Victory Innovative Parts, otherwise known as VIP, is another in a long list of quality scooter companies coming out of the Northwest. VIP is specifically based out of Carnation and Duvall, Washington. This past weekend after Cootercon I got the chance to sit down with Bart Maxcy, one of the company owners to talk about VIP. After an hour of so of pizza and conversation I had a pretty good idea of who VIP is and what they’re all about.
Bart’s first experience with the sport of freestyle scooter riding came about 16 or 17 months ago, when his son Bayley started riding at age 12. Bart had previously raced BMX in his younger years and said it really “brought me back.” As for starting the company, well Bayley had started progressing along quite well and placed 1st at the Battleground stop of the Exposed tour. It was there that Bart recognized an opportunity to get into the scooter industry, and took it.
Bart soon found a partner to help out with the company, Roberts Brown. Brown has owned his own machine shop for 25 years, so VIP definitely has some knowledge and experience behind the company. Some parts the company already has done and released are the Flow bars, T-style bars, and aluminum pegs. Bart said he is “excited about designs,” with chromoly pegs, clamps, decks, SCS’s, forks, and even carbon fiber bars in line. VIP had a set of the CF bars on display at Cootercon, and I have to say…easily the lightest bars I’ve ever felt. Pretty crazy stuff. The parts I listed that are done can be found ready to buy on vipscoot.com.
One thing Bart also let me know was that they like to take ideas from their team members. Like them on their Facebook page as they will be holding ongoing contests and giveways that will involve community input. The team currently includes Bayley Maxcy, Heston Gross, Brian Gemme, Brenton Reid, Tom Kvilhaug, Mike Govorushkin, Brian Shawley, and team manager Devin Hohlbein. Some things the team wants to do this summer are go on a west coast tour and film a banger video. With guys like Tom K, Briguy, and Brenton, as well as the rest of the up and coming guys on the lineup I can definitely see VIP team videos being worth watching!
And finally, what does VIP plan for the future? Bart says he hopes for the deck to be out this summer, which is supposed to be a “combination of the best decks,” and just to get parts out,do it right and have fun. They also want to expand the team to include not only riders from the NW but from all over the country. Overall though, VIP’s mission is to “help progress this extreme sport in it’s evolution. We are dedicated to producing the best, most advanced and longest lasting, freestyle scooter parts in the industry. We are here for you, the customer, and value your ideas for our future development.” As rider Heston Gross says, “It’s going to be awesome.”
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