Of course I never did anything stupid like that when I was 15 - 25 either Royal. Like racing down mountain roads and having to lay it down & slide under the front bumper of an oncoming car, then continue sliding on across the road & over the edge of a steep 500' dropoff. Luckily a large thicket about 10' down caught & held Me & the bike until the fellow I was racing dragged me up to the road. The bike took a while. Just cuts & bruises that time. Another time My bike pinned My feet as I hung head first over the edge of a river levee, and My cousin had to drag the bike upwards & off of me. I didn't dare move. Another helpless feeling.
And then at 18 in '64 I followed the lettuce crew to Yuma, AZ. Worked in the fields making boxes from dark:30 to dark:30, and then we'd head for the desert to chase jackrabbits between Yuma & San Luis Mexico till 2 or 3 am, then grab a couple hours sleep & hit-er again. Sure wouldn't make it nowadays. On Sundays we'd head for the nearest desert race and give it a go. My first desert race was a 100 miler near Plaster City CA with four 25 mile loops all in different directions like a 4 leaf clover.
I figured I'd give these desert hicks a good run for the money & show 'em how a country boy rides. Yea, right! When the black smoke from the burning tires showed on the horizon and the starter waved the flag, I took off in a cloud of dust like everyone else, and I thought hey, I'm keeping up with the front runners, & most of these half dozen or so guys were experts! I sure was until I got my first taste of those little clumps of grass that grow on a hard clump of hardpan or something here and there like a checkerboard all over the place for as far as the eye can see.
Well, when I hit the first one the bike tried to dump me over the bars and I just about had things under control when I hit the second clump. This time, I'm doing a handstand on the bars, and craning my neck as far back as I could, I could only see the front knobby. I knew I was i deep doo-doo. Finally, I came back down and cracked my right knee on the engine case. However, as I came back down holding tight to the grips, the throttle was full on again, the bike lurches forward back up to speed and up to the handstand I go again.
Oh yea, there's the front knobby again! It's hard to believe, but this sequence went on at least 5 times, and I couldn't do a thing about it! I'm getting tired & worried by this time. Finally there was a longer space between those killer clumps, and I just layed the bike over in the sand and watched some of the other riders cruise by with big grins on their mugs. I bet every one grinning was thinking "first desert race, eh slick?"
Well, after I get my wind back, I jump up and start learning how to slolom around those little innocent looking killer clumps. By this time I'm about in the middle of the pack of probably 150 riders, but holding my own. I'm starting to feel good again, except for the blood oozing from my right knee & saturating my levis. It was still numb. I made it out about ten miles and followed the tracks up out of a high speed wash only to land on top of maybe four or five bikes laying on top of each other.
Some rider had fallen when he cleared the bank of the wash, and the huge dip on the other side of the bank hid the riders and bikes from the continuing flow of oncoming riders. I was lucky and hit flat on some poor fellow's machine and sort of trampolined on off the other side, clearing all the others. You should have seen the arms waving! Apparently I was the only one so far that had managed to continue on without piling up. Nobody was hurt, and one rider had finally climbed up to the top to direct traffic. Once more I was off again in a cloud of dust, only to find that I couldn't turn very well. Front flat! After herding the wounded bronc back to the point of origin, I had a fresh new respect for those desert hicks.
After a couple of brews & a box of bandaids I was a content spectator for the rest of the race.
