The whole trip started with trouble. Now that I have moved
back to Manhattan for the next year, I have less contact with the
rest of the Kickback people. This led to some confusion intially
on how we would get all the scooters to St. Louis. The plan
changed several times, but eventually we decided that Howie,
Brandy, and I would bring a large trailer from Manhattan and it
would be transfered to Tom's truck in Lawrence for the haul to
St. Louis. Friday morning we discovered that there wasn't a hitch
on Howie and Brandy's van like we thought there was (that was
real smart of us). We ended up renting one and sticking it on the
van. The next problem was that the trailer didn't want to fit
onto that hitch. About 2 hours later it finally latched on and we
were out of Manhattan 2.5 hours later than we wanted to be. Road
construction and problems with the trailer lights doubled our
trip length to Lawrence from 1.5 hours to 3 hours and we finally
arrived and Frank and Chelsea's around 9:30PM. After about 4
hours later we had all the Lawrence and Manhattan scooters loaded
on the truck and trailer. After picking up Jim from KC, we had 14
scooters on one vehicle. 10 on the trailer and 4 in the bed of
the truck. We headed out for St. Louis after 2AM.
After a few roadside adjustments, things got settled down
and we were heading east...just not very fast. Tom's has a
powerful truck, but with all the hills we were hitting, there
were times when we couldn't get over 45MPH. Sometime around 10:30
on Saturday morning, we pulled into the camp site outside Rich
Woods, Mo. I knew this was going to be a good trip when shortly
after stepping out of the van, I could already smell the 2-stroke
in the air, and hear the clatter of expansion chambers.
Everything was unloaded and we set up our camp. The
remainder of the morning was spent checking out the scooters and
slapping the backs of old friends and meeting some new ones. The
only major dissapointment, was that the beer was not tapped when
we arrived, and wouldn't be till dinner at 8PM.
The ride took place shortly after 1:00, and I would estimate
about 50 bikes made the 18 mile ride to our destination -- the
bowling alley. Inside everyone was bowling or shooting pool. I
hopped over the Steak and Shake to have a small but expensive
meal with Adryel and Kelly from Atlanta.
Close to 4:00, everyone decided to head out and do some
swimming. A swimming area on the Merremack River was on our way
back so a sizeable group stopped and we took a dip. There were a
few people there when we arrived but they left shortly after we
entered the water. There were a few chicken fights, and Norm from
Detroit briefly "pantsed" his girlfriend. Aside from those, the
cold water on a blistering hot day was the major highlight.
Back at the campsite, we waited around for dinner to be
served and the beer to be tapped, while the Hardluck folks setup
the gymkahna course. Dinner was being prepared during the event,
and if I hadn't been so hungry, I probably would have payed a
little closer attention. I do know that Chris from Colorado won,
and I believe Stony from Canada was second. Other noteworthy
performances on the jump ramp were Guy from Chicago and The-Skin-
Formerly-Known-As-Tweety of Hardluck.
After stuffing our faces with pasta and spending too much
time in the beer line, the night fell and all the scooterists got
into their normal roudy mode. The games began with the tug of
war, and Arne and Lutz, our resident German scooterists, did
their bests to hype things up. Kickback and the Germans
challenged Hard Luck for the first pull, and of course we ended
up losing pretty badly. Lutz decided that being pulled into just
a mud pit wasn't enough, so he puked into it. Needless to say,
the rest of the pulls had a lot more riding on them. I can't
recall who actually "won" but I do know that at several times it
ended up being just a mud wrestling pit with people trying to
throw others in.
The next event was the baby pool races. The idea was to have
a rope tied to a scooter and have one person sitting in a baby
pool holding on, and to pull that person across a line in the
shortest period of time. Although the potential for accidents,
everyone was drunk enough not to care. I didn't think anyone was
going to beat Stony's Lambretta, but I think Joe from Atlanta
managed to. Tom and I were a little upset that we weren't in on
the action so we went and grabbed the small frames, Lindsay's 100
Sport and my Primavera and went against each other. Our bikes
wouldn't even pull the people out of first gear so, we had to
push them along. With the added "power" of the Primavera, I
managed to win. Of course, the next round wasn't so good -- A
Primavera is no match for a stock 200, let alone a midly tuned
one. I'm still not clear who ended up winning. Maybe someone
could let me know.
