When I think back to the most memorable road trip I've had, it would definitely have to be the beginning of my shorter-than-expected 2004 motocross season. I was a 19-year-old with nothing to lose, a passion for the greatest sport in the world and big dreams to become successful at motocross racing. I spent a year and a half plowing snow in the winter, mowing lawns in the summer, spending every night possible at the local YMCA to get in shape, and slowly saving up funds to build a full-blown racer. Come March, I had all of my parts in hand and was ready to build my Yamaha YFZ450. I worked until midnight for a week trying to get that quad together. Finally my Dad and I rolled out in our '89 Winnebago to head for Waldo MX near Gainesville, Florida, and would end up at the Gatorback GNC-or so we thought.
While we were driving through the Cross Bronx Expressway, the floor in the back half of our RV literally cracked away from the walls due to poor road quality, the weight of a fully stacked enclosed trailer and high speeds. As an "added bonus," we successfully punctured a hole in the bottom of the gas tank. We slowly limped down to Virginia leaving a long trail of leaking gas on I-95 South until the RV was almost completely broken in half. We found a weld shop that patched our cracked frame, while carefully avoiding the light stream of leaking gas next to the brave welder's head. Then back on the road headed to the Sunshine State, continuing to stick bubblegum onto the leaky tank at each stop.
We finally reached our destination in the middle of the night and slept through strong gas vapors in the parking lot of a local Walmart before getting a stern 6:30 a.m. wake-up knock at the door by two local police officers. They informed us of the gas leak and, of course, we both acted surprised and denied knowledge of this and assured the police that we would clean up the leak and head out. So we spread a bag of cat litter and got the mess handled then headed to Waldo MX for a day of break-in.
After riding the first session and taking a brief water break, I hit the magic start button only to find that the battery was completely dead and not accepting a charge! A talk with racer Harold Goodman revealed this was a common issue with early YFZs that had the wiring harnesses slashed down. Luckily, the local dealer had one battery left in stock, and we put it onto the charger after every ride from then on out. Finally it was Thursday and we drove to Gatorback MX (yes, still trailing 87 octane).
In what seemed like the end of our streak of bad luck, I was second out of the first turn in my first moto, quickly making it into the lead and opening up a 10-second gap by the finish. The second moto didn't go as well as I lawn-darted myself into the Florida dirt in the first turn, bending my steering stem down to the gas cap. Once we decided not to take our EPA disaster rig on the road to get home, we ended up renting a car and driving back to Massachusetts, leaving behind the heavily damaged RV along with my trailer to get repaired.
A couple of weeks later, thinking that our bad luck was behind us, my uncle and I drove down South again with a fresh steering stem in our trusty Suburban, which had never failed us, to pick up my trailer in Florida and head to Macon, Georgia, for the next national. Following a great weekend of racing we started our trek back north.