It started out as a simple
three day campout for the guys, the destination being the Flat Track Races at
Castle Rock, Washington, on their half mile dirt track outside of town on the
Toutle River. We didn’t know it then, of
course, but it was the last race ever to be held at that track. Mt. St. Helens blew up the next spring and
wiped out the track, the river, a bunch of trees and quite a few people.
It was a mostly Harley crowd
on this run, Dude on his ’69 Sportster, me on my purple ’71 FLH, Jerry on his
knucklehead chopper, Bill on his 45 trike and Butch on his Toms’ Cycle Yamaha
650 chopper. In those days, we always
had a chase truck along, in this case Bill’s old ‘52 Dodge pickup, driven by
Magoo, a good thing, as it turned out. You could become a biker pretty cheaply
back then, but the price was the lack of dependability that comes from running
used, worn-out parts because it was all we could afford.
We jumped off from Jerry’s
place on the plateau above Graham, which is a short skip to the Orting-Kapowsin
Highway that leads south past Lake Ohop to Eatonville. From there, you have a choice of the
Eatonville cutoff or the long way through LaGrande, both of which lead to
Highway 7, the Mountain Highway. From
there, all roads lead to Morton, as it should be.
You can leave Morton in 4
directions. Take a right on Main Street
and you will find yourself on State Highway 508, a lovely winding country road
(after you get past the pig farm) that rolls into Chehalis on the south side by
way of Onalaska. Or you can go back the
way you came on Highway 7, which stops at Morton, as if to say, “I’ve got you
this far, you’re on your own now.” But
we try to never go back.
The other two ways out are
east or west on Highway 12. East takes
you up the hill through Randle and Packwood to White Pass and the road to
Yakama. West, the way we went that day,
heads toward the distant ocean via another fine country road. Two lane blacktop is where it’s at. We turned off and headed south on what is now
called the Jackson Memorial Highway, named after a Senator who was not dead yet
then, but now nobody remembers the original name of the road. Still, that is where we turned, because it
leads to Toutle, and thence to Castle Rock, our destination.
We had made reservations at
the Weyerhaeuser primitive campground somewhere out by Silver Lake. We had planned to be there by early
afternoon, but the Harley Gods frowned down on us, specifically the
Knucklehead, which popped, sputtered and died on the side of 12 outside
Morton. The curse of the Milwaukee
Vibrator caused the points to loosen up inside the distributor until the gap
widened all the way. It took us a while
to find the problem and fix it by resetting the points with a matchbook cover (.018”
thick) and back on the road we went. So
we rolled into camp late, as usual, set up in the dark, and then rode back to
the nearest country tavern for dinner and beer, lots of beer.
There’s a task, a quest, if
you will, to which I set myself years ago, that continues to this day. That is the search for the best biscuits and
gravy in the country. So far, I think
it’s the Tastee Freeze in Laurel, Montana, and Marty says there’s a place in
Missouri that fills the bill, but you can’t rightly say until you’ve ate at
them all, now, can you? So the next
morning we took the quest into Castle Rock on our Harleys, with disappointing
results. For one thing, the town was
packed to the gills for the event, an AMA sponsored national short track event
that drew the likes of Jay Springsteen and all the good local boys who came out
to take him on that day. There were
exactly two bars in downtown Castle Rock in those days. In one of them, one of the 1%er clubs placed
a large prospect at the door who informed all comers that patch holders got in
free, but anyone else had to pay a joint at the door cover charge. Needless to say, the 50 or so patch holders
for the various clubs who were in town and not at war with each other at the
time had a pleasant, relaxing day in uncrowded surroundings, while the landlord
cried in his beer and the other place in town was jammed, standing room only
and hope for a drink. That got old fast
and we headed for the track.
There’s something about the
noise at a flat track race. Most of the
bikes in the top classes were Harley XR 750s, with the occasional Norton and
the Honda copy of the XR that wasn’t ready for prime time yet, so the sound was
a hornet’s nest of short stroke Sportsters at full song. As the pack hits the turn, the volume goes up
as they pitch the bikes sideways and spin the rear wheel while jamming the
steel shoe into the ground to form the tripod, and drops as they straighten up
and fling themselves onto the seat to get the tire to bite and throw them at
the century mark again. Oh, yeah, and
the track sold beer by the large plastic cup.
By the time the Finals come around, the crowd was roaring. The smell of testosterone competes with the
smell of the Castrol in the fuel tanks.
Then, suddenly, it’s dark,
the race is over, and the grassy field that surrounds the stands is full of
motorcycles, thousands of them, the owners of which are streaming out the doors
full of beer, with that noise echoing in their heads.
