As of March 21, Robert Dugdale is first in a group of 73 contenders for most votes in the fourth annual Dream Chopper competition put on by the hit reality TV series “American Chopper.”
Over the next three weeks, competitors will be cut based on the number of votes they receive. The final groups round starts April 13 and runs through April 20. After that, one preliminary winner in each group will advance to the quarterfinals. Votes are then reset for each new round of voting.
Dugdale is a graduate of South Summit High School and joined the Marine Corps where he served for eight years and returned to the Kamas Valley where he lives with his wife and daughter.
He said the first time he saw the show “American Choppers” he fell in love with motorcycles. He currently rides a 2007 Harley Davidson Heritage Softail Classic. He said a friend sent him the link to register for the competition.
The winner, who will be announced May 26, wins a custom-designed motorcycle by legendary motorcycle manufacturer Paul Teutul Sr. and Orange County Choppers. The grand prize is valued at $125,000.
Dugdale said the reason they’re so expensive is that they are one-of-a-kind machines with many handcrafted elements.
Dugdale said he hopes to get the word out that people can vote every 24 hours in multiple ways.
“You can do the free vote and there's two ways to verify on that: you can verify either with your Facebook account or you can verify using a credit card. If you verify your with Facebook, it gives one vote, every time you vote. If you verify using a credit card, that user gives two. And then the third way to vote is you can actually purchase votes and then a portion of the proceeds from those purchased votes goes to the Hope for the Warrior Foundation which is a foundation that supports veterans and their families.”
If he wins, he said the bike will represent America and the Marine Corps.
“I would like a springer front end, which is kind of an old school front end design, and then flat black and olive drab for the color scheme," Dugdale said. "And then just a few different things from my military service to kind of customize it to me. And that's pretty much my design thing that I got my head so far. I mean, I'm sure that once I get with the team, the professionals that know what they're doing building choppers, they’ll give me input and help me out with, you know, what's gonna look best.”
Those interested can find more information and vote for Dugdale here.
