Your boat or RV may be red, yellow, black, blue or white. But thanks to a local firm's environmentally friendly products, you can keep it the original color and looking showroom shiny without harming the environment.

Liquid Performance, Inc. was started to produce a line of care products tailored specifically to the owners of motocross bikes. Franklin County natives Boo Hodges and Sam Pearce, active in motocross racing with their sons, Zane Hodges and Samuel Pearce, noticed that bikers who cared about keeping their machines looking top-notch had no dedicated line of products to use. Instead, they were improvising with a hodge-podge of household and automotive cleaners and polishes.

Liquid Performance was established in 2001 when Hodges and Pearce decided to develop lubricating, cleaning and polishing products specially suited to cycling. They contracted to develop some exclusive formulations and set up a mixing, packaging and shipping operation in a small, leased building on MaryLinda Avenue in Roanoke.

Quickly embraced by the pair's motocross-racing friends, the product line had a jackrabbit start and expanded to a broad base of enthusiasts who care about the condition of their bikes, cycles and ATVs.

Offering Racing Coolant, Mud Release, Chain Lube, Parts Cleaner, Spray Cleaner and Polish, Metal Polish, Detailing Cloths and different wash formulations for motocross bikes, street bikes and ATVs, the line is now sold through a distribution network that includes retail outlets and catalogs serving much of the United States, Canada and Australia.

Enter Kyle Enslow, one of four Enslow brothers born in Forest with ties to the lake. Trained as a systems engineer at ECPI and determined to stay in the area he loves, Kyle Enslow's work life began with stints at Roanoke's Diabetes Self Care and Advance Auto, followed by a self-employed period as a computer networking provider. Ultimately hired by Liquid Performance to help manage its rapid growth, he quickly saw another niche where Liquid Performance products could compete.

"Once I started studying the cleaning products industry," Enslow recalled, "I suspected a line of low-environmental-impact marine products would be well received."

Kyle's brother, Roy Enslow, owner of Bridgewater Marina, was most encouraging.

"Boaters care about the condition of the waters they use for recreation. Make it really easy to know what products are used for what, and make them environmentally neutral," Roy Enslow said.

The resulting "green" boat marine maintenance line has now grown into a market-specific offering of 12 items bearing the Nauticare brand. All but one -- an aerosol-dispensed cleaner for boats and PWCs -- proudly sport an "Environmentally Friendly" certification medallion, while remaining among the most effective cleaners and polishes available to boaters.

"SML was our first test market," said Kyle Enslow. "We put the first eight Nauticare items in test racks at lake marinas, and they flew off the shelves."

Subsequent displays in places such as Kroger and Capps Home Building Center also have shown significant consumer interest.

"Yep, we sell a bunch of Nauticare during boating season," confirmed Capps store manager Bruce Shelton. "The product line fits nicely with our desire to provide environmentally friendly products to the lake community."

Now expanded to include a metal polish, micro-fiber detailing cloths and a Watercraft Cleaning and Detailing kit that packs an assortment into an easily sealed storage tub/bucket, Nauticare is getting much broader notice.

"We're adding 250-300 marine dealers a year," Kyle Enslow said. "When we hit 1,500 total, we're ripe for shipping Nauticare products through a distributor.

Meanwhile, some of the boating industry's biggest names have jumped on board. Mastercraft Boats now packs a Cleaning and Detailing Kit stuffed with Nauticare products private-labeled with its own brand name, with each new boat sold.

"Buyers think that's a very caring quality touch," said Alan Arthur of Bridgeside Marine, SML's Mastercraft dealer.

And Overton's, the industry's largest on-line and catalog marine merchandiser, is now promoting the full Nauticare line for 2008.

"We loved the 'green' emblem," said Matt Little, a merchandising manager with Overton's. "And when they out-cleaned the products we tested them against, adopting the Nauticare items was a no-brainer."

More growth, it seems, is also on the Liquid Performance horizon. Recreational vehicle owners can now purchase from a new lineup of environmentally friendly maintenance products that wear an "LP RV" label. And the company's new 14,000-square-foot plant and warehouse, occupying only a third of its eight-acre site, has plenty of room for expansion.

"Yeah, you can expect us to get bigger," Kyle Enslow said.