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The Racing Chronicles:
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| As you know James Jones’ was perhaps at the head of a very small class of
novelists who conveyed all you needed to know of World War. While you may justifiably have
preferred Wouk, Uris, or even gasp Mailer there is no debate sleep had to be put off while
reading about sex in Hawaii. What you may not know is that both Wouk and Jones wrote less
popular but more revealing books about post war authors. Your Chronicler was amazed to
learn in Youngblood Hawke that a woman would actually pay a man to write. However, it is
Jones’ story of a blocked writer, soldier, and gamblers return to his mid-western
town that is the step off for this Chronicle. The film version of Some Came Running was
filmed in Madison, Indiana. In one of the opening scenes Frank Sinatra checks into the
local walk-up hotel with the bath down the hall thus snubbing his philandering older
broker banker. When he looks out the window he sees Smitty’s Bar behind which the
permanent poker game is conducted. Now, in reality Smitty’s Bar was on another
corner. However, from the exact window in what was in your Chonicler’s youth The
Central Hotel you could look across the street and about three stores up and you would see
the Central Pool Room-ten cents a game, no one under thirteen permitted and no spitting on
the floor. Most importantly behind the locked door in the back was the place of this
boy’s dreams-the two and four dollar unlimited raise continuously running during fall
tobacco sales seven card stud game. You had to shill for days on end at Smiley’s
six-card game just to get this stake for this bloodletting. In the course of the story Frank, Dean Martin and Shirley McLaine, then working in the brasserie factory, take a road trip to Terre Haute. Now, in the first half of the last century Terre Haute was what passed in the mid-west for Gomorrah replete with after hours and underage clubs, red lights and gambling. Why would a sensitive tormented writer so stoup? Because as Frank may not but should have said, "because players go where they hold the games." Sometime ago and for reasons unknown the mid-west forswore against all forms of fun. As such Terre Haute is no longer run by Tuffy Hamilton and even before yours truly went off to a higher form of fleecing the Sheriff was no longer dropping by to say hello and have a shot at the back of the Central. Perforce, there are still highs for small prices at bike races, and it is to those who forsake their posture on the Saturday corners of Broad Ripple to whom this Chronicler is endeared. The endless series of tedious circuit races mercifully ended at Ft. Wayne where Puck Rizzo bridged to and then attacked the break and won a two up sprint in the forty- mile downwind finish. After three months of watching the winter wonder-boys of the various Girls Car Teams that have propagated like teens on prom night win most of these races while at the same time lamenting the poor competition and lack of money befitting their appearance it was a smiling face that made it’s way to the start line at the Terre Haute Criterium. Emily and Tracy Morris and their parents got the city to shut down the streets, put up money and awarded ten primes a race. Who shows? No Girls Car Teams, no Indy Flyweights with or without Dick Tracy Two Way Radios, no Speedywheelwobblers, no Lafayette Rednecks; a couple Estrogen Lime Slimes; no Link and Julie from the MOD Squad, no Blood Diseases. No the field was left to Pucks, Shakes and Smacks. What perchance would compel these spring tour hardened road slaves to pass up on what would surely be cake for the chiseled? Were the Handjobs reconnoitering the tricky no corner Fairgrounds course for discarded fried bread wrappers left over from the midget races? Were the Wheelwobblers putting on a free tire changing class at the Bike Garage? Were Link and Julie not permitted to go without a chaperon? Were the absent Estrogen Lime Slimes off looking for a new color scheme? And were the Child Care Champions off looking for a way to buy more equipment that will never touch a curb and while we’re here shouldn’t the name really be changed to Ladies Only what with Mich and Janey being the only ones who zip up? The Morris family put on a fine race and next year you should go and find out. Okay, it’s after July 4 and even the Chronicles can understand the Water World and Country Music demands that attend this sacrosanct. Besides all the players were no doubt resting for the Dayton Pro-Am: one kilometer, forty laps, six corners, forty dollar master primes, prize money, crowds, young women in small clothes. The Lime Slimes get day passes; the Skipster comes to continue kicking yours truly; Shake comes to smooze with the pro Shakes and is wearing his new Tim Tyler Super Saturn Master Team Clothing. As proof that fast isn’t smart let’s take a look at the thirty plus race. Tim Tyler’s Girls’ Car Super Master Team has like half the players including two sprinters: the Shake himself albeit on a leg and a half after his Cat III tumult at Eagle Creek and the effervescent Mr. Toalson. So the Tim Tyler Super Team puts two guys in a four- person break with the fastest man being the Guatamalen Armadillo, Gus Carillo. So, the Tim Tyler Super Master Team Guy with the earring gleaming under the July sun makes certain that he is in front every time they pass the finish line least he not get his name announced each lap. Unfortunately, neither he nor the other Tim Tyler Super Master Team Member attack a single time and of course Gus easily wins the sprint but lost the all important number of times announced as race leader award. Regardless, the feature race was the forty-plus. Please note that this was without doubt the absolutely fastest race of the day and probably