Wild Motorcycle Tales

Wild Motorcycle Tales

Here's a great story from Curt Patterson. Got your own story? Send it to me.

Scrambles

Many of you have never heard the term, but Scrambles was my first try at organized (sort of) motorcycle racing.

Back in the mid 60s, the tiny town of Pinehurst, Idaho held a Scrambles race most Saturday afternoons. We couldn't do it on Sunday because Smelterville held the Hillclimb on Sunday. You did not need to join anything, or sign anything. All you had to do was show up. There were two classes: 250cc and below, and the open class.

I finally wore my dad down and he let me enter. He rode the Yamaha 100 Twin -- yes, it was street legal -- from our house to the "track." Mom hauled all of us kids, dogs, and beer in the Scout.

The riders meeting was total chaos with kids chasing dogs, dogs chasing kids, and moms swatting kids, but essentially the rules were simple. Cross the hayfield, hit the old skid trail into the woods, ride the ridge to the top and back down the draw to the hayfield and the finish line and do it five times.

The tricky part was staying on the right side of the ribbons across the field so that fast and slow riders were not racing head on.

The riders ranged in age from 7 to 70. Just to make it interesting, sporting, or perhaps more deadly, anyone over 16 started in a second row, facing the wrong way with engines off. There were perhaps 10 of us under 16 and twice that many over 16. So, we young'uns lined up, sort of, behind a rope held by two volunteers who would drop the rope on a signal from the starter.

Fathers scurried up and down the line, making last minute checks to see if a kid's bike was running. Dogs darted across the field. I saw the rope twitch and all hell broke loose.

Being on the outside of the front row, when I prematurely popped the clutch, the guy holding the rope was yanked into my bike because he had the rope wound around his hand and it was now between my fender and front tire. I fell down, he fell down, the kid beside me fell down, most of the rest tore across the field while the starter yelled, "WAIT, WAIT, GODDAMNIT WAIT!".

They managed to get the kids back in line, Dad picked up me and the bike while the rope holder glared at me.

Dad put the left side mirror in his pocket and said, "Give 'em hell, kid."

I stood on tiptoe revving the 2-stroke, teeth clenched in grim determination. The flag dropped. The rope holder beside me threw his end of the rope and ran backward. Bikes rocketed from the line. I stood on tiptoe revving the 2 stroke, mouth open in confusion because the bike wasn't moving.

As the first of the senior riders whipped past me, I slammed the bike into first gear. In retrospect, I should have used the clutch. This would have given me a bit more control but with the throttle wide open and no clutch engaged, the Yamaha launched upward like a missile, my death grip on the handlebars giving it a pivot point as it stood up, twirled to my right and chased the rope holder into the crowd of lawn chairs, beer coolers and spectators scrambling for their lives.

The rope holder shrieked as he grabbed the handlebars from the opposite side, tripped over a cooler and held on to wrestle the bike to the ground. I pushed the helmet up off my eyes in time to see Dad put down his beer and lift the bike off the hysterical rope guy. He set the bike upright, pointed it across the hayfield, kicked it into life, stepped off and leaned the bike toward me.

"Give 'em hell, kid," he said as I crawled back on.

The other riders were disappearing in a cloud of blue smoke as I roared onto the field, clinging to that bike for dear life. Halfway across the field, I speed shifted into 3rd, holding the throttle wide open with my right hand, trying to push the helmet up off my eyes with my left just in time to see a small creek disappear beneath the front wheel.

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