Nothing says fun like Pee'n Blood

I was looking at a web site and this story pop'd in my head. It was probably about eight years ago now and me and many of my friends had gone to Carlise PA for a car show. My Friend Frank and I ran an online magazine at the time and we were there for their online coverage. Other then the location that really doesn't have much to do with the story. But I figure some background builds the story up.


Frank and I were up there with about 25 of our friends and we had all booked rooms at a Quality Inn up there. That in itself is another story. Come to think of it, every year we went up there it, it resulted in at least a handful of insane moments. But this was our first trip up to Carlise and it was pretty hectic. We had a booth to setup, we had made stickers to hand out, and helped our friend John get his stuff ready as well. He runs Speedesign, one of the biggest graphic shops on the East Coast. We did the setup thing and then hit up Bob Evans for some grub, it was getting late and we were all thinking about heading back and crashing until someone saw "it". And by "it" I'm referring to most bestest go cart track you would ever be blessed to drive on.

Now, if you have partaken of the joy that is go carts, you know how fun they are and how much more fun a slick track is. But usually a slick track is just a big circle and you mainly just drift around the circle, which is fun but nothing compared to this course. Our large group charged across the grassy field and made our way over to the tracks. At first we thought the course was a standard street course. But no, this was the most awesome slick track ever. It had at least 8 turns, some of them incredibly tight. Plus a pretty long stretch that took you past the pit area. There were 26 cars and their was actually 26 of us there, awesome! The whole track was ours.


As we stood there waiting in line we watched the other people driving and the course looked like it was indeed quite slick. We also heard the GC conductor (guy that worked there) going over the "rules" of the track. No Bumping, No Crashing, when the yellow light comes on you have one more lap, when the red comes on pull into the pit. What the hell, that doesn't sound like fun, no bumping or crashing? No, that just won't do. We were next and this is about the time that the smack talk started. People saying I'm going to beat you, I'm going to lap you. I laughed, "you may just do that, but my goal isn't to win. It's to put you in the wall." And there is was, the decision was out. This was going to be a no holds barred slaughter fest. We also decided that rules were for sissy's and we all agreed that when the yellow light turned on we were all going to go nuts and do donuts or whatever so our "last" lap never ended.


Our turn, we pile in and people go diving for their choice ride. I was in the 2nd row next to my boy Frank. Everyone is in and the guy is walking though "his" rules and then starts the countdown. When the light turned green the carnage began. We didn't even make it through the first turn, 8 cars piled up and people were already facing the wrong way. I got through the pile and mashed it, 1) I knew there were people on my butt and 2) I want make ramming speed. I made it through the first lap mostly unscathed and was now coming back into the first pile up. Off to the side I heard the GCC yelling " NO BUMPING! " but really what I had in mind wasn't really considered bumping. I lined up on a kid named Kevin (aka Smokey, and it has nothing to do with drugs, his POS car just smoked like a champ) and bored on in. I hit him in the rear wheel area spinning him around again, I saw his whole body slam over, I smiled with pride. Thankfully my momentum keeping me moving, but not for long, my impact slowed me down and left me out there a target for someone behind me. I got rear ended right into a guard rail and was being pushed along. The other car shot free and I mashed it, sitting still was certain death.

I shot into the hard S turns and saw my good buddy Smokey again, so off I went. I smashed into his right side and actually ran him into another guy (Lance), which wasn't good for him as he went head first into a guard rail stopping dead. Me and Smokey just laughed, but our team ended there and I spun him out high speed police style. He turned around just to have John crush him. Off I went, I was ahead of most so I was now trying to survive the last turn. There were a few girls out there with us and I passed one, I had promised them all I wouldn't crash them. Too bad Smokey's girlfriend didn't reciprocate and she smashed into me hard as I made it to the straight away. Lucky for me I was ahead of her and her collision didn't spin me. LAP 2, I shoot past the pit and GCC guy, he's screaming now " What the hell are you all doing?! " I don't know who yelled it but from behind me I heard " Having Fun! ".

