Well, it's been a while. All the pictures I take these days are of my daughter. No explanations needed. I did forget to post something of the now annual May day Meow Meow Massacre but I left my phone alone that week and just really had a good time. I even managed to stay conscious the entire weekend of riding. It was great. But a while ago I started to hear about the Grand Prix in Florence Kansas. It used to be a big one back in the 70's like the Catalina Grand Prix. It was to come back this year so I made sure to be the first to sign up in the pro class when registration opened. It was our first family trip and with two days of driving just to get there, 90 degree temps and 90 percent humidity it was a big first family trip to take on. One week before the race they got 4" of rain and unlike our western desert that would soak that up like a sponge the Kansas terefirma just holds that water like a plate in the sink. I was so jazzed up to go racing as becoming a dad has put a stop to the monthly, or bi-monthly, or even twice a year busy race schedule I have kept for the past 15 plus years. I was the first one to line my bike up down on main street, being the first pre registered I thought it correct. I waited in the hot sun for an hour plus as the other 500 plus riders lined up and staged behind me. Main street, down town Florence Kansas looked like something right out of a 1970's motorcycle race. A shotgun start sent off the first wave of pro riders. I didn't get a good jump off the line against the electric start bikes but my 2006 honda 450 reeled in a couple riders before the first turn. backing it in sideways on brick street intersection felt so good! Down an ally 5th gear pinned floating across street intersections. I made my way up to 2nd place before we left town and I thought how cool it would be to get into the lead in front of my spectating family and friends who had raced the abbreviated vintage class in the morning. Without really thinking it through I went for a pass for the lead, got pinched off and hung up on the leaders rear tire. I kept it up but veered into a fence, I ducked a rope and took out a fence post with my knee. I came to a stop right down the street from the start line (where everybody was watching). Like Chris Farly, I franticly un-tangled the rope from my neck and kicked, and kicked, and kicked, my bike back to life. Not how one should start a 100 mile race. But I put my head down and started passing people like the maniac I can be all jacked up on adrenaline. I ended up accentually jumping over an entire dyke, canal, levy, or what ever it is called, landing on a road in high speed traffic heading perpendicular to me. It could have been so bad. So the next lap I did what I was supposed to and ride through the mud soup. Like a old Blackwater 100 mud obstacle, I looped out and feel back into the 2' deep soup. I tired again and again sunk myself. The following lap I would take the easy (slow route) around the dyke like everyone else but by then my throttle grip was loose. On lap three my knee was hurting so bad from disintegrating that damn fence post I decided I was going to retire from the race. I could only ride sitting down and the fun dry sections of grass track that I would normally be annihilating like a pit bull in a bunny cage had me riding with my foot off of the peg to avoid the shocking pain from bumps. But I thought of my daughter and wife who were toughing out the heat and humidity all weekend in our shitty little camper just so I could race. This race means something. What, I don't know. But as Steve Mcqueen said; "It'd better be important." So I soldiered on. My camelback had become in-operable in the fence crash incident and we had to do our own pit support as insurance would not allow anyone into the pits. because the pits were in the middle of main street, a 5th gear drag race through town. So nobody to give me any water. I re-fueled my self and put on my spare googles. That were souped with mud in the first muddy pond so after lap 4 I rode with no eye protection, something I never do. The course was mostly tacky and primo but there were several mud bogs and a couple slimy hill climbs. Every lap I cut through the bottle neck of riders waiting there turn and with out stopping I kept tractoring around all the bodies and abandoned bikes. By lap 8 I was getting really thirsty and I started yelling at anybody and everyone. "Pro rider!" "Out of the way" "COMING THROUGH!" People in town cheered me. I finally stopped at some rowdy looking young lads and asked for a beer. I poured a BUD LIGHT though my helmet ingesting every possible drop. I think it saved me. The last few laps are a blur. I was not really on earth but in some parallel dream land just running on pain and auto pilot. Along side some railroad tracks I took a large stone to the eye. I vaguely remember being told one more lap by the scorer who wiped my number plate clean to read every lap. I had started to curse at him horribly by that point calling him very bad things so I did not know if it was the last lap or not but I figured I better ride it like it was. In a very muddy field I remember holding a 4th gear pinned line overtaking a rider who must have been I first gear. My handle bar end just barley kissed his handle bar end. I wonder If he even noticed. When I crossed the finish line the transponder scoring screen said I had gone from 7th to 5th in that lap. I rode over to my fuel jug and collapsed my head to my handle bars and sobbed like my daughter does when she needs a nap really bad. I just sat there crying. People asked if I was ok an I told them "fuck yeah I am ok, I am great, the race is over!" I put my fuel jug between my knees and rode back through town to the camping area where I had left some 5 hours earlier. I got off my bike and fell to the ground. I may have been still sobbing and I think people were worried about me because right then I got the most crazy full lower body cramps I have ever had. Way worse than any cramps I had got when I was desert racing. Spazzing, flopping around on the ground moaning, probably more like screaming. And an hour later I was on the last step of the podium on main street feeling like a million bucks. Well pretty much. It was a good race. I thought many times about quitting. I know that if I keep chasing tennis balls like an old border collie someday the quit might find me but my tung still flops for more. Maybe I'll race the vintage class next year. Or team race. But with out that pro class pay out how am I to pay my van gas bill?! For two days after the race my muscles hurt bad from the cramps. For three days after the race I had a large black hole in my vision from taking the stone to the eye. It has been nine days since the race and the waterbed sized fluid above my knee is finally going down some but the pain from standing working all day is bad. Mostly the fluid in my shin hurts. It is a weird nerve pain like the layers of skin are being felid apart by a sushi chef. It is a lot of fluid. I have gone to get it drained twice in the last four days. The rope burn on my neck looks like I escaped a hanging. Not this time hang man. Not this time.
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