So I think that I’m actually ready to tell the tale of the infamous MOTORHOME!! It all started the same as most of the shit with me and motorcycles usually starts, with some thoughts thrown around by me and my bro Pete. We have always been plagued with the question of what is the best combo of race truck/sleeping quarters. We tried my full size van with a pop-up trailer. Pete would drive his pick-up and trailer the bikes behind him. He was the race truck, I was the sleeping quarters. Not a bad idea, right? Well that’s what we thought. Now don’t read ahead for a second, OK? Don’t cheat. Do you have ANY idea how F#$%&ing cold it is in New Hampshire in October? Did you answer? OK then read on. It’s F#$%&ing cold. We drove up to Loudon with me, my now ex-girlfriend, Pete, his now ex-fiancé, their daughter, and my two dogs, in a 6 person pop-up. Well it was about 34 degrees and raining the whole weekend! Four adults, one kid, and two canines in a pop-up for just about three days. It was Hell only COLDER. EVERYTHING was wet all weekend. It was still better than work but it really did suck. Then we decided that we really didn't have any other choice by the time the next race came up. So we did it again. Well whadda ya know, it was freezing cold and raining. It rained so bad that we didn't even ride on Saturday. Everybody was REALLY STRESSED OUT with one another. I had packed up the pop-up and was heading home Saturday morning. Then Pete suggested that we stay for the races and maybe rent a garage. We agreed but it was so bad that we had to go get a motel room. Bad weekend but we got through it. I think that was the weekend that Pete crashed, but I'm not sure.

     After that weekend Pete and I did some brainstorming. I liked the idea of an old school bus. Take out a few rows of seats put in some sort of heat and paint it black. Perfect right? Well him and his fiancé thought that there was no use to try to go in one vehicle. So that makes a full size school bus too big for me. I thought about a regular pull trailer but I thought it would be too heavy. I didn't want to kill my van pulling that around all of the time. We looked at everything from slide on pop-ups to converted step vans. Nothing seemed to really work for us. Then we came across the deal of a lifetime, (read IMPULSE!). We saw a '79 Ford box truck for sale for $2,000. We looked at it and the guy who owned it was in Florida. So we asked the guy who answered the door if he could get in touch with him for us. When he said he could we did what any bottom feeders like us would do: Offer the guy $1,000 for it. 1/2 of what he was asking! We told our contact that if the owner could tell him where the title was we could buy it the next day. Imagine our glee when the owner accepted our offer. Whoo Hoo! He found the title. We jumped it to get it running and I drove it home. That was our test drive. After it was paid for and everything. Cleaned it up, changed the fluids, did a tune up, got a trailer hitch put on it, bolted on the pop-up and Pete, my two dogs, and myself were on the way to Loudon again. I drove it around town for a couple of days and it was pretty cool. Well on the way up it was making a funny noise (like funny peculiar not funny HA HA!) at around 70 MPH. But we made it up with no real problems.

That set-up wasn’t too bad, outside of the particular truck. We sold that when we got home and we didn’t lose any money on it. The guy I sold it to said he went to go get tires for it and the guy told him he should put shocks on it too since they were gone. He told me this and I said really, they were blown out and didn’t work anymore? He said “No. They were gone. The truck didn’t even have any.” So we drove to Loudon, in a truck with no shocks, pulling a pop-up, at high speeds.

  So here we were back to the two-truck system. We did that for a few more races, but we were still lookin’.     

  Well, one of the ideas Pete and I always throw around was a motorhome. Throw the bike inside it and drive it up. Unload when you get there and sleep in it. Perfect right? Well, it’s kinda like communism, it works on paper. So needless to say I found a 25’ ’79 Tioga motorhome for sale. Class C. That means it’s a van front with a motorhome back. Totally shagadelic, I mean groovy baby, yeah. (In my best Austin Powers voice.) Sleeps 6, sink, stove, fridge, bathroom, shower, the whole 9. I bought it for $3,500. (Well, I stopped writing this for about 6 months and I’m going to try to pick up where I left off.) 