I make the first turn and as I head into the S turns there's John. Dead stopped and sitting by the rails. He sees me coming and his eyes get huge, he's a sitting duck and he's expecting my attack to be ruthless. But for some reason I felt pity in my heart. I laughed and went at him but swerved at the last moment, putting a scare into him but the relief was visible. Though it was only visible for about 3 seconds as Frank barreled into him full bore. I guess he didn't feel he could pass up the target of a wide eyed John. The collision was so hard that it actually sent John up on to the rail. No small feat as John is no small feat himself. The shock his body took was painful to watch so I can only imagine it was quite painful to receive. The distraction cost me though and I got spun out by Lance as soon as I passed the carnage. He clipped me good and I ended up stopped facing the rail myself. One of the workers (not GCC himself but a helper ) ran over to free me up. As he ran up he was laughing pretty heartily, " You guys are crazy! " he said as he tried to right my cart. He had just freed me when someone else came blasting in smashing me in the back. I launched away almost taking his foot with me. I just waved thanks as I shot away.

I caught up with John as we came around the final turn, both of us were recovering from the solid hits we had just taken so we nodded our agreement of truce. I was just planning on making it to the straight to recover before jumping back into the fray. That plan went out the window as soon as I saw Lance ahead of us. I wanted revenge for his hit and Lance for one is a nut and two a smack talker (well I guess that is actually 3, Revenge + 2). It was on, I motioned toward Lance to John and he caught on immediately. I went in first caught him hard on the front section of his cart spinning him, right behind me John came in hard crushing him T Bone style. He forced his car over at least 3 feet and put him halfway over the guard rail (these rails are only about 4 inches high but as the carts are flat on the ground, it's quite impressive). Since I had only forced the spin I kept going or at least tried to. I put the pedal down but the cart just died. Looking around in confusion I saw that everyone else was having the same issue. I then noticed the GCC jumping up and down screaming at us " That's it, that's it you are all done! I'm going to turn your carts back on, bring them into the PIT! " He turned the carts on and then turned on the YELLOW light.

That was a mistake, of course he didn't know that but that was all we needed. Everyone went nuts, people doing donuts, some going backwards and I saw 2 people head to head just mashing the pedals. Everyone was laughing loudly at our cleverness, well not everyone. GCC flipped out screaming again and this time ran out into the track. "Pull in the pit, pull in the pit!" I guess we decided we didn't want him to have a heart attack so we stopped our freak out session and started to head for the pit. As we neared it I realized that the pit lanes were separated by little orange cones. Little orange cones that weren't attached to anything. I was near the front of the pack so only about 3 carts had come in already and I figured I'd end the course in grand fashion. As soon as I got into the pit I slammed on the brake, pulled the wheel hard right and went plowing through the cones sideways. Cones were everywhere and I mean everywhere which was awesome but that wasn't the worst of it. I was now all blocked up in the pit area and that caused a whole new pile up. Cars were facing every direction and jammed up completely. Nice.

I was drawn back to reality pretty quickly as GCC came running over " You A$$holes! You are out of here, you, you and YOU! " The last "you" was me, he was standing there pointing right at me. All I could do was laugh, " Dude they are only Go Carts ". He didn't appear to feel the same. We started to hop out of our cars and headed for the exit. The people that were waiting in line where laughing, cheering and clapping "That was Awesome!" "You guys are crazy!". Sweet, we had an audience.

As we all huddled up after our expulsion from the track some of us were a little bummed. We had bought 2 tickets, not that we were really worried about the money but we wanted to get back out there again! So that's when we decided our banned status didn't include the normal track. We walked over and gave the GCC there our tickets and he gladly let us in to which we all cheered. This track was normal (non slick) so we couldn't get to crazy. But that didn't stop Lance from yelling at the slick track GCC and then giving him the finger. Yup, we made ourselves a nice impression at the Go Cart track. After our race was done we all went back to the hotel and crashed out. It had been a long day and now I was sore.

The next morning while taking a shower I noticed my back was real tender. I looked in the mirror and have a big ol bruise on my left kidney area. Wow, that hurt. But it only made me think about last night and start laughing. I got ready and headed out of the bathroom still laughing. Lance was standing there, "what's so funny?". I pulled up my shirt to reveal the bruise. John looked over "Oh that's a good one". Lance smiled, "this morning when I got up a p1$$ed some blood, I laughed too". Yup, something isn't right with that boy.

