Across the Great Divide

RENO AIR RACES

Bob and Greg, watching one of the Reno Air Races. Each race is run around a series of pylons, arrayed in a rectangle in the valley east of the Reno-Stead airport, an old military field. There are several races a day, each a different class: Experimental, Jet, etc. The main event is the Unlimited race, with highly modified Sea Furies, Mustangs, and the occasional Bearcat and MIG roaring by at low level.

My trip began with a visit to the Reno Air Races, to hang out with a really nice bunch of guys, and push the beer-drinking envelope for a day or three. But first I had to get out of California. Heading up I-80, I managed to get as far as Auburn before the inevitable dilly-dallying began. Now, said dallying is the whole purpose of a trip like this (and a major reason for travel by bike), but I had hoped to at least make it out of all-too-familiar California first. But, no.

I headed for Grass Valley and Nevada City, two California Gold Rush towns that are now booming alternatives to the city life. In fact, the boom is so great, there's an "orphan" section of freeway connecting the two towns. When you see how much traffic there is in town, you see why they put in a freeway. South of Grass Valley is the interesting Empire Mine State Park, with it's neat old mining structures and stone buildings.

Stopping at the ranger station in Nevada City, I tried to decide whether to attempt a back way to Reno, crossing the Sierra via a road the map showed as gravel. When sanity prevailed (I really wanted to be in Reno that night for the desert party), I headed east on the beautiful Hwy 20, which like so many Sierra highways travels along the crest of a ridgeline. Then back on I-80, for the freeway fastway over the Donner Pass to Reno.

When I rode into camp just after dark, with two 18-packs of beer strapped onto the bike, I was greeted like a conquering hero. Turns out the crew this year was to be quite small, so another happy camper was welcome indeed.

Greg, Bob and Andy sitting around camp, trying to survive a day of drinking beer by drinking more beer. That pop-top trailer belongs to Greg, and he loves it. Most of the camps have one or more RVs or full-size trailers, but we make do with tents and cars. Manly men that we are.

These folks grew up together in Portland, and nowadays the annual Air Races party is the lynchpin of the group. The folks have spread to the four corners of the west, living in Portland, Reno, Salt Lake City, Bisbee (AZ), La Grande (OR), Vancouver (WA), etc. But every year they drive (or ride or fly) to Reno for the rendevous. Several are pilots, and most of them own bikes and guns. Just your average guys, by non-Bay Area standards.

Country livin'. Bikes, flags, and about eight guns in the back of Steve's station wagon. (Mostly .22 handguns, but also some larger caliber classics including a 1908 Mauser broomhandle pistol with a long barrel, and an old .45 auto.)

There are actually four motorcycles shown here, though it's hard to see mine, which is in back. (And another one departed earlier that day.) At left in the foreground is Steve's brother Ross's 1985 Kawisaki Ninja 900, which he bought in Australia for a couple of months of touring, and managed to bring back to the States. At right is Steve's Norton, a britbike so authentic it actually broke down on the way from Reno to the races. When Steve rode into camp, he was being towed by his friend Larry. As Steve left that night (towstrap attached), he was said to mutter, "Next year I'll be riding a Jap bike".

Among the many, many stories of growing up in Portland, riding bikes, dealing with the cops, smoking and drinking, etc, one sticks in my mind. I think it was David who related the tale of one of the guys who crashed a dirtbike (or dualsport) and broke his arm. The problem was, the bike's owner wasn't the guy who crashed it, and the insurance didn't cover someone else. So the owner rolled around in the dirt and scuffed himself up, to support an alternate theory about what exactly had just happened. Then, when they took the bike to the dealer for an insurance settlement, the folks there said that it wasn't damaged enough to be totalled. So our heroes threw the bike in the back of a pickup truck, got up to speed, and pushed that sucker off the back. That did the trick.

Watching the races from the vantage point of a Ford pickup truck, what could be finer?

These are really a great buch of guys. In the foreground is Steve (lives in Reno), who owns the station wagon with the huge American flag shown above. On one of the windows of Steve's car there's a sticker that reads, "Vietnam - We were winning when I left". Actually, there were three Vietnam vets present. Steve was there in 1970. Mike (not pictured, owner of a cherry yellow Datsun pickup), who was there in 1968, observed that "we really were winning when I left".

At left is David, Greg's brother. (Their brother Bob was there also, three years before.) David had just lost his job as receiving manager for an Office Depot franchise. He was considering going (back?) to Alaska to work in the fishing industry. Next from the left is Greg (Utah), a forest firefighter by summer and an avalache safety/search-and-rescue guy during the ski season. Second from the right is Andy, who lives in the famous town of Bisbee and works on the railroads, attaching cars. (There was another guy present who was a railroad locomotive "engineer".)

At right is Bob (Portland), my original connection to this group. Three years previous, I had been riding across the Sierras, and had met him. We ended up riding together for a day or two, and he invited me to the Reno party. Bob and I got along real well this time, which was very cool.

Not pictured is Mike Ross, my currect e-mail connection to this group. Brother of Steve, "Ross" lives in Reno also, skydives, travels the world, and currently drives a truck and dabbles in real estate. A really great guy, and smart, though he does have some pretty right-wing (or maybe I should say "conservative") views.

The view down the hill, over the RVs of the other campsites, with the Air Force Thunderbirds clouding up the skies with a precision flying display.

Most of the visitors to the Air Races are down at Reno-Stead, the old airbase, not really visible just to the left. But every year, a few hundred people camp along this road, watching the races and having a major unsupervised party. At the right you can see the network of dirt roads, and the edge of Road Warrior Camp, our nemesises (nemesi?). Actually, our camp is too small to be anyone's nemesis.

Though you wouldn't know it from these (lousy) pictures, all weekend the place is crawling with literally hundreds of ATVs and dirtbikes. After 5:00, when the racing is done, these folks go tearing out into the valley for some serious motorized recreation. One of the highlights is the children. Imagine countless kids, both boys and girls, some as young as six, screaming around all day on motorcycles and ATVs. Very, very cool. But loud!

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