  So I bought this motorhome and figured I’d drive it around for a few weeks before it’s first trip to Loudon. So Pete drives me to Oceanside to pick it up. On the way home the thing just stops. There’s a BIG pool of what appears to be motor oil pouring from the truck. Great the thing didn’t even make it home. We saw a tow truck friend of ours who got us home. As it turns out it was burnt up Tranny fluid and not motor oil! Great sign right! Not a blown motor just a blown tranny. Well, I had it towed to a tranny shop that shall remain nameless (as long as their check clears.) A few days and $700 later it’s back at my house running great. I wasn’t going to get a warranty with it, because there are only 4 of these nameless shops in the northeast. Two of which are on LI. But the shop owner tells me to take the warranty and if ANYTHING happens just to do whatever I have to and he’ll fix it all with me afterwards. Not a bad deal but I’ll never need it anyway. So I take the warranty anyway. I’m driving it around town. So I pack it up with all of my camping gear, bike inside of it, dogs and my now ex-girlfriend. Now we’re ready to roll. We leave from my house and head out for the ferry. About a ½ hour into the trip it starts to slip from 3^rd gear into 2^nd. Even when it shouldn’t. I call Pete and tell him we’ll be there, and to try to stall the boat. We get there and make the ferry. As we start out of New London for Loudon it’s going pretty good. Pete’s behind us in his truck. It’s the July race so he’s gonna just use a tent. About a ½ hour into the trip the tranny starts to slip again. Pete tells me on the CB that I am spewing out a ton of fluid and smoke from the rear of the motorhome. So we pull over and check the tranny fluid. What tranny fluid. There is none! So Pete and Dawn leave to go get us some. We top it off and keep going. This happens about every 20 minutes for the next 4 hours. Needless to say we got there REALLY late. Hot, sweaty, tired, dirty, and grouchy! I washed up and passed out. I didn’t even realize that Pete still had to set up his tent. He helped me the whole way up and I didn’t even help him set up his tent. Sorry bro. About 4 hours later some guy on a Hawk GT figures he should start his bike and rev the tits off of it for about a ½ hour. I WANTED TO KILL HIM! We were so shot that we didn’t race on Saturday. We drove the motorhome about 15 miles to a tranny shop to have it looked at. He said that he could pull it and fix it on Wednesday or we could just limp it home the same way we got it there. So that’s what we decided to do since we needed to get home before Wednesday. We drove back to the track and got ready for SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!

  OK, raced all day Sunday now to go home. We figure there’s no way of making the boat so we might as well drive around. We decide that Pete and his truck will stop for food and I’ll just keep driving. They’ll catch us sooner or later. So we stop for fuel. I top off both tanks with about 52 gallons, and a quart of tranny fluid. They top off, head for dinner, and I head home. 20 minutes down the road like clockwork, just outside the Massachusetts state line, I need some fluid. Only this time when I pull the tranny dipstick out to fill it, POOF! We have fire. F#$%&!!! FIRE!!! I yell to my now ex-girlfriend to shut the motor and throw me the fire extinguisher. PUH. NOTHING DEAD! F#$%&!!! Throw me the other Fire extinguisher! PUH. NOTHING, DEAD. F#$%&!!! OK! We had about 30 gallons of water in the fresh water tank. So I yelled to start getting me some. And to hurry. So now she is tripping over the dogs, bike, tools, and everything else that was in there. While trying to get me some water in little Tupperware bowls. I was just dousing the motor down with some water. I had all that gas, and about 100 yards of brown shag carpet. That thing would have burned for about a month. Some guy pulled over, ran out of his car and asked if I needed any help. He had a little bottle of Poland Spring water in his hand so I said “Sure, just throw that on there!” and he did. Then an older, black man, driving a tracker-trailer pulled up behind the mobile Bar-B-Que, ran out with a fire extinguisher, and asked me if I needed it. I said, “YEAH, SURE, I COULD USE THAT!!!!” He pulled the pin and threw it to me and I just BLASTED the whole engine compartment. Presto. Put that fire right out. I thanked the truck driver and offered to buy it off of him, half to be nice for using the chemicals, and half because I wanted one that worked for the rest of this trip. He said that it was ok and that I didn’t need to do that. I also offered to just pay for it so he could replace it. He said that that wasn’t necessary either. Oh well. So by this time a state trooper had already pulled up and he told me that he was calling a tow truck for us to get us off of the highway. So we had the tow truck driver pull us back to his yard and leave us there over night. We plugged in, read a little bit, and then went to sleep.

