The Uhmerikan Way...

I was told by my wife that a vacation would improve my good humor in these busy late summer days of the roofing season, so I went to Maryland looking for peace, honor and the American way.

When we set out on Thursday for the east, there were four of us sprawled inside the cab of our F-350 diesel truck. There was a boatload of luggage in the bed of the truck, and very little trash in the cab (for now).

As driver I had my seat slid forward about as far as it could go, partly so I could get “there” quicker, but partly so my 6-7” son could arrange his ample legs in semi-comfort in the back seat. There were my two sons (23 and 20), Big Mike, and me the dedicated driver.

The weather was pleasant, and the driving tedious. We paused in Reynoldsburg at the Chili place and left without saying hello to the AMA – had a lot of miles to cover you know.

We arrived in DC at 8:30 pm and tried a motel at the corner of Route 1 & 495. Fleabag. Big time. We got back in the truck and drove on up the road (without making too many illegal & uninformed turns) to the Hampton Inn and gave them our business. “Thank you very much and hold the fleas please.” It was a nice place. “Oh and one other thing. Do you have a printer I could use?” I asked the hotel clerkette. “They did.”

You see, over the last 200 miles, I remembered my MXoN tickets that I had purchased over the internet. It was so easy and very professional. I paid online, printed them out, and thumb-tacked them to the large bulletin board in my office. Problem is………..they were still there " title="Smile">.

I called the “ticket people” in texas and confessed. She reset the tickets and we printed them out anew. Cool. Technology is great. At times. Other times it stinks.

My new Cricket cell phone came with all the trimmins, I thought. Except something called roaming, and I was in America, where not only the buffalo roam, but people too. Drat. It was searching for a signal ever since we left Ohio, and never did find one. I used Dylan’s cell phone to call the Indian girl in tech support and she gave me the good news. Yes, my phone package can be upgraded to include roaming. The bad news was I would have drive back to Ohio to initialize the phone. We decided not to do that.

We relaxed in the room and I perused Motor-drive, the Weather, and the Map. All were in order, except for Motor-Drive. There was a guy named Lenny who kept clearing his throat (ahem). I also had a couple of PM’s from fellow MD’ers who wanted to meet me at the track. I wrote down their cell numbers and sacked out. There’s a lot of decent people on Motor-Drive.

We got up the next morning and ate a hearty breakfast. Bananas, oatmeal, raisin bagel, fresh fruit, etc… This DC place seemed ok, at least in their breakfast. So what if the two women running the breakfast couldn’t speak engrish?

We headed on to the track. Great. I had heard about a bridge out on 234 so we came in the back way. It worked. I walked in with Chuck Sun and we talked about the weather, the race and the difficulty of getting bikes through customs. He said it was easier in Europe to cross borders now, but America could be a pain. He was helping team Japan and they had some issues to work out. I asked him what he was doing for work nowadays and he said he was selling for MSR. I said “You should have a nice boss” referring to Malcom. He agreed. Chuck is a very nice fellow too – down to earth.

We walked to the track and stood spellbound. It was beautiful. It was also posted with signs that said there would be no practice. Drat. But…we…came…to…see… practice…

I asked a track worker what the reason was for canceling practice? He said the FIM demanded that they inspect a fresh un-ridden track on Friday. I wondered why they couldn’t have done that on a Tuesday (like September 4th for instance)? The worker said that several people were not happy about it and he was pretty much correct. There were hundreds of riders who bought tickets to practice on the track. So the Beas opened up the SX track and they had races of all kinds. It was kind of fun.

Back to the track. It was a thing of beauty. Absolutely beautiful. It had changed a bit from when Doug jumped over Jeremy, and it was even better now. It made my throttle hand twitch just to look at it.

We got some grub, and got places at the SX track. Team Italy came in and stood right next to us. They were great! Hilarious in another language. I asked one of them if they thought Cairoli could beat Carmichael. He answered in a long Italian paragraph. Unfortunately, the only words I understood was Spaghetti and Carmichael. I smiled and nodded trying to be polite, hoping that I wasn’t agreeing to something I shouldn’t—like Ricky Carmichael being compared to a plate of spaghetti. I borrowed Nathan’s camera and walked out to the edge of the track and motioned to our Italian friends to show their colors. They unfurled their flags and hammed it up nicely.

After 2.5 hours of SX practice we got bored. We headed over to Fredericksburg VA, and got our motel. Holiday Inn, and was indeed a holiday. The place was teeming with mx-ers. As we walked by the pool, there were three guys sitting there talking. One of them had a Carmichael shirt, and I hollered “Go RC.” They responded with affirmation and raised glasses. 

