Travelling to buy an ex-AMA 600!

Cabin Fever is a debilitating disease for racetrack riders. As much as we might complain about the travel related hassle and expenses that go along with our sport, we miss those cross-country drives come winter.

Long, cold months of being stuck in your home town, county or even state can begin to seem unbearable when you're a motorsports gypsy.  The cure is a road trip. When TrackdayMag.com associate and Milwaukee resident Mark Pokrzywinski mentioned that he was interested in buying an ex-AMA Supersport machine which was located in Huntsville, Alabama, Senior Editor K3 immediately volunteered to go along for the ride. Time to start humming Lynyrd Skynyrd!

The trip began with adversity.  Seeking to save fuel costs on this long mission, Pokrzywinski had brought a Chevy HHR and a small, borrowed utility trailer instead of his usual fifth-wheel rig.  Mark pulled up to the TrackdayMag shop with a flat tire on the trailer.  It was down to zero psi but hadn't begun to tear itself up yet.  We swapped it for the spare, then aired up the flat to see if we could find a leak.  Oddly enough, we found no damage and the tire, now off the trailer, held pressure for the rest of the trip.  All we can figure is that when Mark had checked the pressures pre-trip, a bit of debris might have fouled the valve stem and allowed a gradual depressurization.

Now an hour late leaving and hoping that our flat hadn't been a bad omen, we headed for Huntsville.  Aside from a desire to slip through the various large cities on our route between their rush hours, time was of little concern to us on this journey.  How refreshing it was to cruise along carefree and unconcerned about having to be leathered up and on grid at a specific moment in the near future.  We'd be on Interstate 65 for most of the trip, which is essentially the same route that leads Midwesterners to Barber or Talladega.  For those with wanderlust, familiar roads bring back fond memories.  The bench racing in our tow vehicle was in high gear.  It's hard to believe how much you come to miss the company of other enthusiasts during the winter months. In the real world, most of us have nobody to discuss our passion with and therefore must keep such thoughts to ourselves.  On a road trip, racetrack riders can jabber about motorcycles and what it takes to ride them for as long as the journey lasts.

The miraculously warm weather that we've had so far this winter enhanced our southward trip substantially.  Clear blue skies and still-green grass made this drive a feast for the eyes of us mud-hating flatlanders.  Passing Exit 53, near Cave City, Kentucky, the life-sized T-Rex that stands guard at the entrance to Dinosaur World was a fierce black silhouette against a blood red sunset.  It was a Kodak moment for sure but the traffic was just too heavy for us to get pulled over in time for the shot.  Even without a picture, there are some images you'll never forget.  Later, as we travelled through the mountainous region near the Tennessee-Alabama border, we came upon a pickup/trailer combo that had pulled to the shoulder and appeared to be on fire.  We shot past and braked to a stop, praying that we'd only be needed for moral support.  By the time we ran back to the burning vehicle, it was fully involved and the trailer was beginning to ignite as well.  Thankfully, everyone was out and OK.  The truck's occupants were a young couple, their little girl and the weeks-old puppy clutched in her tiny arms.  We stayed until the police showed up, shook the couple's hands and headed on.  Upon their arrival, Law Enforcement's first move was to block the highway.  We'd parked our vehicle beyond the flaming truck and because we didn't leave for at least ten minutes after the road was closed, the next portion of our drive was spent on an eerily deserted roadway.  Some trips give you reason to count your blessings.

At the Alabama border, we simply had to stop and take a picture of the giant NASA rocket which is on display in the rest area.  You don't see one of those every day.  Well...  Maybe that depends on where you are.  We were on our way to Huntsville, a place where you can't help but see enormous space vehicles every time you turn around.  This is where all the Saturn boosters for the Apollo series of space missions were built and the town takes its rockets very seriously.  Pictures and models of them are in every gas station, motel lobby and restaurant in town.  The U.S Space and Rocket Center is a major Huntsville attraction and a part of its skyline that's impossible to miss.  Imagine a museum/theme park/education facility that has Saturns rising up like castle towers at either end, while a "Full Stack" Space Shuttle (The craft itself, plus the entire compliment of rockets and fuel tanks that sent it into orbit) and an SR71 Blackbird loom among the buildings that make up the complex.  Thankfully, we drove past this incredible landmark well after the city's peak traffic time.  One wonders how many gape-induced accidents have occurred on the highway there.

The next morning, we met Alistair Douglas and his father, John.  We'd asked around about these folks while deciding if it would be worth such a long drive to buy their bike and had heard nothing but good things about them.  The reports were all true.  In the end, we stayed a good bit longer than was necessary to conclude the sale, simply because we were enjoying their company.  The bike exceeded our expectations and the deal turned out to be even better than we'd expected, so we hit the road in high spirits.

Alistair had mentioned that one of his sponsors, Pit Bull, was just across town.  It seemed like a great opportunity to stop by for a tour, so off we went.  The facility was very impressive and while there, we got to see the new, top secret products that this company will be bringing out in 2012.  Look for articles in the future but for now, if we told you what we saw they'd have to kill us...

It had been a very eventful day and a half.  All that remained was the drive home.  While uneventful, the return trip gave us that much more time to talk about bikes and riding, now with the focus turned towards Mark's new toy and how much fun he's bound to have with it.  It never got old to look in the rearview mirror and see that lovely little bike bobbing along behind us.  At some point during the trip back, it was decided that this immaculate ex-racer would be used as the MotoBatt Batteries display bike at the Indy Dealer Expo in February.  TrackdayMag.com has agreed to supply a motorcycle for this purpose but the machine we've been preparing simply doesn't compare to the beauty that Mark picked up in Huntsville.  When we undertook this journey, we had no idea that we were heading to the spacecraft capitol of America to buy Mark a rocket of a different kind.  Every minute of the trip was an absolute pleasure and when all was said and done, we'd recovered nicely from the Cabin Fever that had been dragging us down.  Although no knee pucks were harmed during our journey, this racebike road trip had been exactly what we needed to break up the monotony of a Midwest winter.