Troy Patterson:  

Life Since high school I have been pretty busy. Out of school, I taught myself paint and autobody work to restore my 1957 Ford. I used this skill for a year or two to earn a living. I still do some body and painting to restore a car for myself from time to time. Other things I did out of school; I managed some restaurants in Monterey and LA; worked in high-end mens clothing; and dabbled at acting on the film the Abyss (the beach scene I was in ended up on the editing room floor, hopefully not because of me), an inhouse promotional video for a formerly popular 80's music group, and several other things I can hardly remember while living in Hollywood in the late 80's. When on the peninsula, and not working at my fathers business, I performed research and development on racing engines and carburetors. Not wanting to move back to Charlotte, NC, my R&D culminated in a business I opened in LA to continue R&D, manufacture, market and distribute my products. Along the way, customers included Winston Cup engine builder Ernie Elliott who was then building engines for his brother Bill Elliott, 2001 IMCA State champion Johnnie Baptista and many others. In addition, I taught myself how to write patent applications and respond to "office actions" of the US Patent Office, and had a number of patent applications pending. I also married, had two wonderful and exceptionally bright children, Kevin and Phoebe, 10 and 7 respectively, who live in Monterey and go to school with the children of a few former classmates, and I divorced - happily. While enjoying a very successful new business in LA, I played myself on the X-Show formerly on the FX Channel, served as the technical expert for an article on carburetion in Car Craft Magazine, July 2002, was a major contributor to an engine build competing in a national engine building competition put on by Popular Hot Rodding Magazine in 2002, finished 7th with only two days of R&D run tim...Expand for more