Sunday was not fun day

Sunday morning my wife and I were planning on going to the Outlets to get her some cloths for the summer. Before the trip up to Lancaster PA I wanted to get in a ride so I got up early and was out the door by 8:30 or so. I should have stayed in bed.

I went down to Fait Ave to get the little steep climb in then headed back to my normal loop. Adding that little bit to the ride appears to have been a bad idea as it put me on a not so cool timeline.

I was shooting down Delvale and started to climb up Sollers Point Road. I was looking right at the yield as a car was pulling up and was making sure they were going to stop. They stopped, so I turned my head back around in time to see a car pull out of the grass on the right hand side of the road. I started to yell but it was too late, I swerved as fast as I could but I was going about 15 mph and he was backing up quickly. There was no way I was going to make it around him.

BAAAAM! I slam into the trunk of the car and go flipping over it. I got some good hang time and remember seeing car, ground, sky.. car, ground, sky. I was yelling out something but I don't recall what I was saying. Thankfully I tucked and rolled and didn't hit my head (and yes I was wearing a helmet, no scratches on it at all so I'm pretty sure I didn't touch head to pavement). I checked my limbs and all seemed to be working, sore, but working. I had a gash on my right leg and road rash on the left leg. My right hand was hurting along with my hips and shoulders.

A car drove by and a lady asked if I wanted her to call 911. I should have said yes.. I don't know why I said no I'm ok. I wasn't ok but figured it wasn't so bad. But I was pretty stunned, I haven't been hit by a car before and flipping over one to land on the ground is a new experience. I was shocked by what was going on. Two black guys got out of the car (the one that pulled out in front of me), they appeared to be in their early 20s and checked their car. I was trying to get up but was having problems as I was sore and with bike cleats on I was slipping. One of the guys helped me up and the other guy picked my bike up trying to fix the chain. I told him not to even bother, the bike was totalled. For a link to all the pictures :http://picasaweb.google.com/sincain/BikeAccident#

The guy gave me a ride to my house which was only about a mile away. Once we pulled up to my house I asked him if he had insurance. He replied " no ". For one it's illegal in Maryland to drive without insurance and two my road bike was now destroyed. "Dude, my bike costs about five grand. And now it's destroyed" to which he replied "Man I'm sorry". I got out of the car and leaned my bike against my porch. Came back and pulled out my phone. I gave him my name and phone number and he said he'd give me a call next week to help me out with some money. I expected him to give me his information but he just got back in his car. I didn't want to get into any confrontation as I was bleeding, sore and standing in my squeezers. So I just snapped a picture of his license plate. I figured that would do it for me. It's a TEMP Tag so I really hope they can find it.

I carried the bike into the Garage as it won't roll (The wheels are so egged they won't fit through the brakes even with the release open). Went inside and leaned the poor shattered Orbea against the wall and hobbled inside. Now for the tough part, steps, I knew this was going to hurt. I slowly climbed up the steps and walked into our bedroom, my wife was still in bed and mostly asleep. She mumbled something at me, not sure what she said but I replied "I just got hit by a car". Guess it took a second for the information to process as she slowly looked at me. Then in a burst of action she shot out of bed and went into a fit of "Oh my god!"s. She decided I should go to the hospital but I wasn't sure. I was still so hazy things weren't making much sense to me. She said we'd go to one of "those" places instead of the Emergency Room. "What?" .. I eventually figured out she meant Patient First but all I remember saying was " I don't even know what you are talking about". My brain wasn't working at peak performance that's for sure.

Angela got me a Vitamin Water and as I sat there drinking it I started to clear up a bit. Then I started to get angry. Why did I not let the lady call 911 for me? Why did I just let the guy leave? What am I going to do about my bike? It is now smoked. Getting angry at the time doesn't really help but I couldn't help it.

We head for Patient First. I got X Rays and a Tetnis Shot whoot! The nurses cleaned the cuts and wrapped me up, the Doctor told me there wasn't anything major wrong. At least that's good news. All those falls in the woods came in handy, I'm good at falling. People don't know this but falling is an art, and I'm a master. I've done it enough I should be good at it by this point. The Doctor gave me some 800mil Advil as I turned down any harder pain meds. I'm not a fan of getting loopy.

