Rourke portrayed a past-his-prime wrestler, and received a 2009 Golden Globe award, a BAFTA award, and a nomination for an Academy Award.