Business owner has high hopes to attend Summit

BRUNSWICK, Ohio — Dirt Road Racing, or DRR USA, is a company Louis DeCuzzi and his family started back in 2000. 

“We are a small, family-owned, well known, all-terrain vehicle manufacturer,” he said. “We assemble them right here. We assemble electric, all-terrain vehicles.” 

The COVID-19 pandemic brought unforeseen challenges to his business, like many others. 

“We were only able to build a limited number of ATVs,” he said. 

Goldman Sachs found that 78% of small business owners said the economy has gotten worse in the past three months. DeCuzzi said he’s not currently facing too many issues when it comes to retaining employees, but inflation and the supply chain are concerning. 

“So, if we saw something from, let’s say, Taiwan or South Korea where we pull a container product used to cost us $7,000 to get it from their door to our door,” he said. “Now it’s $30,000. Right? So, it’s a huge increase.” 

DeCuzzi plans to attend the Goldman Sachs 10,000 small business summit in Washington, D.C. It’s a two-day summit where there will be more than 400 meetings featuring speakers, entrepreneurs and more.  

He said he can only wish for the best for the future and keep moving forward. 

“We get to share what we need and we get to share what we discover,” he said. “It’s really important for us to talk about these things because they may not be aware of what’s going on.”