TWI
#That prediction I don't know.
<UNK> and I were up at ---+ I was in Bryan, then flew through ---+ go through the Freeport.
We were sitting there with the plant managers, and Bryan is going to 10 hours.
They are running ten hours shift.
And out through September, they've got to do ---+ they've got a hump, okay.
And they are coming up.
When we got to Freeport, the manager, every factory has birthday meetings.
Whose ever birthday, they come in and they get the questions.
So you closed on Labor Day, but generally, like in our wheel business, that week after, we'll just close it down, because we'll have the inventory.
There will be a few people to ship stuff.
But you can ---+ if an emergency comes, you've got enough people to slap in a few wheels.
But on the tire side, and <UNK> can correct me if I'm wrong, but Bryan is not shutting down, and neither is Freeport.
And I don't believe <UNK>s Moines is.
No, no.
We ---+ you know, you've got your normal seasonal period, where you have ---+ you do your maintenance in late June or early July.
Because of the OEM volume, we are taking just one extra week on the wheel plant over Labor Day.
But other than that, we are having our normal production runs scheduled for the second half of the year.
So ---+ and most of that is being driven by two things, as I said earlier.
It's being driven by the 100-and-under horsepower and our aftermarket sales of tires.
I don't believe so.
I'm being honest.
I've been with equipment dealers every week.
Dan Wall in Iowa was just named a number-one dealer for ---+ or the elected, or whatever ---+ for the year.
And he's a John <UNK>ere dealership, and he runs Iowa selling to Kansas.
But he has five states for the turf, reference the golfing item.
And he's had a fairly decent year.
He's a little more creative than maybe some, but he's been hustling.
And he's moved a lot of used equipment.
He bought ---+ it was either two or four more dealerships, and he went in on the used equipment and auctioned it right off.
You look at some other dealers, and the used equipment ---+ they have to take a hit.
And some of them are much more aggressive in how they do it than others.
So the dealer just sold $2 million worth to the Philippines, all right.
Getting it all ready.
Then he sell ---+ actually, that same dealer is working on another off-site.
Weird.
It's the dealer and how good the dealers are in it, and they are bringing down their costs.
And now, when ---+ let's go to a big farmer.
Big farmers are present probably close to 50% of all big iron on new sales.
Well, for a long time they would be able to buy a brand new piece, trade it in a year later, and get almost what they paid for it.
So that's like farming with equipment for free.
Well, that has really stopped.
So if they are going to farm on 8000 or 9000 series tractors, then they might decide that, well, I'm going to keep my equipment for three years, and then I'll trade.
I'll trade a third each year.
So that means we are going to go back to see different type numbers.
And that's why I said earlier, I don't see any magical booming up at the top.
I think it'll be strictly a gradual uptake.
I do not think you going to see ---+ you'll see a 4% or 5% increase.
It might go two years, and then it might stay flat.
Then it might drop a couple of percent.
Then it'll go up 5% or 3%.
That's the kind of graph I think we're going to see for the next 10 years.
Well, there's ---+ when you say looking at your peers, number one, there's no peer in the world that is like us, because we only make farm, OTR, and construction.
And we make the wheels with them.
And there's no one in the world that does that.
Not a Michelin, not a Bridgestone.
And then you're left ---+ let's take our friends at Trelleborg.
Trelleborg makes a few wheels, but most of the wheels they make are solid.
They make a lot of margin on their solid tires.
The reason they bought Mitas is because they make all this other stuff that we're looking at now, using our big facility in Union City, to go after some of that business, which is, you know, these bladders they use in sewage ---+ we have an infrastructure project.
Those contractors just blow those things up.
That's where you put sewer pipe, and you've got water.
You don't want water; then you put these bladders in it.
And then you send down, and they connect, and then they pull it out.
Well, that just rips them.
But in the US, you're laying pipe.
So the margins on those are 40%, 50%.
Mitas made all the special bicycle tires.
So that ---+ for Europe, that was their big thing.
I mean ---+ and margin is really, really good.
So when they started buying up all the small guys that used to be in the Houston block, they become a big competitor to Trelleborg.
It was 50% of their business.
That's why Trelleborg bought them.
So now they've got that market in Europe.
The only unique thing about our Russian plant ---+ we can make all that, too.
We're going to make tubes for every LSW tire.
Because when you go on hillside, over out in the Western part of this country, you've got ---+ those tractors and combines, you cannot have a tire go flat.
Sod will come rolling down the hill.
So we're going to do it just like you do log scooters that run around hitting tree stumps and everything else.
We're going to put a tube in it.
And we're going to make it so the rims have bead humps, where a bead can't move.
And it's a safety feature.
But when you get over there and show it to the farmer, hey, that's what they want.
So we're going to send it from Russia with love.
Okay.
Thank you.
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