Flaming burnouts were next. There was gas, scooters, and
flames. What else needs to be said? Arne won the competition with
a burnout that had to have lasted 2 minutes.
With the games over it was time to turn to the beer and the
Tiki Bar. As time progressed, and a lull in the activities,
everyone decided that it was time for a naked ride. About 15
people stripped down and flew around the dirt track with nothing
but some legshields to cover themselves. It was great fun, and I
think that I was the only person that ended up wrecking and
scraping my bum. Ouch! There were some girls zooming around
naked, but certainly not enough.
Eventually, individuals took the stage and were placed on a
piece of glass, so everyone would know that their scooters were
not the only thing that looked nice. I crashed out around this
time, but I could still hear music playing and people screaming
well into the early morning hours. I hear that everyone thinks
Lutz should pose for Playgirl.
Scooterists began rising around 9 on Sunday in their normal
hungover state. The judging competition was at 11, so I did the
best I could to wipe off all the dust off my scooter. There were
some real nice looking bikes their, and fortunately for me, the
St. Louis people decided not to put their bikes in the judging.
Here are the results as I remember:
Best Vespa: Me!! with my Allstate-Rally hybrid
Best Lambretta: A guy from Wisconsin with a yellow Jet 200
Rally Drunk: Double-D Chris from Colorado
Best Flaming Burnout: Arne the Crazy German
Best Custom: Stony's Nitrous burning Lambretta
Best Vintage: Frank's Cushman (huh?)
Best of Show: Tie between my Allstate and Stony's Lambretta
The restored Vespa 150 was raffled off, and I can't recall who
won, but it seemed that it was someone from St. Louis or that
area.
The rally race was set to go shortly after these events, and
since we didn't really have enough people from our club
interested in racing, Arne, Tom, and I, had to recruit Stony to
race. Unfortunately, his Lambretta had problems and he couldn't
ride it, so he took out The Beast. From the first leg of the
race, St. Louis was in the lead with Mike Taylor opening things
up. Arne was in second place (he claims that if his fuel tap was
open, he would have taken Mike at the first turn) and I dropped
us one more place behind after the second leg (I was riding my
Li125 and everyone else was on 200s so don't give me too much
shit). Tom kept us in third on his lap. Stony was still in third
on the last turn, and suddenly the scooter went to full throttle,
jumped into gear, and Stony went flying. He was out cold with
some blood coming out of his mouth when I got there. It was a
really scary site. He was out for about 10 mintues, and had some
minor memory loss. Last report I had was that he had a cracked
jaw and a concussion. Hard Luck won the race. Followed by the
Chicago people, even though Mo crashed at the finish gate.
All in all, it was great rally, with the only complaint being
that there wasn't enough beer.
van. The next problem was that the trailer didn't want to fit
onto that hitch. About 2 hours later it finally latched on and we
were out of Manhattan 2.5 hours later than we wanted to be. Road
construction and problems with the trailer lights doubled our
trip length to Lawrence from 1.5 hours to 3 hours and we finally
arrived and Frank and Chelsea's around 9:30PM. After about 4
hours later we had all the Lawrence and Manhattan scooters loaded
on the truck and trailer. After picking up Jim from KC, we had 14
scooters on one vehicle. 10 on the trailer and 4 in the bed of
the truck. We headed out for St. Louis after 2AM.
After a few roadside adjustments, things got settled down
and we were heading east...just not very fast. Tom's has a
powerful truck, but with all the hills we were hitting, there
were times when we couldn't get over 45MPH. Sometime around 10:30
on Saturday morning, we pulled into the camp site outside Rich
Woods, Mo. I knew this was going to be a good trip when shortly
after stepping out of the van, I could already smell the 2-stroke
in the air, and hear the clatter of expansion chambers.
Everything was unloaded and we set up our camp. The
remainder of the morning was spent checking out the scooters and
slapping the backs of old friends and meeting some new ones. The
only major dissapointment, was that the beer was not tapped when
we arrived, and wouldn't be till dinner at 8PM.
The ride took place shortly after 1:00, and I would estimate
about 50 bikes made the 18 mile ride to our destination -- the
bowling alley. Inside everyone was bowling or shooting pool. I
hopped over the Steak and Shake to have a small but expensive
meal with Adryel and Kelly from Atlanta.
