Motorcycles Fast, Loud, Deathproof: The Family Business of Suicide Machine Co.Suicide Machine Co. on blood and brotherhood.

Aaron and Shaun always looked up to their father, Suicide Machine Co.’s “third partner.” Mr. Guardado prides himself on a tireless work ethic passed down from his father, who earned American citizenship through the Bracero Program and hand-built the Guardado’s first house in nearby Los Alamitos. Aaron and Shaun have worked for their father since grade school, when they begrudgingly spent summers cleaning the yard at Systems Maintenance, Mr. Guardado’s industrial truck repair business. “You can look back and see how actions have matured you and grown in you, somehow, to make you who you are now,” Shaun says. Mr. Guardado taught his boys how to work for themselves, and now Suicide Machine Co. lives in an unmarked building behind Systems Maintenance. When Shaun isn’t building bikes, he’s repairing rigs or fabricating truck parts, and Aaron has a desk up front where he handles the finance side of Systems Maintenance.

The more Aaron and Shaun raced their Sentra, the more they saw motorcycles race, and they both wanted to give it a try. Neither would get permission to buy a bike, so when Mr. and Mrs. Guardado left town for a business conference, Shaun bought his first motorcycle: a Buell XB12S Lightning. When Mr. Guardado came home, he was livid, regurgitating all the things his own father said to him when he bought his Suzuki RM125 without permission. “I wanted to protect my sons from hurting themselves,” Mr. Guardado says. “But looking back, it was inevitable.” Not long after Shaun bought the Buell, Aaron bought a Ducati 999; Shaun then traded his Buell for a 999 so he could keep up with his brother around Big Willow.

When track days and Ducati repairs became too costly, Aaron and Shaun found new ways to play with motorcycles. Shaun wanted a street bike tailored to his petite frame, so in 2007, he bought a ’69 BSA Lightning 650 and, in his parents’ garage, chopped the frame, swapped on a springer front end, and finished his first, overly powder-coated custom. He enjoyed the process and people liked the build, so Shaun rented shop space a few towns over and started customizing friends’ bikes under the name Shorty Machine. He stepped it up with his second build: a street-legal, rigid Sportster land speed racer with clip-ons, a seductive silhouette, and a turbocharged V-twin. Aaron graciously did the outreach and promotion he knew his brother wouldn’t, and soon, Shorty Machine moved into a larger shop.

Around the same time, Aaron and Shaun became fascinated by demolition derby. The Guardado family regularly attended monster truck jams and demolition derbies at the Orange County Fairgrounds, and one weekend Shaun asked for the promoter’s number. “It took me two years to get on the driver’s list,” Shaun says, and on the night of their first derby, it took less than two minutes to be eliminated. Aaron and Shaun made friends with seasoned drivers who helped them build better, smarter crashers. They can now build two derby cars in a week, have racked up sponsors like Rockstar Energy Drink and Wienerschnitzel, and finished in second- and third place last year.

The speedway circuit at the demolition derby fairgrounds is where the brothers first tried flat track. Before the Super Hooligan series existed, the OC Fairgrounds hosted a monthly Harley Night, where anyone could race any model Harley-Davidson. “Things were a bit wilder then,” Shaun says. “Looser rules.” The brothers both raced Sportsters, and Shaun became known for his incredible saves and brutal crashes. He’d slide his rigid through entire straightaways, dragging the primary in the dirt, and if he crashed and nothing broke, he’d dive straight back into the racing pack.

Fascination grew around the “death-proof” brothers who rode with abandon and bloody smiles. Aaron says, “I don’t think I’ve been hurt enough to say, ‘I don’t want to do that anymore.’ I don’t give a shit if I’m getting hurt.” He only gives a shit if Shaun is hurt — and vice versa. They’re perfect mates, which is why in 2010 they packed up Shaun’s shop, moved into the building behind Dad’s business, and started working together as Suicide Machine Co.