NANOOK DOES DAYTONA By: John RiceThe weather gods were really laughing this time, rolling in the celestial aisles, holding their omnipotent sides, wiping their all-seeing eyes and trying not to make unregal snorting noises as they gasped for breath. I had been the object of their meteorologic sport before, but this time they'd outdone themselves. For months I had planned to leave for Daytona on March 8th, early in the morning. As the day grew nearer, I watched the weather like a nervous Singaporean stockbroker, looking for signs of the crash, but all reports were too good to be true. On the 7th, the weather was perfect, 70 degrees, sun shining and cloudless blue spring skies. I polished this, packed that and, like a kid anticipating Christmas, went to bed to try to sleep. And woke up to snow. Not just a little dusting, such as we'd had this winter, no, this was SNOW, wet, thick and coming down furiously. The temperature was in the low 20's. My back door was frozen shut. I was not happy. Jay called from E-town at about 6am, confirming that there was no need to hurry here. I stewed in my own juices until he arrived at 10:30, both of us still determined to make the trek. The TV reports of jackknifed tractor-trailers convinced me that an early morning do-or-die effort was more likely to result in the latter than the former, so we tried loading the bikes in the little Ford Ranger pickup. Not a good plan. The design engineer obviously had given insufficient thought to carrying two loaded Beemers, something I'm sure they'll remedy as soon as it is brought to their attention. We briefly considered a motorcycle version of the Iditerod, with harness and runners and shouts of "Mush, you huskies !", but the only dog around was Alex (Official breed, "Canis Ridiculous") and she didn't seem the type. More black mood, muttered curses--and the distinct sound of laughter from the clouds. At 2pm, the TV talking heads announced that the Interstate was clear, with only "patchy ice and snow" and that was good enough. We zipped ourselves into our various layers (making the Michelin man look like a recent Jenny Craig success story) and headed out, into the slush. As we splashed up Richmond Road, I had visions of our bikes disintegrating under us from the corroding salt effects as we proceeded south, leaving us somewhere in Georgia, seated on the asphalt holding just handlebars. Down I-75 we went, threading through the trucks, eyes peeled for anything that looked slippery, but pleasantly surprised. The "polar hands" covers and electric grips were keeping our hands quite comfortable, even though the temperature was still below freezing, and our electric vests and rainsuits (for the slush) left us warm and dry. As always, the incredulous stares of our four wheeled fellow travelers made for some entertainment. We smiled and waved back, just as if we had good sense. Jellico Mountain was the first major obstacle, but we were saved by something that ordinarily drives me nuts. The mountain had snow, with more coming down, but the big trucks were going up side by side, crawling in first gear and making certain that no one else could get around. For once, that was just fine with me. We weaved in their tracks, avoiding anything white, and made it to the top without incident. We droned on till dark, making it to within about 75 miles of Asheville before chickening out at the thought of "black ice" after sundown. Our lodging for the night was at the "Family Inn", though probably not the one immortalized in "Third Rate Romance, Low Rent Rendezvous". We were shocked to find we had selected what must be the only truckstop motel and restaurant in the south that had no- I repeat, NO pie. Not even a cobbler. I'm sure their license to f ry food in axle grease, serve yesterday's coffee and play country music will be revoked. At daybreak we again entered the fray on I-40. This Interstate is probably one of the prettiest in the system, with real curves and wonderful mountain scenery, but on this morning we weren't really able to look around. The constant streams of big trucks were moving along at 65 or 70 mph and at each curve or bump, huge sheets of ice and snow would become dislodged from the top of the trailers and hit the roadway, shattering into hundreds of pieces which skittered along the pavement like enemy tire-seeking missiles homing in on our contact patch. We missed most of them, but the few that found their target certainly got our full attention. When we joined I-26 south of Asheville, the road came down out of the mountains and both the weather and the scene changed dramatically. The snow disappeared from the side of the road, the sky was solid blue and the temperature was definitely on the rise. From here to Florida was a straight line of concrete, occupied by fungible cars and trucks and interrupted only by identical interchange villages containing the same fast food and gas stations. My mind wandered often as it searched for some kind of