Now the fun really begins. I call the police and the insurance company. I officers arrive and take the report. The insurance claim is filed and now I have to wait to find out what's going to happen. Its been about four days so far and most of the medical stuff has been handled and all that but I still haven't heard whats going to go on about my bike. Will it be under the uninsured auto or my home owners and what do I have to do. I'm pretty much in the dark right now when it comes to what's going to happen about me replacing my bike. I'm healing but my bike is not. From all this I've come to realize a few things.

1) I thought bikers/cyclists got no respect while just riding. But it is nothing compared to what happens when you are in an accident. No one takes the cost of a nice bike seriously (even the cops). When you say "my bike" people think of a $50 Wal Mart special and the rest of the conversation then turns to amusement. Why are you making such a big deal over a bike? It's at that point I want to choke a beotch out.
2) 90% of the people out there truly don't know we are suppose to ride on the street. Riding on the sidewalk is illegal, it's for pedestrians. Driver's Ed? Who needs to know the rules of the road? Really.
3) There is nothing in place to recover your bike cost. There is no policy that you can take out to cover your bike in the same fashion as a car. Any vehicle that rides on the road should be treated as an automobile or a policy needs to be available for them.
4) I miss my bike.

Hopefully I get some information on my bike soon. Thankfully I'm starting to feel better. Today was the first day I didn't do the crazy hoppy dance when I got in the shower. Yeah, it still hurt but not so much that I couldn't stand it. I'm moving faster, I've gone from a 80 year old with a bad hip to maybe a late 60's with a peg leg. My goal for this weekend is to be down in the 40's! Maybe still with a peg leg though .. ARRRRGHHHH !

Razor Scooters are the Devil ...

I don't require a bike to bust myself up .. I can pretty destroy myself with whatever is at hand. In this case it happened to be one of those damn Razor Scooters. It was about eight years ago I'd say and they had just come out so they were something I hadn't messed with. When I first saw the thing I thought it looked pretty lame but boredom can make almost anything look fun.

Some friends and I headed up to a paint shop that my friend's car was at. I was pretty big into cars a decade ago or so. Ouch. That really seems so long ago haha. But anyway.. we would trick out our cars and go to races and shows. Was a good time to run with a pretty good group of people and just hang out and BS about cars and what not. This was before Fast and the Furious. Then every little kid went to Pep Boys and put a muffler on their Mom's car and thought they could race. Just in case you didn't know this .. Yellow graphics increase your horsepower, Red increases Torque. And you don't even want to know what some flames can do!

But anyway back to the story. We were waiting for the painter to arrive. The guy was a good painter but was pretty much the biggest joker you would ever hope not to meet (that appears to be a standard practice for anyone you works on/with cars ). So there we sat .. after an hour or so I started to get restless. I'm not very good at just sitting around, there had to be something to do! So I start to investigate my surroundings. Looking for something to occupy me. In the back of a friends car I found it. A Razor Scooter. Again, I never really got into them but as I had nothing else to do... it was go time. So I start to ride the thing around in circles in front of the shop. That then lead to be trying to pull some "tricks" off. I use to skate ( as in skateboard ) so I was mixing some skate tricks like shove its with some bike stuff like tailwhips. But those things are SMALL.. and it was getting boring so I looked for something to try. ..... ... MISTAKE!

The shop was on it's own road, just it and way at the bottom was a construction site. I say bottom because it's also on a hill, a pretty big hill. So off I go, I start walking to the top of the hill. My friend Jay yells after me "Dude, where are you going?" to which I respond "Up to ride down the hill". " Are you serious? On that thing?" "Yeah, why not?" "That's a big ass hill" and of course I spout some famous last words "How fast can i really go on this thing?" Well, I was about to find out and now I have an audience. All my friends having heard Jay and I talking about the hill ride now come out to the street to watch it. I don't consider myself a stupid person, but when I look back, why do I do so many stupid things? So I go up to the top and it was a big ol hill. But for some reason I was convinced that that Razor just didn't have that much speed in it. Wow, was I soooooo wrong. I drop in, or push off or just start riding. Whatever you prefer. It only took me ten feet to realize I was dead. I reached terminal velocity somewhere between five and ten feet down the hill and now my brain starts to think, how to I stop this thing. Hmmmm that probably would have been a good thing to figure out before I went all Roger Ramjet down this hill.

