I’d like to hear stories of “Epic road trips” that you moto heads experienced. It’s always fun to reminisce and share stories.
I’ve got quite a few, Seattle SX, Washougal, Glen Helen, Vegas, Buds Creek. But lets start with Seattle!
We used to hit Seattle SX a few years in a row around 93/94. A group of my buds flew from Edmonton to Vancouver, rented a couple motorhome RVs and drove down I5. After we crossed the border we made a quick stop to eat and buy a 2-4 of beer. It didn’t take too long before we were passing each other with asses hanging out windows quickly followed by rats. Each time speeds increased. Enough that I suspect some drivers didn’t like it and reported us to the local authorities. After many rats and 2 RVs weaving in and out of traffic going WFO, the 2nd RV peeled off I5 for some reason. Questioning the peel off we slowed to normal speeds to wait for them to catch up. Timing was perfect. A few minutes at normal speeds the local po-po came flying by us HARD on the brakes and pulled in front. Thinking the jig was up we held our breath. Then BAM a 2nd po-po pulled in behind us. Now we’re sweating and shitting bricks. My bro had some cabbage and we thought we’re fck’d. After holding our breath for what seemed to be an eternity they both slowly pulled ahead of us. Talk about lucky! we think they were looking for 2 RVs and only found 1 so left us alone. Phew!!! Made it Seattle and while my bro drove, me and my bud drank all the beers in the span of an hour. We were busting was an under statement. Trying to get to the Kingdome, we made a wrong turn which ended back on the I5. Not able to contain ourselves and told not to use the facilities in the RV due to winterization we had a decision to make. No choice, we both hung out left and right windows for relief watering the interstate. Fast forward to after a night of epic races, we hit the nightclubs. We got kicked out of a couple due to our shenanigans and ended up at an after hours club. Talk about timing again. We ran into MC, Larry Ward, and there entourages, including Jason Frenette (a canadian fella who I used to kick ass on 80cc’s). After a really cool BS with all of them on how the night went we watched them hop into their rentals and proceed to drive into each other (forward/backward) and burn rubber. Woohoo!!!!! Cool way to end the night and an epic road trip adventure memory.
Next...
This was when I was in elementary school i think, me, my dad, step mom, step sister, step brother, took a dodge ram, and a jayco trailer as old or older than I am right now, across the US to hit some national parks. This trip my dad proposed to my step mom and my step mom found out she was accepted to nursing school. Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Arches, Zion, and a monument called crazy horse. I think this is the trip my dad had a tire blow out on the truck. We stayed at places like KOA’s, and a place in colorado that had a whole lot of overgrown weeds in it, we stayed there because my step mom had to fly out for the nursing program i think. This trip I got the most bug bites of my entire life, all on my legs. At one point there was a group of mosquitoes chasing me, my step brother and step sister at one of the campgrounds. At some locations I would send my mom and grandparents post cards. At one of the parks I was young enough but almost too old to do one of the mini park ranger programs and i got a vest and a badge for completing whatever was in a booklet. I think you would go to places in the national park and get a stamp, I don’t remember. Since this trip I’ve only been to one national park, Yosemite, haven’t been back to any others. We lucked out on going to Crazy Horse, the next day I think was when they would explode part of it. It was cool to see but I was wearing very good headphones to block out most the sound I think. We even went to Wyoming and saw the deer antler statue or whatever it’s called. I want to go back to Wyoming at some point in my life to see the Frontier Days, too bad JB Mauney retired though. All in all, that month long trip or whatever it was, was worth it. Also I forgot to mention this was during summer break from school and my dad and step bro almost passed out from the heat at either arches or zion because they decided to take a different, and harder trail while the girls stayed at the truck in the AC.