In the rooms, we arranged our items carefully by forming them into a big pile on the nearest bed. That’s always worked in the past…

Speaking of working, the large subway sandwich (with extra fiber) was doing it’s job, so I made a bathroom pitstop to download. Very successful.

The toilet on the other hand lacked success and managed to get plugged. Drat. I wiped up most of the water on the floor with our allotment of four bathtowels. I hate that sort of thing…I really do. We called the front desk and ordered more towels and a plunger.

I went out by the pool to wait for the plunge and sat down with the three fellow mx-ers. Great guys, they welcomed me and we talked for over an hour. They had just come from Pastrana’s house with VIP passes and were looking forward to the weekend. All three were from Georgia. One was a Hollingsworth, and other was a friend of David Izer’s named Kenny Tyson. I aksed him if he was related to Mike and he said he was his brother. I wonder if he was being honest.. " title="Smile">

We bench-raced with all the easy familiarity of old friends. I told them about Cairoli’s bike being detained in customs. Kenny called David Izer and asked about the bike and got the latest. We were joined by a policeman from Florida who was also a motohead. Then we were joined by Ross Cathy, who’s grandfather founded Chick-Fil-A. Ross gave me several “eat more chikin” free sandwich coupons and we parted ways so I could check on the bathroom. Kenny Tyson & Hollingsworth are really nice people.

The bathroom was as we had left it – the hotel people having no interest in cleaning up….well what should I call it?

I asked the guys for adjectives and we came up with several good ideas, like Gruntwater and Swamp splash. I guess we better get off that topic… . I cleaned it up myself. Builds character..

On Saturday Morning, we headed up to DC. We wanted to see Honest Abe and the gang. We drove downtown without ceremony and saw the White Home (sorry Lenny). After looking for a place to park for 13 one-way streets, Virginia came to our rescue (Virginia Street, that is). We were rewarded for our efforts by not having to pay the meters on Saturday. I like that sort of thing.

We walked over to the Lincoln Memorial. That was cool. Actually it was hot – very humid. But Abe was still there in quiet grandeur. As I looked up at him I remembered his words to a journalist “That’s my life --- make of it what you will, but I am just a simple man.” I read the Gettysburg Address chiseled in the left wall and wondered how his voice would have sounded that day. The words live on. On the right wall was an address that He made to congress regarding the civil war. Wow. In it he talked about the strife, bloodshed and sorrow that the war brought. He summed it up memorably by saying that the price of slavery had already been paid in full in the bloodshed shared by north and south. I wish people today believed that, for it rings true. He encouraged us a nation to grow together and realize the potential that God gave each one of us. There were lots of people there looking at this, and most were silent and thoughtful – even the foreigners.

We walked back towards the obelisk on the right side of the tranquil pool. So much to see. So much to wonder at. Was this really what Jefferson & Lincoln desired, or have we somehow gotten off track? I don’t know, I guess it is up to each one of us to walk aright each day. When we do that we somehow strengthen each other a little.

The tower was tall. I noticed a definite color shift about 150’ up. It seems that the thing was started and then stopped when they ran out of funding. I wish our government today would stop a few things due to minimal funding. Or, they could just raise our taxes to pay for it – how silly of me.

There was a large concert speaker type thing in one corner of the monument field/yard. I wonder if Teggers set that up. From there we walked over to the White Home. There was a big meadow fenced off between the White Home and the Monument. I wonder if that’s where they hold the inaugurations?

We got up to the iron fence around the Home. There several foreigners and lots of Umherikans there, taking pictures. One enterprising Korean climbed up on the fence to get a better angle for a picture. He got grumped at pretty quick. Them guards have no sense of humor. We walked back to the truck (only getting lost once) and drove home through the city. Too many cars, too many people, and too many politicians. I looked for politicians everywhere but I didn’t know what they look like. Big Mike suggested that we look for people with two faces but we didn’t see any of those – just two shoes, two arms etc..

On the way out we drove by a huge building that looked like the Louvre from a distance. Nope, it was the EPA headquarters. Dylan suggested that it might be fun to sprinkle the flowerbed by the front door with polymeric isocyanate. Fortunately we didn’t have none of that with us. EPA usually has about as much sense of humor as the White Home guards. Then we drove by the Infernal Revenue Service building. We paused for a moment of silence, plus the light was red. We looked for a placard on the building acknowledging our ownership as taxpayers but there wasn’t any. They don’t have much sense of humor neither. As we drove away, I remarked “I wonder where the terrorist plane that fell in PA was headed…” White Home, Capitol, IRS building etc..? Big Mike remarked that if it was the IRS building he wouldn’t care one dang bit anyway.

