​Fernando Cuadra says it’s not rocket science. Helping Pro Stock Motorcycle racers protect their feet, and other impact points on their bodies is a mission he has adopted since significant injuries in consecutive events to Angie Smith and Chase Van Sant. And the bootmaker and leather goods crafter from Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico, knows he has the resources to at least help resolve the problem.

“For me, it’s easy because that’s my business,” Cuadra said.

Cuadra has 34 factories, and he gathered the leaders among his 12,000 employees for a brainstorming session about how collectively they can provide solutions and improve safety for NHRA motorcycle racers.

“OK, guys, this is the issue,” Cuadra told them. “And everybody gave their opinions,” he said. They concluded that they were surrounded by the answer: “The sole leathers. It’s to walk [on] all day long and scratch all day long [without wear].”

He presented to the NHRA a leather that possesses a 50-to-1 durability.

Cuadra and the husband-wife Pro Stock Bike tandem of Matt and Angie Smith quickly have moved beyond the talking stage on a new design of a riding boot.

“I offered them to design something that it can be flexible, that they can use it for riding but protecting themselves by far much more of what they have today,” Cuadra said.

What he is offering is leather – cut-outs from sample sheets of leather – that can be applied to customized parts of the racing suits to impact areas of each racer’s choosing.

“At the end of the day, they need to protect just the spots they need to be at,” Cuadra said. “I’m not a bike rider; they are. But that’s what I’m bringing the whole leather, but we can cut it here. It’s something that you don’t have to be a genius to say, ‘OK, I want one spot in this form, so we will cut it at the spot.

“I want to do and make the leather,” he said. “I’m bringing to Pomona a complete sheet of leather that they can cut the pieces and put it on the spots. But they need to be protected and they can attach by making the little holes and sew it right here at the truck with no extra money, just to protect.”

He said, “We have a company that works with leather — all the alligators and ostrich and so forth. And the sole leather that we use, you think about it, if we use a sole leather that you walk all day long and you don’t wear out for at least three or four or five months walking every single day, why we don’t use that piece of leather into certain spots and the uniform and the pants or here or the places that need to be protected?”

Cuadra said the leather that he presented to the NHRA officials Thursday “is a leather that we tested from their racing leathers to this leather to the durability is 10 to 1. I told them I’m not going to charge a dollar to do the leathers. The boots are going to cost raw cost. Not one dollar [for the leather reinforcements to go inside the riding suits]. ‘It’s for the protection of integrity of the people that we are in this sport,’ I told her. I told Angie, ‘Recuperate soon because a pair of boots never seen is waiting on you that’s going to be fancy, fancy, fancy.’ That’s what I told her, because they have a beautiful attitude and they deserve to have better protections all the way. And if we can help, my business is related with leathers. That’s the reason.”

Matt Smith is going to test the boots at the Auto Club Finals at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip.

“They’re going to try the boots and the leathers the way he wants to. So he’s going to do it, and I say, ‘You know what? I’m going to just see that [it’s] comfortable that you can ride.’ So he told me already what we need to [have] flexibility and the protections on the sides. So I have the pair of boots that we are going to start with. He’s a size 10, so we’re going to make the prototypes on size 

Sorry for the guys that wear size 7 and 8, but we’re going to make the whole thing. It’s not my business to do that. It’s my job to give the best of what we have.

“One boot is for testing, but the leather is for all of them, whoever wants to have the piece of leather for them. They can do whatever they want. It’s going to be open and free.

“I want to give this to the White Alligator guy, Jerry Savoie, and also for them, yes. So we’re going to give the leathers and tell them, ‘This is what it is. This is the way to cut it. This is the way to put it in the spots that you want it. It’s your responsibility, not mine. That’s very simple, just you make little holes and sew it.’ That’s it.”