in the history of racing. Ronnie the Rocket went fast long enough to drop everyone except Lime Slime Bedwell, Grant, Scott-let’s ride all night across France for fun-Dixon, some guy who has won a thousand national level time trials and of course the hero of the story, Self. So, we’re riding around at about sixty clicks and Dixon says "yippie, we’re having fun now and takes off for Roubaix or wherever" and then there are five and Self is all to content with the prospect of sixth. So, we slow to fifty clicks while the time trial guy checks his position in the window of the scorers van and Self moves by accident to the front whereupon Grant advises "keep the hell out of the way and what are you doing here anyway." So, tell him that based on the performance of the Tim Tyler Super Master Team in the first race that he has lost his coaching license and couldn’t tell anyone what to do but that if he would move forward Self would take his favored position. Well, the conversation was something along those lines. Anyway the time trial guy gets his skinsuit straightened and proceeds to lead the race for the entire last lap until he gets dropped. Dixon and Shake make it one two for now re-deemed Tim Tyler Girl’s Car Super Master Team and prove again that being smarter is not always better than being faster but it has its place. As for the time trial guy he is still walking around in his clothes three hours later and so in the interest of journalism ask him why he kept leading out every lap and he says he figured he could use his crack bike handling skills to drop everyone in the last corners which is at least tangential proof of a corollary to the Chronicle thesis that a time trial is not a bike race. Anyway, Dennis did the pro crit until he had a flat and got put in a hundred yards behind the field. Dennis is now a professor at Cal State in So Cal and we will miss him. For thirty- one years Otto Wenz has found a way to put on bicycle races for three weeks in July and the Stupid Week Tour of the Maritime Bay Cities remains the best way to spend any Summer day. Arrived in this midst of madness just in time for the Schlitz Park Brewer Hill wheeze and puff. Ninety times up the hill with five hundred dollar primes. Some pros lap the field and then another group goes away and then Cadel Evans who is the size of a small girl and who was apparently on recess rides across and then laps the field and bridges to the next break and loses the sprint to a guy on the Pro Women’s Car Team. Of course the real fans waited until the next day for the beginning of the Master series. The Smacks were in full force and ready to engage the Wisconsin Body Sculptors who in the spirit of team unity now sported matching scarlet eyelid spikes and reportedly had Naired their underarms. Allied against these formations was a group of Independents who ignored the inherent contradiction of an independent person joining a group. Each day Smack Mozart Moore and Body Beautiful Johnny Von would follow each other around unless they were in a break in which case their teammates would follow each other around. This reached its pinnacle at Manitoc when Mozart and the Sculpted One took turns seeing how far they could ride each other off the back and of course yours truly sacrificed his own race in the interest of observing these rear guard tactics. This chaos could not continue and it was great relief when the Head Smack himself arrived on Monday complete with two way Captain Marvel radios and his selfless style. For two days at the redman’s revenge Bingo Casino the Head Smack Doering’s calming influence carried over to the Piano Man, Fleck and Mark-by the way earrings are passe. Nevertheless, even the Head Smack is not of infinite patience and after four days with no victories and a win at Casino by CHIP’s Black who warmed up for Stupid Week by completing RAM the Head Smack decried that restraint is only so much a virtue and this is to say that the rest of the week was spent with foreheads on stems. As such the only accurate race reports could be obtained by hanging around Dixie’s Massage and Gossip Tent. A master who can’t remember the combination of his bike lock has the acuity of a teenager recollecting his first awakening when it comes to extolling his performance. So, with thanks for the idea to Professor of Exercise Science Jim Martin here is the mercifully distilled version personal account of every Master Race in history: Well, I didn’t want to go too hard early but then I didn’t want to be too far back either and so I just rode at the front the entire time even if it meant I had to ride in the wind all the time which is not my normal style but is something I can do when I think it is necessary and well it seemed necessary here as well you know a lot times guys will attack when you are out of the wind and then you have to go around everyone just to get to where you should have been. And then on lap fourteen-‘Dixie could you use more magic China Oil that you can buy only on the internet, on my right rigid maximus muscle which is cramped from riding in the wind all that time-‘ I saw Camelback go around me and then Poultry went after him and then the guys from Texas and you know it was just time for me to have at it even though I had eaten a little too soon before the race to really get the maximum benefit from six to one carbo to whey protein meal bar that sponsors us as I thought I wouldn’t need maximum force until lap sixteen, but you know I just sucked it up and laid it out and put it on the line and I motored up and like two Smacks and the guy who Dares everyone followed me which was okay as I had followed one of them the other day on lap 32 at Kenosha when I thought I had lost a frame decal and normally I wouldn’t have let them stay with me but I figured it was okay. So, we were all together but not really together so I