Skull Valley Rally III

This last weekend, May 19th - 21st, was the world famous Scarabs Scooter Club Skull Valley Rally III. And YOU missed it! C'mon, now...get it together! Yeah, I'm talkin' to you, Steve!



Anyway, I blew out of Cottonwood at about eleven Friday morning, heading over Mingus Mountain once again towards Prescott. I filled the tank just before leaving to see how far I could get. So, over the mountain, through Prescott, south on Hwy 89, past Wilhoit, through Peeples Valley and Yarnell. Finally, as we rumbled into Congress at about the 96 mile mark I stopped for gas. 90.6 miles per gallon. 175 smiles per gallon. There was a young man filling the tank on a pickup there who asked me about a hundred questions about scooters, so being the unofficial scooter emissary to the unenlightened, I patiently told him that yes, it could do about 65 and cruise at 60 mph. And yes, it gets 90 mpg. And yes, I paid about $2500 for it brand new. And yes, I rode all the way from Cottonwood and ain't gonna stop until I run into Phoenix. Finally we parted...me with a full tank and on a mission and him with a thoughtful look on his face.



I grabbed Hwy 60 in Wickenburg and plowed southeast in search of the Great Sticker Patch known as Phoenix. I found it, too! Next on my agenda was food, so I stopped at a Burger Whopper in Surprise, Arizona for some grub. After eating, I climbed back on the Buddy and headed out. As soon as I hit 62 miles per hour, the engine quit. I futzed with the throttle and the engine kicked back in again. It did this several times...just up and felt like I'd hit the kill switch (which, by the way, I did NOT). I nursed it down to Glendale Avenue in (of all places) Glendale, Arizona...a suburb of Phoenix and followed Sandy's directions to hers and Damn Dirty Dave's house. Sandy and I visited a little and I made aquaintances with a dog and a couple of rabbits while she got ready for the Meet-N-Greet to be held that evening at Hollywood Alley (www.hollywoodalleyrocks.com) in Tempe...clear on the southeast end of the Valley of the Sunstroke. About 30 miles away! Along about six, Jes' Jim showed up and the three of us climbed on our scooters, Jim on his Piaggio BV 500, Sandy on her Bajaj Chetak and me on the Red Baron. With Sandy in the lead, we flew through traffic (she's FAST), across overpasses, through intersections and I just don't know what-all, but eventually we ended up at the club. The Buddy only cut out on me twice.



At the club I renewed aquaintances with Cheese and Potatoes (Irving and Cristian Rubio), met our own personal DJ's; Victor, Marble, Scott and Ben. Anyway, they did a fabulous job. The Meet-N-Greet pictures are in the first group of photos just below. In order, they show the DJ's, Scott, Victor, Marble and Ben; the second one has a casual Monkey on the left and Sandy on Damn Dirty Dave's lap. Number three is Irving and Cristian. Cris is the one with the grin. Four shows Elvis (also known as Tryg) and Chicken Little (Hot Tomato). The fifth one shows Brandon on his way from wherever he is...he just ran out of beans before he made it. And Hump showed up and Skimch and Rick and...well, just all the right folks! We had a great time! After hanging out for a while and buying a rally pack, I once again found myself chasing Jes' Jim and Sandy back to the Sandy/Dave house where I was spending the night. We stopped for gas since I was about out...I hadn't added any since Congress. Sandy tried to get gas, but neither she nor Jim or I could get the seat up on her Bajaj. It has a Vespa seat and the latch just wasn't cooperating. She had enough to get home, though. Barely.



We once again pursued our high-speed passes over the streets of Phoenix and found ourselves at the Sandy/Dave house. Jim headed home and Sandy went to bed, leaving me to dig out my tools and try to fix whatever needed fixed. First, I got the seat up on her Bajaj. It's amazing what a hammer can do! Then I pulled the seat bucket on the Buddy and commenced to disconnect the carburetor. I pulled the bowl off and cleaned the jets. Didn't look bad, but better safe than sorry. Then, since the problem only happened at high speeds and felt like fuel starvation, I adjusted the floats up a little. Put it back together and IT STILL RAN!! Never had another problem, either! About that time Damn Dirty Dave and Irish Tim showed up. Tim was in from Tucson with his Stella (yes, the same one that wiped out in front of me on the Something For Nothing Rally last September) and was also spending the night. I moseyed on to bed and Irish Tim and Damn Dirty commenced working on Dave's ratted out Elite 250 until about 3 a.m.



