A Day or Two at the Races...

Okay, so my sister, Shelly, had some business that needed taken care of in Phoenix this last weekend, April 20th and 21st. So I offered to take care of it. In return, she gave me a ticket to the Nextel Series NASCAR race held Saturday evening at Phoenix International Raceway. Wow! Now, I'm not too big on NASCAR, after all, they have too many wheels, but free is free and you know me, ANY EXCUSE FOR A RIDE!!

So I overloaded the Buddy with tent, sleeping bag, slicker, clothes, tools and pretty much anything else laying around (including a scooter buyers guide) and at about 9:00 a.m. on Friday morning I bailed out of Cottonwood, chugging up the hill towards Jerome and ultimately Prescott. The little 125 cc engine just plugged right along in the (very) cool morning air. Just above Jerome I stopped a snapped a couple of shots of (if you look at the post just below this), in the left hand shot, one of the hairpin turns with some old copper mining buildings and equipment behind and in the right hand picture a view down between the cliffs into the Verde Valley wherein Cottonwood sits. Check out the twisty road I'd just ridden up! Love that ride!!

It got colder as I climbed Mingus Mountain in the cloudy morning, but we kept at it...keeping up with most traffic. Fortunately, there wasn't much of it. Although it was cold and cloudy and we were a little slower than normal, due to the extra weight, I was enjoying every second of this...the first long ride of the season! Over the mountain and then down, chasing the four-wheelers to the bottom. With the little SuperTrapp muffler growling happily, I motored through Prescott Valley and Prescott where I did my first fill-up. Point seven gallons. See if your SUV will go 50-some miles on less than three quarters of a gallon of gas. In the mountains!

Well, the wind decided to pick up, now. And a headwind for the most part. Bum'r. Anyway, we took Hwy 89 south out of Prescott and down, through Wilhoit, Peeples Valley, Yarnell and Congress. Somewhere between Wilhoit and Yarnell four Arizona Highway Patrolmen on their big ol' motorsickles passed me and with big grins on their faces gave me the thumbs up. I rumbled past them as they dined at the "Buzzards Roost" cafe in Yarnell. I have a picture of the place in the third post down (entitled On the Way Home) at the top there. Quaint little dive. Jes' Jim and I stopped there on one of my previous forays into the Valley of the Sunstroke. Once again I filled my tank in "Historic" Wickenburg. If you are to believe the signs, every town in Arizona is "Historic". To somebody. Somewhere. I think the scooter took almost a gallon that time. I called Jes' Jim from Wickenburg and got directions to his house. I got there about one in the afternoon and he and his lovely, charming wife, Carol and his delightful grand-daughter Olivia took me out to lunch. Pastrami on rye. Heaven!! I waved goodbye to my friends and took what has to be the LONGEST route to the racetrack from Peoria, AZ. that has ever been found. Easy to do when you aren't aware that there isn't a single road that goes through to anywhere. Many twists and turns and detours later, I stopped again for gas and got directions. Shoulda done that earlier! Got to the camping areas at the track at about 3:30. Over 200 miles today...

In the second post down, I have a couple pictures from my campsite. One has a great view of the light trailer and the porta-potties just across the way from my tent. Near the porta-potties was a good thing. I also discovered that when you only take up about a six foot diameter space, they don't charge you to park or camp! SCORE!!! The other pic from my tent-site shows a sea of vehicles and campers flowing out towards the track in the distance. I also discovered that while everybody else had to walk to the food centers or the merchandise concourse or wherever, I could just putt through the swarm of humanity on my scooter. I loved it. There were an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people there for this event. And most were on foot. I saw about a million bicycles, one Whizzer and two other scooters...one of which was a left-over from the '80's Honda Gyro. I hadn't seen one of those in years!

I cruised all over the area that night and went to bed listening to the soothing sounds of a kegger going on in the space next to mine. It rained most of the night, but my tent kept me dry and cozy and I had brought the cover for my scooter, so it too was dry and cozy.

Up the next morning and more cruising. Found coffee and doughnuts. Food fit for a god! Enjoyed a fairly cool day in Phoenix. About 1:00 p.m., my friends and fellow Scarabs Scooter Club mates from Tucson, Tim and Tina showed up. I had saved them a parking space, but their pickup was longer than my space, so they had to find one two cars down. They grabbed huge armfuls of "stuff" and I grabbed my camera and we took a tram down to the track. We spent a couple of hours looking at the merchandise and eating four and a half dollar hot-dogs and five dollar lemonades until the race started. They were in a different section from me, so we said our goodbyes (until the Skull Valley Rally next month) and found our seats. In the second post down there are two pre-race photos...one of the starting lineup with Jeff Gordon (the eventual winner) in the post position. The other photo shows a parachuter or paraglider or whatever they call them coasting down with a huge American flag. Spectacular! There were four of them and those guys put all four down within about 20 foot circle!

The first post shows the boys in the cars mixing it up, the next photo shows them flying by with flames shooting out the pipes. I didn't know they did that! I want my scooter to do that! Anyway, sometime after the first wreck and the second pitstop, I left. I didn't know what was going on anyway and who was doing it. Besides, they all had too many wheels. So I cruised the scooter around the evacuated camping area (everyone was at the race). You cannot imagine the number of people and campers that were there. If just boggles the mind. I'd estimate at least 4 miles from one end to the other. The final pic in the first post is from a rise somewhere in the middles of the R.V.'s, looking past a Saguaro Cactus into the sunset as the lights from the campers glimmer below.

After another night of the sounds of joyful partying, I arose before most of the others (I wasn't sleeping off a night of debauchery, wild potions and luscious maidens), broke camp, loaded it back on the Buddy and headed north. I found a pretty direct way through west Phoenix to Wickenburg this time. Maybe a map would have been a good idea... Anyway, fuel and biscuits and gravy in Wickenburg and I was on my way again. Uphill on an overloaded 125 cc scooter while battling a headwind (again) can be time consuming. I reached the town of Congress and looked towards the mountain I had to climb. Third post down, third pic shows what I had to climb...the other one was the view from near the top. That's all the pictures, kids.

It was a pretty uneventful (and slow) trip the rest of the way home. I climbed Yarnell Hill and various other hills into Prescott. More fuel. Then over Mingus Mountain, down through Jerome and into Cottonwood. Over 150 miles today. I figured my mileage for the trip home right at 80 miles per gallon. Uphill. And overloaded.

What a fabulous machine that little Genuine Buddy motorscooter is! I thrashed it completely, running hard for over 400 miles in three days, fully loaded and over mountains, hills and deserts and it never once even missed a beat.

I can hardly wait for my next trip!!!

C-ya...ride on!

--Keys