amusement, often taking its most maddening option, the Song Fragment. Why, I will ask a neurologist sometime, does the brain seize upon only a piece of a song, one to which you don't know the rest of the words, and above all, one you hate? A week earlier, while scanning the radio dial, thirty seconds of some sappy lachrymose pop tune or whining "My girlfriend left me just 'cause I act like a Neanderthal and so I'm gonna drink till I puke" ballad goes by but like Instant On radar, the brain locks in on it and it haunts you like a speeding ticket on your driving record, embarrassing and permanent. Then when your attention has no where else to go, no escape, it shows up. This phenomenon may account for those unexplained accidents when a motorcycle suddenly shoots off a cliff for no apparent reason. After twenty eight repeats of the same verse, it seems a reasonable option. We got to The Sunshine State border just ahead of sundown, stopped for the obligatory orange juice, and set sights for the Bulow campground. It was dark when we arrived, but the Spacecoast Beemers had a quite efficient system set up and before we even realized it, we'd been registered, signed up for the rally and were on our way back into the overflow area to find a campsite. We hadn't fully expected the sand pits along the way and the first few were, shall we say, pucker-inducing experiences which only enhanced our desire to find the first flat, or even sort of flat, space available for our tents. We came to an unceremonious stop when one showed up in my headlight and were nearly run over by two other bikes which were following us. They, silly fools, thought WE knew where we were going. We were camped about 40 feet away from the access road to the campground which we soon learned was also used as the Daytona Speedway Annex. Bikes of the loud persuasion raced up and down this narrow fence-lined bit of road all night long and into the wee hours of the morning. I slept with earplugs in which reduced the noise to merely intolerable. Friday morning we stood in line for the showers at 5:30 am, got our stuff together and headed for town just as the first rays of dawn were piercing the Florida sky (we never did see the campground in daylight!). The track area was nearly deserted at this early hour, allowing us to ride in and immediately park near the big tents of the International Motorcycle show just outside the grandstands. This was gadget-junkie heaven! There were vendors of every stripe and description hawking products from leathers to wheels to bizarre things like "quick-draw biker holsters" to magic potions guaranteed to make your old bike run like new. At the Bates Leather booth, I met Peter Egan, one of my long-time heroes, just browsing through the merchandises if he was a real person, not the legend we know him to be. Jay bought a Vetter jacket at half price and we both signed up on enough mailing lists to keep us in catalogs for the rest of the year. Manufacturers had brought samples of their wares as well. Jawa and CZ were there, bikes I had not seen since the 70's (though it looked like they hadn't changed any) MZ with its new Rotax-powered singles and of course the Fast Guys, Moto Guzzi and Ducati had hot-red bikes to lust after in our hearts. Triumph had its full complement present including the new retro-Thunderbird, that promises some of the panache of the old Trumpets in a bike that will actually run most of the time. A hit of the show was Triumph's alarm system which shouts out in a veddy British accent, "Attention--this Triumph motah-cycle is being stolen---Attention!!" repeated over and over until the thief repents his or her evil ways and begs for tea. I fell in love with the Russian Ural sidecar exhibit. The bike is so absolutely agricultural, so wonderfully crude, like the puppy that's so ugly it's cute. The welding looked like a Junior High shop class project and the paint slightly worse. The brakes are old-style mechanical drum jobs operated by huge long levers more reminiscent of a steamboat than a motorcycle. One has the impression that a trip longer than across town might be a risk-taking enterprise, but great fun nonetheless. And, from the looks of it, whatever trouble did befall the beast could be fixed with a ball-peen hammer and a visegrip--there's nothing more sophisticated than that on it. The distributor said he was looking for a dealer in Lexington. Any takers? The BMW show was separate from the rest in both space and concept. A huge tractor-trailer formed the backdrop for a stage, flanked by enormous speakers blaring hard rock and roll (which Jay identified as typical of German boombox fare) . To this cacophony gyrated extraordinarily athletic and coordinated young people, dressed not as the modern dancers they certainly were, but as ActiveLine Motorcyclists--which they probably were not. One could not be other than impressed however at such strenuous exercise in clothing ostensibly designed to keep body heat in. It made me sweat