Present at the Creation: The First Minnesota 1000
By Mark Foster, MN1K Rider #1
So,...rally history..well...here's
the story I tell my therapist.
Eddie, whom I knew from work
[hitching post stores] and getting him out
into road racing at B.I.R., had
asked what I was doing on June10, and
11,the 10th was my birthday, but
I had no elaborate plans. He had been
talking so much about this, I
decided I would at least go and check out
this rally he had been planning.
My wife asked what I wanted to do on my
birthday; I said... go on a ride.
On Saturday morning it was
raining as I left my house to go to Bob's java
hut in Mpls
where the rally started. At Bob's, there were 15-20 bikes
out front, and inside, there were
riders of varying ages and riding gear
just kinda
hanging around and checking out everybody else .I got a cup of
coffee and I thought everybody was already signed up and so when I went to
the sign in table and asked what to
do they said they were not quite sure cause I was the first one to
actually sign up. Then everybody
else got in line, I think they were
waiting to see if anybody else
was as deranged as they were to want to do
this ride. You have to remember
this was the fist year and nobody knew
what to plan for, or expect.
Eddie made some speech about us
being some hardcore something-something
riders and thanked us for giving
this a try. He gave us our route sheet
packets, said' read carefully and
see ya in 24 hours'. After looking over
all the checkpoints, and still
not having a clue which points to go after,
I thought o.k. .so what's the
easiest way to do 1000 mile's? One
of the
checkpoints was to go to Wichita,
Kansas and get a receipt from the
turnpike. So I clicked my heels
like Dorothy did in the wizard of oz ,but
when that didn't work I
reanalyzed I would have to ride.
I had just sold my Goldwing, so I
rode my '82'Suzuki GS850 because it had
all the Vetter touring equipment
that you could have bolted on in 1982. The
route was a no brainer, south on
interstate 35 .So with radio playing and
rain still pouring I left ,
pumped up after Eddies send off but, still not
quite sure what I had gotten myself into.
I wasn't quite sure why was I
riding six hundred some miles to just turn
around and come right back. At a gas station somewhere in Iowa, I debated
quitting, thinking it's still raining and it's my birthday, remember now this was
the first time we had this rally and
I didn't know if everybody else was still doing it or blew
it off.
Somewhere past the Missouri line
it finally quit raining and I took off
the rain gear [which was good
because it was warm in all that gear and the
road was a little too straight
and Marky was getting a little
tired] .I
knew that eating fast food was
not a good ideal because it's greasy and
that means well you know what
that means, so, food [which I was able to
eat on the bike, thanks to a tank
bag] consisted of those stale looking
sandwiches that are sold at all fine gas/food stations, they don't taste good
but I ate way scarier stuff when
I was in the marines .
When your on a timed road event,
it's a timed road event,
so at gas stops, you don't stand
around talking to the person behind the
counter about the rally your in,
again, I was new at this.
As I rode I wondered where the
other riders had went, were they behind
me? Probably ahead of me .I was
having fun though. Finally reaching my
destination of Wichita and
getting my turnpike receipt I gas up, it's
midnight I have to be back by 10
a.m. !Now I admit that my math skills
suck, but it took me about 14
hours to get to this point, how do I get
back in 2 hours less?
Across
the street from the gas station was the normal interstate hotel
selection
all with HBO and Jacuzzi's. Ed gave us a phone number to call
if
we were going to be late or quit, so.......I looked at the map, I
looked
at the hotels...hmm....but decide to ride for a hour and then
evaluate.
I felt all right at the next stop so I continued. Stopping for
fuel
sometime after 2 am I had my first cup of coffee since the start at
Bob's
and decided to go for it The faster you go, the faster you use gas.
I
was still not sure I could get back in time. Remember those questions
from
math class that started like "if train A leaves at 3 o clock on
track
7 traveling at 31.5 mph and blah blah blah?:
Trying to do the math
of
when I might possibly make it back to Mpls. while looking out for
foreign
objects like deer or blown truck tires just added to the
adventure.
The sunrise in Iowa that morning
was beautiful, it also gave me my second
wind seeing the trip meter
showing I had hit the 1000-mile goal. though I
still had a couple hundred miles
to go I felt like I could pull this off.
By now my voice is rough from
singing all night with the radio, practice
does not always make perfect but
it helped keep me awake.
Seeing
mileage signs for Minneapolis inspired me to just stay in the
saddle
and ride, I even had time to get more points from a check point in
Mpls.
with a garage door painted with a big Elvis on it. When I made it
back
to Bob's for the finish, I had put on 1,280 miles with twenty
minutes
to spare. That year I received two trophies, one for second place
in
the touring class, and then a unique one ,the NO SNIVELERS award
because
I had rode the most miles but didn't win.
Everybody that does the MN1k does
it for the fun of the ride, but I think
there are three different
mindsets of the riders. One group wants to see
if they can do it. Another group
wants to get the most points in their
class and win. Then, there is the
group that doesn't really care so much
about highest points, they want
to rack up the highest miles and make it
back on time from the farthest
checkpoint. I'm in the last category, and
there are some sick puppies in
this group.
To all the Teamstrange folks and
everybody else behind the scenes putting
these rallies on, THANK YOU
MARK FOSTER Rider#1