  We got up the next morning, paid $137 for the tow and drove across the street to the AAMCO transmission shop. He tells me that I need it to be removed, rebuilt, and reinstalled. And tells me it will be about $1,500. So I think back to my agreement with the nameless shop owner and figure it would be nice to give him a call and let him know what’s going on. He says ok no problem. How much is it going to cost? I tell him and he FREAKS! He asks to speak with the AAMCO owner. He does and the AAMCO guy says that’s the price if you don’t want it don’t get it. He tells me that they are going to send me a tow truck (by this time I can hook this thing by myself in my sleep if I had to.) to take it to a friends shop back in NH. While waiting for this tow truck I went and rented a car. Loaded up just what I needed and after this tow truck left headed home.

  My ex was always asking, “Why do we always go straight up and come straight back? Why can’t we see some of the sights along the way?” Well here ya go! I’ll show you the world. One AAMCO station at a time.

  We jump on the Pt. Jeff. Ferry sometime in the afternoon and head home in the rent-a-car. So we make it home by some time Monday evening with the rent-a-car, the dogs, and none of our other stuff.

     A few days go past and I get a phone call from the LI tranny guy. He tells he that his friend in NH is done rebuilding the tranny. So I make reservations for the 1pm ferry Thursday afternoon. I get there 20 minutes early because they tell me to be there 15 minutes before the boat leaves. When I pull up they tell me that I was supposed to be there ½ hour early, and that my reservations were cancelled. After the 1pm boat leaves, and I freak, they realize that the girl who took my reservation was wrong. It was her 1^st day. They apologize and get me on the 2pm boat. I also double-checked to make sure my 9pm reservation was still ok. It was. I get up there about 5:30-6 o’clock. Drop off the rent-a-car and the guy from the tranny shop drives me back to the shop. The owner tells me that the tranny went because of the motor!! How does that work? I tell him that he’s nuts, the motor works great, and head on my way. Well, the motor is running on 6 maybe 7 cylinders. This is great for my confidence.  Also about 20 minutes into the trip home guess what? The tranny starts slipping, AGAIN!!!!! I stop to top off the fluid, thank God no fire this time, and I give my friendly, neighborhood, nameless tranny shop owner a call at his shop. It’s about 7pm now and lo and behold he answers the phone. I fill him in on what’s going on and he asks me to just get it home in one piece and he’ll take care of it. I’m doing ok at this point. No yelling, no cursing. I figure there’s still a chance to make the boat. I get down to new London and I make a wrong turn, can’t find the ferry terminal, ya know the water. Really hot, really stressed, and I get to the ferry about ½ hour late. Now I have to sleep in the New London ferry parking lot, except you’re not allowed to. So I have to sleep down by the railroad tracks and the dead end. Nice neighborhood. I call up my ex and ask if she can stay at the house and watch the dogs overnight. It took a little convincing but she stayed. (Whole different story there.)

     I don’t sleep very well so I get up nice and early and get on the first boat for home. Got back to the Island about 7:30 and back home about 1 1/2 after that.

  And there you have it. The first and LAST time we were to go away in that thing. Which has since been sold. Believe it or not I bought a ’84 Mobile Traveler. On a Chevy chassis this time. I took it to Loudon, and Pocono so far. Pete and I pulling the trailer with all of our stuff. So far so good.

  So that’s why it takes longer to get anywhere when you drive a motorhome. L