Close to 4:00, everyone decided to head out and do some
swimming. A swimming area on the Merremack River was on our way
back so a sizeable group stopped and we took a dip. There were a
few people there when we arrived but they left shortly after we
entered the water. There were a few chicken fights, and Norm from
Detroit briefly "pantsed" his girlfriend. Aside from those, the
cold water on a blistering hot day was the major highlight.
Back at the campsite, we waited around for dinner to be
served and the beer to be tapped, while the Hardluck folks setup
the gymkahna course. Dinner was being prepared during the event,
and if I hadn't been so hungry, I probably would have payed a
little closer attention. I do know that Chris from Colorado won,
and I believe Stony from Canada was second. Other noteworthy
performances on the jump ramp were Guy from Chicago and The-Skin-
Formerly-Known-As-Tweety of Hardluck.
After stuffing our faces with pasta and spending too much
time in the beer line, the night fell and all the scooterists got
into their normal roudy mode. The games began with the tug of
war, and Arne and Lutz, our resident German scooterists, did
their bests to hype things up. Kickback and the Germans
challenged Hard Luck for the first pull, and of course we ended
up losing pretty badly. Lutz decided that being pulled into just
a mud pit wasn't enough, so he puked into it. Needless to say,
the rest of the pulls had a lot more riding on them. I can't
recall who actually "won" but I do know that at several times it
ended up being just a mud wrestling pit with people trying to
throw others in.
The next event was the baby pool races. The idea was to have
a rope tied to a scooter and have one person sitting in a baby
pool holding on, and to pull that person across a line in the
shortest period of time. Although the potential for accidents,
everyone was drunk enough not to care. I didn't think anyone was
going to beat Stony's Lambretta, but I think Joe from Atlanta
managed to. Tom and I were a little upset that we weren't in on
the action so we went and grabbed the small frames, Lindsay's 100
Sport and my Primavera and went against each other. Our bikes
wouldn't even pull the people out of first gear so, we had to
push them along. With the added "power" of the Primavera, I
managed to win. Of course, the next round wasn't so good -- A
Primavera is no match for a stock 200, let alone a midly tuned
one. I'm still not clear who ended up winning. Maybe someone
could let me know.
Flaming burnouts were next. There was gas, scooters, and
flames. What else needs to be said? Arne won the competition with
a burnout that had to have lasted 2 minutes.
With the games over it was time to turn to the beer and the
Tiki Bar. As time progressed, and a lull in the activities,
everyone decided that it was time for a naked ride. About 15
people stripped down and flew around the dirt track with nothing
but some legshields to cover themselves. It was great fun, and I
think that I was the only person that ended up wrecking and
scraping my bum. Ouch! There were some girls zooming around
naked, but certainly not enough.
Eventually, individuals took the stage and were placed on a
piece of glass, so everyone would know that their scooters were
not the only thing that looked nice. I crashed out around this
time, but I could still hear music playing and people screaming
well into the early morning hours. I hear that everyone thinks
Lutz should pose for Playgirl.
Scooterists began rising around 9 on Sunday in their normal
hungover state. The judging competition was at 11, so I did the
best I could to wipe off all the dust off my scooter. There were
some real nice looking bikes their, and fortunately for me, the
St. Louis people decided not to put their bikes in the judging.
Here are the results as I remember:
The restored Vespa 150 was raffled off, and I can't recall who
won, but it seemed that it was someone from St. Louis or that
area.
The rally race was set to go shortly after these events, and
since we didn't really have enough people from our club
interested in racing, Arne, Tom, and I, had to recruit Stony to
race. Unfortunately, his Lambretta had problems and he couldn't
ride it, so he took out The Beast. From the first leg of the
race, St. Louis was in the lead with Mike Taylor opening things
up. Arne was in second place (he claims that if his fuel tap was
open, he would have taken Mike at the first turn) and I dropped
us one more place behind after the second leg (I was riding my
Li125 and everyone else was on 200s so don't give me too much
shit). Tom kept us in third on his lap. Stony was still in third
on the last turn, and suddenly the scooter went to full throttle,
jumped into gear, and Stony went flying. He was out cold with
some blood coming out of his mouth when I got there. It was a
really scary site. He was out for about 10 mintues, and had some
minor memory loss. Last report I had was that he had a cracked
jaw and a concussion. Hard Luck won the race. Followed by the
Chicago people, even though Mo crashed at the finish gate.
All in all, it was great rally, with the only complaint being
that there wasn't enough beer.
