Mike Overcast & Baja Racing News - continued slander/libel attacks against Curtis Guise - the real story. This is a post from the race-dezert.com forum from the 3rd of September 2008. This post has been written by Curtis Guise and therefore credits for this write up go to him.
You can find the original post by following this link
The purpose of this re-post is to show that most recent (18th. April 2011) slander/libel by Mike Overcast is unjustified and we are almost certain any accusations by Overcast made against anybody are a fantasy of his sick brain. Get some help Overcast, you need it.....
Many of you have heard about Mike Overcast and the blog site Baja Racing News that he operates under the alias Gary Newsome. For those of you who haven't heard of him you might find this interesting. This is the short version.... And I am only referring to him as Mike Overcast because that is his real name.
Mike Overcast was a member of RDC under the username Cabo500. He was later banned permanently for contacting our advertisers attempting to interfere with our business. Many people and RDC members have had issues with Mike and some of them talked about it on RDC.
Mike asked for many things to be removed, some were and some were not. There was a post that Mike felt was a violent threat against him and it was later removed. (Although we did not see it as "life threatening" as he did). That was one of the reasons he called and emailed our advertisers, claiming they support violence by advertising with us. When anyone signs up on RDC you agree to many conditions and one of them is that the owners & operators of this site are not obligated to moderate this forum and we are not responsible for what is posted here. Maybe Mike didn't read that part?
Since being banned Mike Overcast (aka Gary Newsome) has expressed himself by continuing to write untrue stories about myself, Klaus and many people that we do business with. Not to mention many other good people in the sport. For the last 6 to 8 months his name and website were even filtered out on RDC. We felt that if no one was talking about him here and everything posted in the past was gone, then any reasonable person would not continue to attack us as he has. We were wrong!
Mike Overcasts latest claim against me is that I am responsible for a picture of himself that has homosexual references put on top of it, and that I created the Myspace, Twitter accounts among other web sites that are attacks against him. I have no involvement in any of those sites, accounts or pictures. Why would I waste my time on childish attacks against Mike? I don't have the time for it and never will. I wasn't even sure I should waste time writing this right now because there is content for RDC and DP that is suffering for the time I am wasting on Mike Overcast. Mike, not everyone stoops to your level. If you are such a great news reporter you should do a better job investigating to find out who is creating all of that content about yourself.
He also claims that I am not operating my business (Juice Designs) in Oceanside with a permit. And didn't pay the .50 cents for every $1000 made in tax. (it's .0005 not .50 BTW...) This is not true, I have had a business license with the City of Oceanside since I moved here. My latest payment that was mailed before the due date has been received by the city and will clear today or tomorrow. And Mike, don't bother claiming that your "story" made me run down to the city and get a business license. My payment for my existing license was mailed last month. Call again and do some of that great investigation work that you do. While you are at it, ask how long I have had the license. But they probably won't tell you anything unless you commit fraud and impersonate me. Basically Mike got lucky on the timing of his call, and with the long holiday weekend the City had not posted my check yet. Am I in trouble, am I breaking the law? No, the city confirmed they have my payment and everything is fine.
Mike Overcast also claimed that Klaus was operating RDC for years without a business license. This is also untrue. Klaus was simply past due on payment and paid the small late fee and the city said thank you. And within the last year a LLC was also created that RDC operates under.
Mike also claims that Klaus is operating RDC as a non-profit organization. When RDC was first created there was no money being made. At the time Klaus put something like non-profit site on RDC somewhere. He never officially filed with the state or government as a non-profit organization. If he did that, then yes he would have been breaking the law the day he started to make a profit. It's no secret that RDC has had advertisers for years now. It would not be possible to operate RDC without our advertisers and we appreciate their continued support. RDC is not a "non-profit" organization.
Mike Overcast also claims that myself and RDC are ruining CORR somehow. If CORR had a problem with us I'm sure we would be the first to hear about it, and it would be directly from CORR not Mike. I am also sure Scott Rehn would not be a member on RDC and posting regularly in our short course section if they had an issue with us. It's a shame that anyone can come across Mike's blog and read false information, especially people that don't know Klaus Rasch, Curtis Guise or Jim Holthus from TORR and they might actually believe those stories.
Mike Overcast also brings up the Metalica song we played with some of our footage showing at a couple of our DP6 premieres. Last I heard clubs can play whatever music they want. We are not selling DP6 with a Metalica song included and we never claimed to. We license the music we use in our DVDs that we sell.
Mike Overcast also says that our lawyer told him that I lied to him? Really, about what? How is that possible when Mike continues to ignore the cease & desist that was sent to him? The lawyer talked to him one time months ago, and Mike has ignored the issue ever since.
In a recent email to our advertisers Mike claims that we are influencing the marketing decisions of our advertisers by telling them not to advertise on his site. Again, I don't have the time to waste on childish games like this. Our advertisers were not happy to hear you suggest they can't make their own business decisions. If they or anyone want to spend their money with you that is up to them. I am not here telling anyone to not do business with, or not to read the blog called Baja Racing News. Within minutes of reading Mike Overcasts blog, I am sure people can decide for themselves if they believe what he is writing or think that it is quality content or not.
I have a couple of questions for Mike Overcast. Why do you continue to claim that you are not Gary Newsome (or the many other names you go by)? I know many people that have received phone calls from "Gary" and it was from Mike's home phone number.
Why have you been banned from just about every offroad forum on the web? (maybe all of them by now?)
Why do you continue to copy stories that people post on RDC and many other off-road sites and post them as Baja Racing News "exclusive" stories on your blog? Also taking peoples pictures and putting your logo on the top of them is copyright infringement the last time I checked... It's a good thing people can click on the "flag blog" button at the top of your blog to file a complaint to blogspot if that does happen. It is not "fair use" as I'm sure you claim.
You put up stories written by many people (modifying them to meet your own agenda) and we have been told by many of those people that they want nothing to do with you or your blog. Why do you continue to take what is not yours?
Like I said in the beginning this is the short version of what has been happening with Mike Overcast. Doing a google search brings up tons of information about him that I am not about to add to this thread. Unfortunately it is very hard to find anything positive about him. I would say he should quit while he can and try to salvage his reputation but it's probably long past that point.
It must feel bad to not be welcomed on the largest desert racing site on the web. Maybe that is Mike's motivation for the continued attacks? Who knows... I'm not even sure if Mike knows. I have never talked to him other than one quick introduction over a year ago. I have never said anything bad about him on RDC. If I wanted to talk bad about Mike Overcast RDC would be the place to do it. Not all these Myspace sites and pictures that he is saying I created.
Does Mike's continued attacks bother me. Sure it they do, but only until I realize that I am a better person by not doing the same to him. This is not meant as an attack towards Mike, I am just trying to lay out the facts.
I have sat back and watched Mike Overcast write BS about me for long enough. (I'm sure there are topics I missed) So this is my story. Believe me? That is up to you. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what is good quality content on the web. If you think Mike Overcast creates quality content that is your decision. Let's see what he writes about me next... I don't expect it to stop. Mike, go ahead and continue to make yourself look like a fool.
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