American Ride
Well-Known Member
Hello monster truck fans this is Mike Fonder President of A.P.Motorsports and the producer of the Monster Truck Wars Tour to South America. Some people know and some dont that our tour has had a lot of ups and downs while on tour to South America and worked with some good promoters and ofcourse bad promoters. Ed Beckley is a good friend and great promoter to work with here in the U.S. and told me i should be posting this information on this site to inform our community of what is happening to us in South America. Our tour started out great with shows in Colombia before moving our equipment to Chile and Bolivia to perform shows. After performing these shows we returned to the U.S. to wait as our equipment was to be shippped back to Colombia for a 24 show run from September to November 2010 at which point we were suppose to return in 2011 to perform shows in Southern South American country's of Argentina, Paraguay and Peru and head north to perform in Ecuador and central America.
Well this is were it gets interesting upon returning to the U.S. while our equipment was sent to Colombia the promoter Ricardo Santamaria keep putting us off telling us he would be sending us money for deposit for the next set of shows and airplane tickets to return which was suppose to take place in September. Well the next thing you know its October, November and finally December before we find out that this promoter is actually part of the Drug Cartel in Colombia and had no intention in having us return to Colombia as if they held our equipment long enough it would be conviscated by the goverment of Colombia and auctioned off to pay the storage fees and so forth which had been ongoing for months making it imposible for us to recover our equipment. The worst part for us rite now is to know the U.S. Goverment is involved with the Colombian goverment to fight the drug cartel and will do nothing to help us! Thats rite the same goverment i served in the military and pay taxes too wont lift a finger to help us as we have contacted the U.S. Embassey in Colombia, the State Department and several other agencys to say they can do nothing! ******** in my book and thats my opinion and mine only. Yes we got ourselfs into this but you would think our goverment would look into this matter as five race trucks, a ride truck and three motorcycles and a moto-x-jumping ramp are being held hostage for something we had nothing to do with. We are talking about a million dollars in equipment and several peoples lively hoods on the lines if we do not recover our equipment.
I will be going to the media next to spread the word not only here in the U.S. but worldwide about the promoters of South America and how they feed on Americans time and time again and try to rip us off of our equipment to run monster truck shows in South America. Now to set the record straight there are two promoters that brought us to South America and we checked there companys out before we evan signed contracts with them. The one promoter Humberto Guervara with his company Hydrotech checked out and he is the owner and operator and does civil work for the goverment of Colombia. His partner Ricardo Santamaria and the Enfarrados company also checked out, but we later find out its his wifes family company and he is not evan on the board of directors for this company. He simply used this company name to cover his real identity as a drug cartel foot soldier.
We are all struggling to come up with the money to get our equipment back as the shipping company from Miami Florida Dima Cargo was trying to inflate our shipping cost and storage fees to benefit himself and make sure we could not get our equipment back. My opinion is that Mike Quintero from Dima Cargo is somehow involved with these guys to screw us out of our equipment as he informs us he had no contract with these guys to ship our equipment. WHAT no contract oh yes they send me money and i ship whatever they want with no contracts. Does this sound fishy to you also, it does to me!!!! Now our equipment left the U.S. being shippped by American Promotions and is now in the Enfarrados name at the port in Colombia were as i can not evan go and get it. I will not mention a name but we have a representative from our crew down there trying to get all the information together for us to get our equipment back.
Just want everyone in our monster truck community to know about what is happening to us and has happened to others that have also gone to South America. Everysituation is different but they all seem to end up in the same situation getting screwed!! So if you get an offer no matter how good of an offer step back look at and make sure the terms and conditions are rite before you end up as we are! We were suppose to have shipping paid round trip along with Insurance and bonding of equipment during shipping and while in South America according to our contracts. Well we now find out that this is a huge mess and we have to get ourselfs out of it.
Thank You Mike Fonder
Well this is were it gets interesting upon returning to the U.S. while our equipment was sent to Colombia the promoter Ricardo Santamaria keep putting us off telling us he would be sending us money for deposit for the next set of shows and airplane tickets to return which was suppose to take place in September. Well the next thing you know its October, November and finally December before we find out that this promoter is actually part of the Drug Cartel in Colombia and had no intention in having us return to Colombia as if they held our equipment long enough it would be conviscated by the goverment of Colombia and auctioned off to pay the storage fees and so forth which had been ongoing for months making it imposible for us to recover our equipment. The worst part for us rite now is to know the U.S. Goverment is involved with the Colombian goverment to fight the drug cartel and will do nothing to help us! Thats rite the same goverment i served in the military and pay taxes too wont lift a finger to help us as we have contacted the U.S. Embassey in Colombia, the State Department and several other agencys to say they can do nothing! ******** in my book and thats my opinion and mine only. Yes we got ourselfs into this but you would think our goverment would look into this matter as five race trucks, a ride truck and three motorcycles and a moto-x-jumping ramp are being held hostage for something we had nothing to do with. We are talking about a million dollars in equipment and several peoples lively hoods on the lines if we do not recover our equipment.
I will be going to the media next to spread the word not only here in the U.S. but worldwide about the promoters of South America and how they feed on Americans time and time again and try to rip us off of our equipment to run monster truck shows in South America. Now to set the record straight there are two promoters that brought us to South America and we checked there companys out before we evan signed contracts with them. The one promoter Humberto Guervara with his company Hydrotech checked out and he is the owner and operator and does civil work for the goverment of Colombia. His partner Ricardo Santamaria and the Enfarrados company also checked out, but we later find out its his wifes family company and he is not evan on the board of directors for this company. He simply used this company name to cover his real identity as a drug cartel foot soldier.
We are all struggling to come up with the money to get our equipment back as the shipping company from Miami Florida Dima Cargo was trying to inflate our shipping cost and storage fees to benefit himself and make sure we could not get our equipment back. My opinion is that Mike Quintero from Dima Cargo is somehow involved with these guys to screw us out of our equipment as he informs us he had no contract with these guys to ship our equipment. WHAT no contract oh yes they send me money and i ship whatever they want with no contracts. Does this sound fishy to you also, it does to me!!!! Now our equipment left the U.S. being shippped by American Promotions and is now in the Enfarrados name at the port in Colombia were as i can not evan go and get it. I will not mention a name but we have a representative from our crew down there trying to get all the information together for us to get our equipment back.
Just want everyone in our monster truck community to know about what is happening to us and has happened to others that have also gone to South America. Everysituation is different but they all seem to end up in the same situation getting screwed!! So if you get an offer no matter how good of an offer step back look at and make sure the terms and conditions are rite before you end up as we are! We were suppose to have shipping paid round trip along with Insurance and bonding of equipment during shipping and while in South America according to our contracts. Well we now find out that this is a huge mess and we have to get ourselfs out of it.
Thank You Mike Fonder