We stopped at a Taco Bell near 495 and got grub. They messed up the order big time. I think we threw them onto a tailspin by asking for some customization on our burritos. Or maybe the rap music playing in there was too loud to hear our order. I ain’t never heard that music in a Taco Bell before. It didn’t help my appetite much…We took the food back and asked them to make it right this time. They messed up that order too. Big Mike said they should all be fired. He’s practical like that.

We went back to the motel and watched the world’s messiest jobs or something like that. I was pleased to see that I have done five of them and two currently (Hot tar roofing and wall-spray cellulose). We’re practically famous. We got a good night’s sleep for the next day.

Morning broke, and so did the lid on my shampoo bottle. We headed to the track at 6:37 am. Maybe this early start would help us avoid the traffic jam at the one-lane bridge. It didn’t help much, but several Sheriff’s showed up and directed traffic. THAT helped.

When we walked into the track, we looking for three things. A good spot, some good eats, and BammBam. We got two out of three.

Davalos showed that his time in the U.S. had paid off, and he won the B-qualifier handily. We moved over to the little peninsula by the first turn after the start just in time for the first moto. A couple of photographers walked by. I recognized DC, and eventually recognized someone else (from pictures). I called to him and he walked over. I introduced myself and the first meeting of `ol Ger & MX Nurd took place. It was great. He was actually cool to talk with. We compared notes and I asked him when he was flying back. He said he was going to stay a few days and test RC’s bike on the track. I’ll have to see how that went – it sounded like a lot of fun. I probably jinxed RC by suggesting to Steve that I hoped Ricky got a poor start so we could see him come through that pack. Sorry RC.



The race went off and Villipoto grabbed the lead, the mantle, and the torch. That boy is the real deal !! RC came through the pack like a hot knife through cold butter. That boy is amazing. I was hoping that RC would catch Reed, but the gap stayed a couple seconds for the last 4-laps. Jason Weigandt walked by me several times chewing his nails to the bone. It was super thrilling (super pumped from a fan’s perspective).

During intermission, I tried to call BammBam. The closest we got was a voice mail. Then he left one on our phone. I hate phone tag – remember what I said about technology. It’s great if it works. I also tried to call Txmxer. Each attempt returned a “call failed” message. Rats. I also looked for a guy with an anodized leg but couldn’t find him either. Sorry Bobb. I did find some Gatorade which we dispatched in short order.

There were quite a few people there at the race and one tunnel passageway. Now I know what it’s like to be the sugary layer of honey at the bottom of the bottle when you turn it upside down. You don’t get there for a month.

The track workers made a good decision. The dismantled the fence around the Henry Hill tunnel and the honey could flow freely albeit thickly out the end. This was the only way that people could interact from one side of the track to the other. It worked, and kudos for quick thinking. People actually started moving.

The Irish had a bunch of trolls there with green beards. They looked like Amish Environmentalists, if there was such a thing. Nathan got a picture of them (and towered over them). It doesn’t take much to tower over a troll. We did see our Italian friends a couple of times too. They were mechanics and BUSY.

In the second moto Villopoto reminded us of what we said in the first moto. “That kid is phenomenal.” I do think that the four-stoke advantage has kind of interfered with the 3-class parity that the MXdN used to have. Now the gap is more ability-related than displacement-related. Sorry Johny-O.

Ferry did his best after his normal crappy start. He rode real well. Cairoli was a lap down but keeping pace with RV. Just as that moto was winding down another Steve walked by. I called him over briefly and we met. He was real nice too, and working hard. We refer to him as the "Boss.'

The last moto went off as planned and RC decimated the field. Ferry & Ramon had a good battle going and finally Ferry got around him. Langston was coming hard too. I don’t know what happened between Langston & Ramon because we left early to beat the traffic. If I had to guess, I’d say that Ramon stayed ahead of Grant.

It was amazing!! It was super!! Unexpected even ! I’m referring to the way that we drove out of the dragstrip and back towards DC. We were anticipating a traffic jam that would make Chicago blush, but we essentially drove right out. “The Beas” was there directing traffic as well. I think he’s kind of a hands-on type. He did a good job promoting this race, in spite of his lack of a sense of humor. I’m sure the weekend was stressful.

So we headed home without much ado. As we reflected on the weekend, we all agreed that it surpassed any National that we had been to. By a large margin!

We didn’t find a lot of peace because of the loud bikes, but the crowd was VERY respectable. Big Mike thought so too. We did find some honor, as RC gave up his start position in the first moto. It was also nice to see the riders treating each other with dignity, and that brings me to the American way. We found that. There were greasy fries, fried hog meat, fried chikin, and fried cheeses. The French felt right at home . This was the best race ever.

`ol Ger