Next morning, Isaac on his Buddy and Shannon on her Stella showed up and joined Damn Dirty, Irish Tim, Sandy and I on the ride over to the breakfast place from whence the ride would start. In the second batch of pics, you'll see four of the scooters in front of the Sandy/Dave house just before we left. They would be, from the left, Shannon's pink Stella, Isaac's Buddy, my Buddy (the Red Baron) and Tim's Stella. The rest of the pics were taken at the breakfast place (called, appropriately enough, The Place). The fourth picture shows Tryg in the forground, left. Behind him is Isaac and to the right of Isaac is Sandy taking a picture of me. At the far right is Shannon. There were 19 motorscooters (and a Honda Leadwing somebody sneaked in) and two vehicles in our group. Jayme and Ian were there, and Jenn, Scott's wife, and Mrs. Monkey (Angie) and all the others I've mentioned heretofore, plus probably others who escape me right now...Then...WE'RE OFF!!



What a kick it is to ride in a big pack of scooters! We stopped to gas up to the amusement of all onlookers. I figured that all of us together probably spent less than one of those onlookers spent filling the tank on their SUV... We had a fabulous ride from Phoenix up through Wickenburg and north. Not one of the scooters broke down, nobody had ANY problems at all! Nineteen scooters just buzzing happily up the highway. Okay, here's the breakdown of all the scooters that were in our group that day; 5 Stellas, 3 Buddy's, 3 Bajaj's, 2 Vespa GTS250's and one each of the following; Honda Elite 250, Vespa P200, Yamaha Majesty, Piaggio LT150, Kymco People 250 and a Vespa LX 150. And EVERY one of them kept up!

We motored on up through Congress, Yarnell and Peeples Valley without mishap. THEN came Kirkland Junction, where we make a left to go through Skull Valley. I was fourth from the front and made the left, where we pulled over to regroup. At this time, Hot Tomato rode up and said something to Sandy who took off, heading back to the actual junction at a dead run. Suspecting something was wrong, I spun the Red Baron around and howled back to where the rest of the pack had stopped. Damn Dirty Dave was down.

Apparently, his air intake was working loose and he looked down for a moment to brace his foot against it and when he looked up, all he saw were brake lights (for the corner). He grabbed handsfull of brakes and at that very inopportune moment, he hit a little rock that was in the road. As the front-end unloaded over the rock, the wheel locked up and when it hit ground again (still locked), the bike flipped into a high-side crash. Dave went down head-first. When I got there, he was awake and asking questions..."What happened?" "How's my bike?" and just as those questions were answered, he asked them again. Yep, he had a doozy of a concussion! He had a fair bit of road-rash, but by far, the worst injury was to his head. I checked out his helmet and it was ground down so far I could push my finger through! Tryg and Irish Tim are both EMT's, so he was in good hands. Then some guy stopped and prayed in tongues over him. NEVER turn down an offer to help...you never know what will work! Then the local fire chief happened by, then about 6 highway patrol cars showed up with an ambulance. THEY in turn called a helicopter for him to take him back to Phoenix. He was loaded in the chopper and his and Sandy's scooters were loaded in Ian's pickup for the trip back.

In the third set of pictures, the first one is where we say goodbye to Damn Dirty Dave for the day, the second one is where he's being worked on by the EMT's...check out those stylish drawers! The line-up of scooters is shown in the third picture, followed by a picture of what's left of the Elite. In the last picture, we're on our way again...only 17 scooters, now.

