Midlife Supercamp

November 15, 2009

This post is way too long, and I realize only a handful of you will read it, but writing it was hard enough; please don't ask me to edit it, too.

I got the idea of enrolling in American Supercamp over the summer while sitting on my ass with a broken foot from a street riding collision.

American Supercamp? What’s that?

No, it’s not an ultra-patriotic sleep-away camp for Eagle Scouts; it’s a well-respected motorcycle school.

And for all those who told me not to break anything while I was there, Sorry!

Rather than discouraging me from riding, the street accident merely turned my attention toward the wide variety of other riding options -- the kind that didn't include competing for room among the congested jumble of impatient Brooklyn drivers out for blood. When I checked the school's schedule, I saw that there was a class in Delaware a few months down the road -- plenty of time to cancel if my foot didn't heal the way I hoped it would -- and so, with my foot still in a cast, I put down a deposit and signed up.

Well-padded, on a closed course, in the dirt, on little Yamaha 125's (with governors on the throttles no less)—Good, clean fun—Who's in?

My friend Daniel (Mastermind behind the infamous annual Mad Max Strafing Run to Floyd Bennett field, and owner of several pretty rad bikes ) said he was game. Like me, Daniel didn't have much dirt-riding experience, and we were both keen to try something different and learn some new skills. Daniel and I used to share the same garage and had gone riding together a few times, but other than that, we didn't know each other all that well, but so what? We were brothers in bikes and certainly got along well enough to share a ride and a room for a couple of days.

On Thursday evening, after work, Daniel swung by my place to pick me up. I threw my stuff into the back seat of his king-cab Ranger and we sped our way out of Brooklyn, through Staten Island, down the shiny, wet New Jersey Turnpike, and deep into the second-smallest state of the Union, pulling into the town of Harrington, Delaware, about 11 P.M. and heading straight to bed.

The next morning, Daniel managed to eke enough batter out of a self-serve waffle machine to make half a waffle while I waited for an English muffin to pop from the slowest toaster east of the Chesapeake Bay. Once we finished breakfast, we went back to the room to get geared up -- padded bike shorts, motocross pants, knee pads, elbow pads, boots, the works -- and then drove across the street to the state fairgrounds to find the equestrian show ring where the class was held.

Twenty-six students were split into three groups based on experience. The youngest student was a ten-year-old natural talent who made me wish I'd gotten started when I was his age, and the oldest was a guy who bragged he was turning sixty-three next month. Honestly, I'm not sure the sixty-three-year-old was the oldest guy there, but he was the oldest one to reveal his age.

When it was my turn to sign in, the instructor, Danny Walker -- nicknamed Danny Talker, a gregarious forty-six-year-old kid with more energy than everyone there combined -- asked me, "Ever ridden in dirt before?"

"Not really," I said.

"Not on purpose, anyway, right? Ha! Okay, we'll start you off slow. We can always bump you up later."

"Starting slow sounds about right," I said, choosing not to mention my recently broken foot or how it still swelled up from time to time.

Daniel, was put in the beginner group, as well, along with the only girl in attendance and her rockabilly husband. The rockabilly husband took a spill early in the game, in one of the first couple of drills, and by mid-afternoon of the first day, he was out of commission with a bruised foot. "There but for the grace of god go I," I thought.

 As the day progressed and the drills became more challenging, people started falling left and right — literally — and I knew it was only a matter of time before I joined them. When I finally did, it felt good to get it out of the way. Whoo hoo. yee haw, et cetera, and so on. I was having a blast.

In the meantime, the school's part-owner, Chris Carr, was showing by example, riding the same little  Yamaha TTR125s as everyone else, but making us all look like a bunch of three-year-olds trying to ride our new tricycles. I lost count of how many times Chris Carr's rear wheel splattered mud in my face -- though I felt strangely honored each time it did.

The techniques they teach run counter to most of what is taught at a street riding school or in a road racer class. The idea in dirt track is to slide. And the key to sliding is body position. Rather than leaning into a turn the way you would on the street, we were taught to keep our weight on top of the bike, sitting on the outside edge of the seat, while the bike slid beneath us. This little detail will figure prominently in the story shortly.

The TTR125s weighed less than 200 pounds, but regardless, by the end of the day, we were whipped from tossing them around. (Not to mention the bikes tossing us around in return.) We headed back to the hotel to change and grab a quick shower before heading up the highway to find the "Legendary Roadhouse," where we stuffed ourselves stupid with ribs, loaded baked potatoes, and beer. The place was packed, and the food was good, but we never did figure out what made it legendary. In any case, to avoid passing out at the bar, we left as soon as we were done eating.

The course was redesigned for the second day. Rather than a simple oval, it was now a U-shaped TT course, incorporating both left and right turns as well as a longer straightaway. When we arrived, Chris Carr could be seen puttering around the course in a tractor, prepping the dirt. When he finished with the tractor, he continued to prep the track by riding several more laps at slow speed in a minivan.

"Check it out," said Dan, "The Fastest Man on Two Wheels in a minivan. Awesome."