attacked before we were really together which was right in the dogleg on Lap 22 and well I got away but not really away so I let them come back and then I attacked myself because I was going too slow to really feel good about myself and then well it was like 34 when I realized I hadn’t drunk my hydration system dry and well that could have really hurt as there were two laps to go and so at that point I essentially just said well you’ll have to suffer and it was probably just as well because if I did drink everything I would probably have lapped myself and you know how that messes up the results. So, then we sprinted and I lead out the sprint from behind and everyone just followed me but that is okay because I’m just here to help others reveal all they know about themselves and well they have me down for fifteen but I think I was first but you know it’s not really worth protesting. And did I get to tell you about yesterday. Master racing at Stupid Week is the way it should be every week, fast, fun, no hiding, and humorous. The Chronicles extend thanks to the Chezwizze Body Shops Boys and particularly Jeff and while we’re here congratulations to art dealer and long time Chezdink Jim Winter for winning master nats. In the pro series Rizzo showed again that he is way too good to be a Puck. At Manitoc he attacked right in front of the Bucky Badger Tavern, deftly bounced off the drunk who stepped out to tell him he was ten seconds back and bridged to the break all before the lady playing Shania Twain could finish her karaokee song and went on to finish sixth. Then at the Bingo Casino he was fourth in the road race and he was eleventh at Alpine Valley and in the money somewhere at Holy Hell which brings us to this week’s Cat III story. At Holy Hell the feed zone was at the top of a short hill which false flatted for four hundred meters. Well, the Cat III mothers and girlfriends were determined to feed on the steep part of the hill. So, the Pros are going like twelve and the IIIs make up their minute and decide to pass the on the hill. The girls and mothers are all over the road and of course everyone falls down and that is what passes for fun at Holy Hell. Oh yes, Pucks Richie and Bott raced the crits and won money. They are not turning pro. Now, Self was ready to go the Hooterville Master Nationals. Sainted Mother came to the rescue and checked herself into the hospital and besides Self was not about to give up watching the Kathy Lee’s farewell show. By all accounts the courses were great, the races were great, the taco salad in a bag, corn dogs and elephant ears were enjoyed by all and everyone except Mr. Head Shake Olympic Hero Kent Superman Bostick had a swell time. It seems Mr. Olympic Hero had signed up for the Tandem race in his comeback from his broken leg and determined that he was okay for the Time Trial. Alas, he had not registered. Some context is necessary. Racers were to be permitted to register at the site for the road and crit events but not the time trial. Billy Bedwell and Professor Murphy show up and are told they cannot register because the Feds didn’t bring enough numbers. Now, Bedwell finally got in because Molewyk was not using his number as the Feds wouldn’t let him race in his wheelchair; however, no one was apparently ready to be hit by a truck for the Professor and he was not allowed to start. Anyway, according to the article in the Linton Gazzette the Olympic Hero felt that given the pitiful state of cycling in the United States his Eminence should have been given dispensation. Now, Mr. Olympian’s hubris aside the Chonicle position is that given the pitiful state of racing anyone who was silly enough to go to Hooterville should have been permitted to race or indeed begged to race. Regardless, you will no doubt have to read about this in Velonews and the article will be to the effect that it was a real shame that this classy event had to be overcast with this unfortunate transgression. Yours truly was brought into this fray by a Hackpack member’s concern that for some reason he was finding himself insensitive to Mr. Olmpian’s plight. Here is the Chronicle’s response:
As a final note on Nationals congratulations to Kevin, Jane, Mich, Daddy Mercer, Moll, Skippy and Billy and all other Chronicle foils; and a special to Dave Hixson whose fifty plus victory thankfully proved that the best riders will always win. With history being only prologue it is fitting that we conclude with a return to Madison which is exactly where Tim Tyler took his floating criterium show last Thursday night. On the banks of the Ohio next to the Junior High that yours truly was asked to cease attending a combination of amateurs and pros raced on the opening night of this hundred -thousand dollar series. A great course, a Mayor who wants racers back, people sitting on their porches cheering and even better no Feds. Tim took this race non -USCF, honored ABR Licenses and saved six thousand dollars in sanction fees that he could give back to the racers. For those who think that you have to be Fed to have a race note that the same pros who were at Stupid Week were present in Madison. The series will continue for two weeks. Go. While getting ready to leave advise Darling Wife of need to go by Monk’s Pool Room. Bad idea as it is now an antique shop. Darling Wife says its just as well Frank is dead and by the way "don’t you think it’s time to stop acting like your fifteen and why don’t you stop wasting your time on the Chronicles and write a children’s book. You might make some money and you would surely be writing to a more intelligent audience." However, she still insists on red lining the M3 and won’t ever buy a Girl’s Car and for that alone her misguided views on bike racing can be overlooked and is just another reason why it is always nice to go home. Ride fast and take chances. Bill Stone |