I have a few but my best one is from 1980. I lived in Chandler Arizona at the time. My wife's brother and I wanted to go to Carlsbad for the 500GP. I was a airman in the Air Force and didn't make hardly any money. I had a 71 Chevy van with a 6 cylinder that the lifters made noise and it sounded like a diesel. It was June and no air conditioning, hardly any money but we loaded our bikes and went anyway. We left on the Thursday before the GP. Our plan was to ride at Saddleback on Friday. We got there no problem but we needed to get a throttle cable from the Suzuki dealer for my brother-in-law (Morgan) 76 RM 250. No Internet or cell phones. We stopped at a phone both and looked up a dealer in the yellow pages. The add for Pasadena Suzuki was big so we said lets got there. We had no Idea how far that was. Anyway we found it about three hours later. When we parked and started to walk into the shop, Morgan yelled at me, "Hey Mark look at your left front tire". I looked back and it had a split in the inner side wall and part of the inner tube (yes inner tube) was bulging out like a cartoon. We went in and got the throttle cable and came back out. Morgan said, "Aren't you going to change the tire" I said "Can't, I don't have a spare" Hey I was poor and and in my early 20's. So we got in and drove back to Saddleback Park. We slept on the side of the rode somewhere and drove into Saddleback early on Friday. We go to the main MX pits and there was nobody there. We had that unprepped, hard as concrete track to ourselves. We rode for about an hour or so and off in the distance I saw a Suzuki box van coming in. It pulled up and parked about 50' from us. We watched Chris Haines (mechanic) and Brian Myerscough get out. Chris unloads a works RN250 Full Floater. We talked to them awhile as Brian got dressed. He went out and rode a few laps would come in and Chris would make adjustments. He went back out and rode a few more then he crashed over a uphill jump. We ran over to see if he was ok. He was except for a huge rasberry on his forearm. He was shaking the bike out as he was going to ride the 250 support class that weekend at the GP. So after a few hours of fun at Saddleback we loaded up and left to go eat. After eating we drove back down to Carlsbad. We went to the beach and parked to sleep. After about an hour I heard a tap on the window. It was a policeman. He said we couldn't park at the beach after 10:00pm so I asked where we could park for the night? I told him we were here for the GP. He said well everybody parks behind the Denny's. So we drove down Palomer Road (something like that) and found the Denny's. The parking look was huge and it was almost full. We found a spot next to the back fence. I backed in (it was dark) we laid our sleeping bags out behind the van on some small beauty rocks in between some small trees. We tried to go to sleep but there was a party going on and was loud with music and the smell of marijuana. I was not a drinker or smoker so we didn't get involved with what was going on. I was there for the GP and wanted to be straight for the weekend. I woke up about 6:00am and I rolled over to wake Morgan up and I noticed that his head was laying about 5" from dog turd. I started laughing and then he woke up. I told him don't move and explained what was going on. It was a good laugh to start the day even though he didn't think it was funny. We went into Denny's to get some breakfast and clean up. We drove to the track and there were so many people already trying to get in. We finally did. We bought our tickets ($12) and walked in. They handed us these little American Flags to wave. We walked all over the track to find a place to stay once the racing started. It began to get really hot like over 100 degrees. As everyone should know, Marty Moates the Yamaha LOP priviteer won both motos. It was the first time any American had won Carlsbad 500GP. I screamed and waved that American flag all day. I lost my voice and got sunburned. To be there and witness that historic occasion made it well worth it. Oh and Brian Myerscough won the support race so that was cool. After the race we headed straight back home on that 6 hour drive with that bulging front tire. It was dark and nobody on the 8 freeway. I drove white knuckled all the way back waiting for the tire to blow. It didn't somehow and we made it. It's a trip I will always fondly remember. I still have the Saddleback brochure of the facility they handed out at the gate. I also have the 80 Carlsbad 500GP program, ticket, American flag and Bell-Ray banner from the race. We went in 1979 and now that I think about it, that may even be a better story. Maybe later.
Brian Myerscough at Saddleback.
Brian winning the 250 support class.
Marty Moates holeshot.
Waving those American flags.
Epic story. Awesome!!!
That was the most exciting Mx race ever. Your lucky to see it live. I watched on tv with the farmer I worked for . We where yelling for Marty to win. Lop a small shop in Chicago Land that’s soo crazy.
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Back in like 04 my buddy and I were supposed to go from Chicago to FL to race mini O's. He shows up to my house to pick me up on his S-10 and a 6-8 ft trailer hooked up to a bent bumper hitch. He says we're taking your truck, mine is leaking oil. My truck is a 4 cylinder Ford ranger, also with a bumper hitch. I say "the hell we are!". "Ok, fine we'll take mine" he says, and off we went. Oh and did I mentioned he also showed up with 2 buddies of his, because one was supposed to provide us with some luxurious resort (which he never did)? And because there was no room in the tiny truck, 2 of us had to ride inside the trailer. I only spent a few hours in it, but it was the Tennessee mountains, and it was terrifying.
X2.
If only you had known about Escondido Suzuki - they were about 7 miles away from Carlsbad raceway at the time!
I had a pretty epic trip to Las Vegas in 1988 to race the World Mini. I was only 17 at the time, and I went with two friends who were 18. One friend, let's call him "Kevin," because that's his name, was definitely there for the party, not for the race. I had driven out early in my mom's truck while he and my other, more moto-friendly friend, came out later. Those guys, who were my de-facto pit crew, showed up late and missed me have a pretty good finish in the first moto of my 125 Novice division. Oh well, no problem - at least they showed up and I didn't have to sleep in the back of the truck. They were getting a hotel room! That was a big deal back then.
Anyway, we went out and walked the strip that night. Kevin, who was a ladies' man, ended up chatting with a slightly older, super-hot flight attendant who was on an overnight in Vegas. She had a male friend hanging out with her, also a flight attendant, whom I would later find out was gay. Kevin talked to her for a long, long time - much longer than what seemed normal - and eventually started waving us over. He was like, "Hey, this is Jennifer, and she wants to come back to the hotel room." (Que the Bill & Ted's response: "EXCELLENT!")
"He wants to watch." ("BOGUS!!")
Well, after a while, Kevin politely declined, and Jennifer walked away. Just before the man friend joined her, he quietly said to Kevin, "Viscount 610," as if he was doing a favor to my friend. You know, that's her room; go for it.
Well, I went back to our room to get some sleep for the next day's race, while the other two went over to the Viscount hotel to check out room 610. And guess what? IT WAS THE DUDE'S ROOM! Those two made some quick excuse about him buying beer for us and then took off before he could try and put his dick in their mouths. I will never, ever, let them live that one down!!!
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