Chris Carr is not only a legendary flat-track racer (not legendary like the rib joint, but understandably legendary) with numerous championships under his belt, he's also, literally, "The Fastest Man on Two Wheels" -- having officially regained the title this past September by going 367.382 mph in a Streamliner at Bonneville.

After posing for a class photo while we were still all in one piece, we were turned loose for a final session -- trying to put the techniques together and have it all make sense in a few final laps.

About the third lap, Dan got competitive and tried to pass me, but I wouldn't have it and shook him off in the straightaway. He caught me again in the same place on the next lap and took me when I flubbed a right turn. We were having fun. A yellow flag meant pull into the pits to regroup before changing direction.

 I was feeling good, and things were finally starting to click. Even going clockwise on the track, which usually felt odd, seemed no big thing. I made a few nice slides, and did a passable job of fighting old habits until my final lap, when I lost control in a turn and instinctively tucked in, throwing my weight to the inside and pile-driving my shoulder into the dirt.

 *Crack*

 "Fuck! This isn't happening. I didn't just do that. Motherfucker. No! Fuck. Oh man, that fucking hurts—" I could go on and on -- and I did -- but you get the idea.

 Faces started to take the place of the murky, bluish fog that clouded the periphery of my vision.

"You okay?" said Danny, the first face I saw.

"No. Fuck, I think I broke my shoulder. I heard a snap."

As other faces became clear, I watched them speculate.

"Ever dislocate your shoulder before?" Danny asked.

"No."

That made me the odd man out. Every hovering face was attached to a body that had dislocated a shoulder at one time or another. "I've done that." "Yeah, I've done that." Even my buddy Daniel had done it -- though in a snowboarding accident.

"Should we try to reset it?" one of the faces asked, as they tried to help me sit up.

"No, I think he'd better have it X-rayed," said Danny.

Good call.

If anything was dislocated, it was my mind. As they helped me sit up, everything around me stretched this way and that. "Don't rush, no one here is in any hurry—" It felt as if my wing was being ripped off by a hungry giant as they helped me stand and then led me to Daniel's truck. "Breathe," said Danny. "It's really important to control your breathing."

I knew he was right, and I tried my best not to hold my breath while uttering obscenities through clenched teeth. "I think I'm going to puke."

"Puke if you have to," said Daniel. "Don't worry about the truck."

I held it together.

I nearly passed out as I entered the ER. None of the walls were straight, eyeballs floated out of pancake faces in the waiting room and hovered around my head, my body stretched out in all directions as if caught in a plastic moment of perpetual explosion. My shoulder felt like a bubbling cauldron of undiluted pain filled with the tortured victims of a million schoolyard spills. The admission secretary was utterly stone-faced, yet kind enough not to make me sign anything.

All that was before they hooked me up with the IV meds. I don't remember a whole lot that happened once they did. People might find this surprising, but I don't like pain killers, but the pain was so far beyond any kind of "mind over matter" mumbo jumbo that I just let them do what they wanted to do. They cut my shirt off—a squirt of clear liquid into my vein—my arm went cold, my neck tensed up like I swallowed a gallon of soy sauce, I gasped for breath through my eyes and exhaled a tornado out the back of my skull. "I don't like this," I said, and said it again and again until the rush settled and my head became a toy boat in a milky sea. 

X-rays were taken, I know that much.

"I'm gonna puke," I said as soon as I sat in Daniel's truck and prepared for the three-hour drive home.

"Don't worry about it," he said, handing me a fistful of clear plastic umbrella bags that he swiped from the hospital's entrance. "Use these."

I did. I used them all.

Bring on the airport metal detector jokes, because my shoulder needs surgical repair. More hardware. I asked Deborah if she thought that by spending so much time on the computer — specifically my old titanium laptop — if I was being assimilated, converting my bones to titanium screws one by one.

She said no.

Deborah is doing well for those who have asked. I won’t be riding anytime soon, so the whole “selling the bike” discussion hasn’t happened yet, but when it does, it won’t be pretty. In the meantime, she’s being very patient, helpful, supportive, and all that good stuff.

Speaking of patient, helpful, and supportive, I never really got around to expressing what a lifesaver my friend Daniel was after the accident, collecting my things. driving me to the ER, wheeling me around, helping me get the boots off my sweaty, rank feet, listening to my opiate-induced nonsense, driving home while I puked and gagged and littered his truck with bags full of bile. “I guess we bonded on this trip. eh, Dan?” I said as I tied shut another bag.

I’m not sure he answered me. He may have just rolled down the window for some fresh air.

This operation is going to be a slightly bigger deal than the previous one; it’ll last a little longer and will use general anesthesia. I’ll most likely be getting something similar to my foot screw — an intramedullary nail down through my arm bone — though I might be getting some plates, too, we’ll see. One thing at a time. I have to see a zillion doctors first. My general internist, my endocrinologist, a neurologist (did I mention the numbness in my hand?), as well as undergo a CAT scan. Sure, why not add it to the list? Haven’t had one of those before.

I’m a little stressed out, but I’m eager to get the ball rolling. The sooner the operation, the sooner I heal.

In the meantime, how the fuck am I going to pay the rent with my left hand when my right hand is the moneymaker?

That is a serious question, by the way.