Thanks for all the info, as it turns out the way I was down shifting (like I used to do with my cars) was causing this. By using the breaks to come to a stop instead of down shifting to bring me closer to a stop speed 95% of the sluggishness has been corrected. On another note, I found a coolant leak caused by the clamp not being seated properly on the hose from the reservoir to the intake. Looks like someone overlooked that when they assembled it. Hope I don't find any other hidden treasures.
Glad you're able to work around that issue. Yes, there have been a lot of lose hose clamp issues with the early models. I would have hoped that they either retrained that guy or moved him to the "tire inflation" station on the assembly line