just to watch, but they seemed unfazed. Oh yes, there were some bikes there too. Daytona isn't all goodies and gyrations, however--there are races held there, though that almost seems to get lost in the panoply of other things to do and see. We went to the track for that afternoon's card, the 750 Supersport, Legends and 250 International and found the place nearly deserted. It is so huge that the few hundred people there were far from a crowd--more like a few BBs in a boxcar. The road course sends the bikes screaming right by the grandstand in a furious rush of speed and noise, then into the infield where they're immediately gone. From that point until they come back out on the banking at the other end of the stands, the racers are only sounds and an occasional glimpse of a helmet. Then they blast out of the last infield turn, shaking with acceleration up onto the high bank, just for that dramatic moment in your sight, and they're out of reach again. The far side of the three and one-half mile tri-oval is so distant that the specks on the thin gray strip could be bikes, Greyhound busses or pac-men, it's impossible to tell. The frenetic announcers keep up a staccato commentary, who's in the lead, who's dicing with whom, but until the numbered fairings flash by again, one must take it on faith. It's sort of like going outside, sitting on a bench in the wind and listening to the race on the radio. It was the Legends we'd come to Florida to see and, despite the problems of scale noted above, we weren't disappointed. I'd watched these men in the 60's and 70's when we, I and they, were young--they were fast and smooth then and I ...well I was neither. Except for the size of our respective leathers, nothing's changed a bit. My racing idol, Gary Nixon, was leading the series, Eddie Mulder, the old TT race pro was looking good on the pavement and Roger Reiman, racing with bifocals, was just as quick and precise as he had been when he used to pitch a Harley flathead sideways at the Charity Newsies half-mile those many years ago. On the warm-up lap, two racers whom I believe were Don Vesco (former land-speed record holder) and Don Emde (former Daytona 200 winner) collided in the chicane with no injury except to their race-prepped R1100's. To keep them in the show, they were supplied with stock blue oilheads, which provided unintended comedy to the proceedings. The race start brought the phalanx of bellowing pearl white boxers ripping past the stands, crowding into the first turn side by side on their sticky race rubber---followed at a long distance by the two blue stockers, sounding in contrast like a couple of overgrown Electroluxes cleaning up behind the parade. That night we detoured on our way back to Bulow to find dinner on Flagler Beach (our only sighting of the ocean on this trip) and selected a likely-looking restaurant right on the waterfront. We spotted a line waiting for tables but when we asked about the wait, we were told it was for a large party and we could go on in. Jay and I strolled past the head of the line, only to discover the "party" was Charlie Norton, Sean Quinn, Mike Gregory and their acquaintances. Mike said they'd been there for a week, and asked "Did you all have any bad weather?" No, not much. Back at the campground and rally, we perused the vendor tents, acquired our mandatory rally T-shirts (It's Florida law, I'm sure, that one cannot leave the state without having consumed orange juice and purchased a T-shirt), then wandered back to our tents for the night. We'd decided that we could not face the interstate again and thus would sacrifice our return to the Daytona scene for an early start in the morning and a two-lane return trip. Dawn broke (without discernible damage) as we were finishing our packing up. During a brief lull in the access-road drags we headed out and made our way to Florida 100. The RA magazine had suggested that there might be a curve on that road, but there wasn't, not that we could find anyway---only endless pine forest interrupted occasionally by a house sitting in solitude surrounded by white sand, scrubby brush and water. The blacktop was bordered on each side by a ditch which I eventually realized was part of an immense waterway, keeping this area drained and dry enough for the dwellings of man to exist, however temporarily, in a place that obviously didn't want them there. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"--and also of land in Florida. Let down your guard for a moment and the swamp and kudzu will have their domain back without a trace remaining. Somewhere near the Georgia line we spied a restaurant with a lot full of "real" pickup trucks--always a good sign--and pulled in for breakfast. The waitress, to quote Harry Chapin, was "a big ol' friendly girl", the menu featured fried everything and there was, wonder of wonders in the south, a "No Smoking" sign. I ate my usual wretched excess of a breakfast and as I went to the counter to pay the check, my seat was taken by a huge man, a sort of bullet-headed Jabba the Hut style character who proceeded to tell us about his old days on a Harley and the wife who used to ride with him and the travails they had endured back when men were men and Harleys were the only real two-wheelers. I began to wonder, did all the old Indian, Henderson, Ace, Brit bike, etc, etc riders die out first? Why is it only Harley riders that tell you the When I was Young stories? However this fellow, though grandfatherly in both age and demeanor, was far too big to debate so we just nodded in all the right places and left. Route 441 used to be, I'm told, one of the main North-South highways before I-75 sucked the life out of the rural tourist trade. It is still a wide smooth blacktop expanse, not much in the curve department, but now the traffic is minimal and the abandoned buildings far outnumber the active businesses. There are old Tourist Cabin motels, signs torn and swinging in the wind and little weatherbeaten buildings with "RESTA....." or "GOOD ...OD" in faded paint across the front, grass and weeds taking over the small parking lots. Between the towns there are dozens of perfectly smooth white sand and dirt roads that go off into the pine woods, always making a turn in the first 50 yards or so to disappear into parts unknown. It occurs to me that a person could spend a week exploring these paths without ever leaving one county. Finally we can stand it no further and take one, just to see where it goes. The PD will get a bit sideways on the hardpacked dirt, if pushed just right, but the thought of the distance yet to Kentucky restrains any such shenanigans. This road doesn't go very far before it rejoins 441 (past one house, whose occupants are out on the porch wondering what in the heck these strange-looking 'sickles are doing back here) but the itch has been scratched and we can motor on in relative peace. The road is just starting to get interestingly curvy when we reach Commerce, Georgia and call it a night. The Bulldog Inn provides quite adequate accommodations, though the barbecue place next door is seriously deficient in the decent beer department. We walk all over the nearby area, finally concluding that here, "imported" means from St. Louis. Morning arrived with earmuffs on, leaving frost on the bikes and a definite chill in the air. We left at about 7am, headed for Helen, Georgia to experience a bit of Bavaria on our boxer twins. Helen is an old logging and lumbermill town which, I've been told, began dying out many years ago as the jobs and trade went elsewhere. City leaders met one day, according to local legend, at a coffee shop and were lamenting the decline when one began talking about remaking the place as a "little Bavaria" to take advantage of the beautiful mountains and forests. He started sketching his idea on a napkin and within a short time the fever had caught and reconstruction was underway. Today, Helen is a recreation of an Alpine village, or as near as one will find on this side of the water, complete with real German restaurants, quaint little shops and side streets of cobblestone, ending in little cul-de-sacs just like they do "over there". Breakfast was at the Wooden Shoe, operated by a lady who assured us she was Dutch, not German, and announced that the Dutch apple pancakes were especially good that morning because she had talked to them in her native tongue while they were cooking. While I cannot comment on the liklihood of physical effect on frying batter by linguistic application, they were remarkably fine eating and not at all like typical American restaurant fare. The mountain roads north from Helen are all good, no matter which
you choose. We went straight ahead on Rt. 17, needing to make up
a bit of time and then headed due west to get to Tennessee Rt.
68. We had decided to skip the Deal's Gap run this time, preferring
not to be there on the first sunny Sunday morning after Daytona.
The trip had been really good so far and we didn't want to end
it by being punted off into the woods by some teenaged crotch-rocket pilot trying to shave three-tenths from his personal best time
up the mountain. Anyway, Rt. 68 is a hidden treasure in this part
of the country, snaking its way down the hills through the copper-mining
country between the more heavily travelled 27 and the infamous
129. (At the Georgia border, it becomes route 5 and soon offers
Merchant's Hope, a recreated version of colonial Williamsburg perched
rather incongruously in the red clay hills. We didn't have time
to go that way on this trip, but I recommend it to anyone going
south. The food is tremendous, especially the peanut soup--trust
me.) We ran into pockets of traffic on this morning, people who
apparently didn't appreciate the adrenaline-producing potential
of the road quite as much as we did, but for the most part it was
wonderful. It ends all too quickly at I-75 where we reluctantly
rejoined the Concrete Wasteland to get around Knoxville. |