Thunder Roads Magazine of Oklahoma/Arkansas January 2016 | Page 32
FEATURES
JUSTICE ALMA WILSON
SEEWORTH ACADEMY
VISITS TOMBO RACING
by James Pratt ·and www.tomboracing.com
Aretha Franklin music played in the background
as a group of inner-city high school kids filed into
the Tombo Racing shop early this morning. Tommy
Bolton was hosting these impressionable youth for
a shop tour at the request of Tarrence Rodgers,
principal at Justice Alma Wilson Seeworth
Academy in Oklahoma City. Fifteen kids filed in
past high performance race bikes and gleaming
chrome choppers, eyes wide as they gazed at the
11″ slick rear tires, custom paint job, nitrous bottles
and turbocharged engines. “I have never been to a
shop like this” one latino youth breathed in awe. “I
have only seen a place like this on T.V.”
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Thunder Roads Magazine of OK/AR
Once assembled in the shop, Tommy talked to
the youth about his experience growing up in Los
Angeles. He explained how he had dropped out of
high school to work as a motorcycle mechanic, but
that as soon as his boss found out his age and that
Tommy wasn’t going to school, he fired Tommy.
“He told me when I got back in school come back
and talk to him. I decided I better get back to high
school so I could get this job.” Tommy went back
to school and soon the Honda powersport dealer
put him back to work part time. “The shop owner
made me keep my grades up or I couldn’t work for
him.”