If you are familiar with the Razor Scooter you know there aren't many options when it comes to stopping. You stop by using it's "brake", and by "brake" I mean the curved piece of metal that hovers over the back wheel. I look down at it and think there is no way I'm pushing that thing! I'll most likely lock the wheel up lose control and face plant which isn't the best option on a roughly paved asphalt road. WHOOOOOOSSSHHHHHHH I fly by my friends like a bat out of hell.. I think I might have been screaming but I'm not really sure... if it wasn't out load I sure as hell was inside my head! Because now it was getting hairy, like it could get any worse aye? But oh yes it could. The road ahead wasn't fully paved as it went down into the construction site. It got more rough and then turned into dirt and rocks... lots and lots of rocks.

Right here is when I come up with my amazing plan to stop this crazy thing! That o so wonderful plan consisted of me taking my left foot off and trying to slowly apply it to the ground this causing friction and bringing me to an easy gradual stop. That was the plan in my head, but that was not how the plan unfolded in real life. I didn't have much road left so I quickly set my "fabulous" plan into action. I pulled my left foot off of the scooter platform (trying to ignore the flames that were shooting off the wheels) and began to slowly lower my foot towards the ground. All seemed to be going according to plan until, my foot actually touched the ground. There was no gradual slowing, there was only my first step of three that led me into the pain cave. As soon as my foot touched I was no longer riding the scooter I was now running at an incredible speed. I can't say for sure but it felt as if I was going about 30 mph (50 kph for all you Europeans who aren't reading this) and as you probably know a human can not run 30 mph or even 50 kph. But I did! For three giant steps.

BOOM left foot down. POOF Razor Scooter spins out of existence. BOOM right foot down. WOW I think I've covered about eight feet in that one stride, look at me GO! BOOM left foot down. OH NO about ten feet covered on that one step and now I know my right foot just isn't going fast enough. BOOOOOOOF (that's a boom and poof if you were wondering) that's the sound of my right foot coming up short and me going down Wile E Coyote style. It was more then just the sound, I hit the dirt and gravel and all my friends saw was me disappear into a huge cloud of dust, death and destruction. I rolled another fifteen feet ending up on my back and just looking up. No shit, I'm still alive.

I couldn't see anything but I heard tons of heavy foot falls getting closer. Then I hear Jay, "dude .. dude .. hey man are you ok?" I sat up laughing, which was quite a stun to my friends as they had now formed a circle around me and probably thought me dead or at least knocked out. In my head all I could picture was Wile E falling off a cliff and erupting into a cloud of smoke, fully accepting what he knew was to come. That was me. And I knew I had to look pretty much the same. My laughing lightened the mood and everyone was pretty much amazed at my speed and the amount of ground I covered in three footsteps. I started to get up and as I put my hands down to stand up now I felt some pain. I looked at the palms of my hands to realize I didn't really have much of my palms left. Most of the skin had been torn off and now was replaced by dirt and gravel. Hmmm.. not good. Blood was running pretty freely as well and since the shop wasn't open I wasn't too sure of what I was going to do.

Jay remembered the putt putt golf course that was up the road so that was going to be our first try. We had some rags in the back of some one's car so I wrapped my hands in them and jumped in Jay's car. It didn't take long for us to get there and we went blasting in to find two teenage girls working the counter. I wasn't really sure what to do so I just held up my bloody palms and asked can I use your bathroom? The look on their face was priceless. They didn't say a word just pointed in the direction of their bathrooms.

We made a bee line for the facilities and when we got in there I hesitated. I turn to Jay and say "man this is going hurt". Jay responds with "Of course it is, but stick them in there and get it done." He turns on the water and I put my hands under the water, making me yell out and probably cry a little bit. I'll admit it, that shit hurt. "OWWWWW" .. "OWWW that hurts" Then we stop, and look right at each other, imagine what someone outside this bathroom would be thinking. If you heard that coming out of a bathroom you are about to enter! We bust out laughing, I finish cleaning my hands and dig out as much of the gravel as I can. They are starting to numb over so it's not hurting too bad now. I dry them up as much as I can and we walking out to the front counter. The girls are still just staring at us, until one gets the courage to ask "Are you ok?"

"Yeah, sure, no problem...
Wouldn't happen to have a band aid would you?