Along about 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon, Jes' Jim led us on a back road to a place on the outskirts of Prescott called T-Lo's Ultimate Off-Road (www.mogsrus.com). He is a purveyor of Mercedes Unimogs, Pinzgauers, and the like. He also has a great collection of mopeds! He took all who "ain't skeered" on a demonstration of what a 6-wheel drive Pinzgauer is capable of. And lemme tell ya, his place is well named...Ultimate Off-Road!! That beast did stuff I didn't think was possible within the laws of physics!! What a ride!! Hot Tomato and Jughead (Justin) supplied a lunch for us of wonderful cold-cuts and breads. The picture group entitled "At T-Lo's" has two pictures of some of the mopeds followed by two pictures of a chopped moped they made. It was wild! It has a shovel blade for a seat! Why did I post 2 pictures of the same thing? I don't know. Don't know how to remove one, either. That's the same reason for the fifth picture being the same as the first. The last picture is of a custom 1930 Rally race car. It sports a Ford flathead V-8 and an underslung frame and some fabulous bodywork. T-lo took Jes' Jim, Jar Jar and Hot Tomato for rides. HT came back with tears streaming from her eyes and a grin that took about 3 days to get rid of. T-lo estimated the value of the car to be around $100,000!!

A local scooterist with ties to the Scarabs showed up to finally meet us. Thanks for showing, Kyle! We got back on the scooters after packing up lunch and went our separate ways to our rooms. I bunked with Irish Tim at the Vendome Hotel...a bed and breakfast place. VERY nice! If you're ever in the neighborhood, I highly recommend it. The piano player doesn't do enough boogie-woogie, though. We hung around a bit, sipping coffee (me) and a couple of brews (Tim), then moseys across the courthouse square to Brian's Irish Pub just off of Whiskey Row where we met the rest of the group...except Jes' Jim who had gotten sick. T-lo met us and we followed him to some place for dinner that he recommended. Good food, great company! Got a phone call to let us know Damn Dirty Dave had been released and was at home. Still a little fuzzy, though. Most of the group filed out, heading back to Brian's. I stayed and visited with my good friends Ian and Jayme who had shown up late after delivering Sandy and DDDave's scooters to their house. We eventually met up with the crowd, though. Most of 'em were well on their way to getting well plowed as a three-piece rockabilly band pumped them up! Good times! I think it was around midnight when Irish Tim and I went back to the room. He woke up at about 3:45 thinking I'd inhaled my sleeping bag. A couple throw pillows nailing me in the head shut me up. Sort of.

Sunday morning we met at the cafe in the St. Michael's Hotel for chow, then across to the Courthouse park for our raffle. A very nice old lady of probably 70-some years saw the scooters parked and rode over on her pristine 1986 Honda Elite 250. DDDave's might have looked that good sometime...I kinda doubt it, though. I called my dear friend Jenn (of riding her GT200 to Denver fame) and she and Frank showed up. The raffle went off without a hitch and our wonderful sponsors showed what generous people they are! I even won something!! I won an S/X rear bag from Scooterswest! I was planning on asking my wife for one for my birthday in June!! SCORE!!! Hot Tomato won a Corazzo jacket, ...in fact, I think EVERYone got something! Damn Dirty Dave called during the raffle and expressed his displeasure (on Skimch's speaker-phone) at not getting to win anything. Tryg told him nobody else won a helicopter ride! End of THAT conversation! The last set of pictures shows the Red Baron sporting it's new bag in the first pic, followed by a photo of my dear Jennifer. The third is a shot of the scoots with Tryg and his Buddy in the foreground, next to Hot Tomato by her Majesty. The fourth is another shot of the line-up with Rene's Elite 250 in the street. Once again I repeat myself in the fifth. Once again I repeat myself in the fifth. Wait...didn't I just say that???

Time for me to be on my way. I shook a bunch of hands, got more than my share of hugs, fired up the Red Baron and went on my way. I got home with no problems, unloaded the scooter and flopped in my chair with a cold coke to think about one of the best weekends ever!

452 miles. 4.99 gallons of gas. Average mileage for the weekend: 90.58 miles per gallon. Average throttle placement; Wide Full Out! I get more impressed with that little Buddy every time I take a trip!

Well, I'm going to bed...
C-ya...ride on!
--Keys