I’m standing by my bike,
looking around at chaos. Over there, a
man is using a Bowie Knife blade tip to scoop large doses of either cocaine or
methamphetamine out of a plastic bag and hold them under the noses of all in
their party, spilling visible amounts on the ground in the process. Over there a woman is screaming, a man is
trapped under a fallen bike while around them swerve a steady stream of
sportbikes all jammed together as twelve lanes form two on the only road to the
freeway, visible in the distance. All
you see in any direction is headlights on chrome, all you hear is engines and
all you smell is exhaust.
The promoters of the event,
knowing full well what they have unleashed on the highways, and experienced in
the crowd control needed for it, have arranged a little scenario on the side of
the onramp in a well lit location that every single rider must pass on the way
out. A motorcycle, a four cylinder
Japanese sportbike, lays on its side on the shoulder. Parallel to it, but a few feet further on, is
a figure in racing leathers and helmet lying flat on his back, apparently
dead. A few people are standing around,
their faces betraying their helplessness to do anything for the poor guy, but
they approach anyone who attempts to stop and render aid and urgently send them
on their way. The figure on the ground
is a mannequin, and the intent is to penetrate the testosterone with a splash
of cold water before the racing fans hit the freeway. It certainly worked on me.
Our group had run into
several of the Zudmen, and were yacking and telling stories while we waited for
the zoomie bikes to get out of the lot first.
It’s always better to have the wheelie boys in front of you far enough
so you have time to avoid the chaff. It
was only after they fired up and left, while we waited for stragglers, that
Dude noticed that Dragon Lady had dropped her purse on the ground on the way
out. That put us in the position, of
course, that we had to catch up with them, and all we knew was they were going
to form up at the next rest area to the south.
So off we flew, into the dark night with our dim headlights and no real
idea where this was gonna end and how, with a belly full of beer for
courage. Magoo and Bill took the truck
and the trike back to camp, knowing better than to try to keep up with us,
which turned out to be bad, because the Knucklehead finally died on the side of
the road somewhere near Woodland, and refused to be revived this time.
JB and I wound up sitting in
a raised brick flower bed outside a closed restaurant off some nameless off
ramp for hours while we waited for the rest of them to go back to camp, wake
Bill, and send him along in the truck to pick up the Knuck.
The morning cook came along
in the wee hours and took pity on us and gave us some coffee. We ran out of cigarettes about half way
through. Then we watched Bill drive by
on the freeway twice before he figured out we had to be this way. By the time we got back to camp, they had
drunk all the beer, so we hit the hay.
We never did find that rest area.
The next morning we headed
back the way we came, with the knucklehead, which had a long wide glide front
end with a 21” wheel and no front brake, sandwiched into the back of the 1952
Dodge stepside pickup with the frame resting on the tailgate and the front tire
down by the bumper, tied in with rope.
About 15 miles outside Toutle
the frame on the Yamaha broke at the front motor mount. It turns out the boys at Toms Cycle just
butted the frame tubes together at the bracket with no slugs or fillets to give
it the strength needed in that critical area, so it broke. Mr. Murphy said it broke on the side of the
road. So into the back of the Dodge went
the Yamaha, stuffed in next to the Harley with more rope. Good thing we had lots of rope.
A few miles further up the
road, the 45 trike burned a hole in a piston.
That poor little thing, which I later took over and restored back to
stock, had been struggling all day to keep up with the big boys. A flathead 45 trike puts out about 9.44 SAE
net horsepower at the rear wheel in stock form, and this one had big meats on
the back because they looked cool. When
I took that rear end apart, the extra weight and inertia of the big tires had
been wearing away at the end of the axle inside the differential and when those
little C-rings fail the axle, wheel and brake drum squirt out the side as you
go around a corner and drop you on your ass.
Good thing it only holed a piston.
Fortunately, the trike also
had a long front end, which we simply lifted over the tailgate and stuffed it
in between the two prior residents, held in with even more rope. It turned out the trike did fine like that,
just a little squirrely in the corners and don’t stop too fast.
So there we were, three bikes
in the back of a ’52 Dodge, and four guys to fit into the cab of a truck made
for two. We rested in the long grass on
the side of the highway and debated how to choose who got to ride passenger
with me and who got to ride in the back with the bikes. Then, wonder of wonders, who should show up
but the girls! Three of them, in fact,
mine, JBs and Magoos, in Barbs car. They
had decided to trace our route and see if they could catch up with us on the
return trip, and it worked. Not only
that, but they brought us a picnic lunch, and more beer!
And so it was that another
memorable adventure ended up on the side of the road, this time with
sweethearts, sandwiches and beer to wash down another good one. Somewhere, I’ve got pictures. :-{)}
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