NightTrain
05-16-2015, 12:00 PM
I've got a million different stories of wiping out in pretty much any motorized vehicle except aircraft.
My 'best' one, though, happened in '98 on my hotrod Polaris snowmachine on Larson Lake about 10 miles from the cabin. There were 8 of us riding together, having a great time zooming all over the area.
My buddy from Homer had a Ski-Doo that was the same size as mine, and we commenced to see who had the faster sled. He didn't know about my Secret Weapon - I had 96 carbide ice spikes in my track that were 1.25" long, ensuring that my track wouldn't spin on the snow and I'd win the race.
There were snow drifts on the lake, going the same direction that we were - they were about 50' long and ended about a foot high. So you'd gently rise up and fall down a foot - no big deal at all. Hammer down!
I beat him by a few lengths and was looking forward to talking smack over drinks later when we all got back to the cabin... and he knew it. Ski-Doo vs. Polaris is about the same thing as the Ford vs. Chevy rivalry.
We continued to ride until it got dark, and we started heading back. We reached the lake again and off to my side I saw a headlight racing ahead. I immediately assumed that he was going to try and redeem himself. Can't have that!
So I dropped the hammer and soon I was reaching my top end of 105 MPH revving 8,100 RPMs... I think I was doing about 103 when I hit the first hard packed drift - this time going against them, so I hit a 1-foot-high hard-packed wall of snow.
Oops. Forgot all about those.
The impact almost knocked me completely off my sled, and I bounced up several feet off the lake, headlight pointing straight up. But I was still on, just barely, one foot on the left running board and both hands barely holding on to the handlebars. The rear end touched down and the front end came down slowly, until the skis touched.
I grabbed brake, and the front suspension compressed down. I started to think I just might pull this off!
Then I hit the next drift - with all the weight shifted to the front as I was desperately trying to shed some speed. I was still doing about 100 or so at this point, and that's when we started the dreaded high-speed Endo.
Gail was directly behind me and she said I rode out about 3 revolutions before I bailed. Things were happening so fast for me that I thought I bailed immediately when I hit the 2nd drift, but my witnesses said differently.
All anyone could see is a massive snow cloud glowing from the inside as my headlight strobed as my sled whipped end over end in a blur, and my shadow as I cartwheeled beside it.
Finally I came to a stop, and I just laid there doing a self-check. Left leg works. Right leg works. Arms are okay. Back works. No pain. The heated visor for my helmet was missing and I didn't even want to look at my sled - it had to be in a hundred pieces and that was my baby.
The others came roaring up and helped me up, I was a little punch-drunk but unhurt. Finally I looked over and there was my sled - it appeared to be relatively intact and laying on its side.
I tipped it back rightside up, and pulled the cord and she fired right off. I checked out the steering, suspension, brakes, skis, and it was just fine mechanically somehow - other than the front bumper missing and the rear bumper horribly mangled. Unbelievably, the windshield was still there too. Other than the bumpers and some cosmetic damage, it was fine.
Later we went back and measured it, and I'd flown 97 feet from the drift to where the back touched down. It was a one-in-a-million wreck. The sled had 'walked' on the bumpers, saving the machine from total destruction on the hard wind-packed snow... just the right amount of speed to pull that off, I guess.
I thought a lot about it afterwards and realized that I wasn't a young buck anymore and had a wife & children that were depending on me to provide for them. It was reckless and I was a family man... it was a miracle that I hadn't broken my fool neck, that was the last time I rode my machines at high speed.
My 'best' one, though, happened in '98 on my hotrod Polaris snowmachine on Larson Lake about 10 miles from the cabin. There were 8 of us riding together, having a great time zooming all over the area.
My buddy from Homer had a Ski-Doo that was the same size as mine, and we commenced to see who had the faster sled. He didn't know about my Secret Weapon - I had 96 carbide ice spikes in my track that were 1.25" long, ensuring that my track wouldn't spin on the snow and I'd win the race.
There were snow drifts on the lake, going the same direction that we were - they were about 50' long and ended about a foot high. So you'd gently rise up and fall down a foot - no big deal at all. Hammer down!
I beat him by a few lengths and was looking forward to talking smack over drinks later when we all got back to the cabin... and he knew it. Ski-Doo vs. Polaris is about the same thing as the Ford vs. Chevy rivalry.
We continued to ride until it got dark, and we started heading back. We reached the lake again and off to my side I saw a headlight racing ahead. I immediately assumed that he was going to try and redeem himself. Can't have that!
So I dropped the hammer and soon I was reaching my top end of 105 MPH revving 8,100 RPMs... I think I was doing about 103 when I hit the first hard packed drift - this time going against them, so I hit a 1-foot-high hard-packed wall of snow.
Oops. Forgot all about those.
The impact almost knocked me completely off my sled, and I bounced up several feet off the lake, headlight pointing straight up. But I was still on, just barely, one foot on the left running board and both hands barely holding on to the handlebars. The rear end touched down and the front end came down slowly, until the skis touched.
I grabbed brake, and the front suspension compressed down. I started to think I just might pull this off!
Then I hit the next drift - with all the weight shifted to the front as I was desperately trying to shed some speed. I was still doing about 100 or so at this point, and that's when we started the dreaded high-speed Endo.
Gail was directly behind me and she said I rode out about 3 revolutions before I bailed. Things were happening so fast for me that I thought I bailed immediately when I hit the 2nd drift, but my witnesses said differently.
All anyone could see is a massive snow cloud glowing from the inside as my headlight strobed as my sled whipped end over end in a blur, and my shadow as I cartwheeled beside it.
Finally I came to a stop, and I just laid there doing a self-check. Left leg works. Right leg works. Arms are okay. Back works. No pain. The heated visor for my helmet was missing and I didn't even want to look at my sled - it had to be in a hundred pieces and that was my baby.
The others came roaring up and helped me up, I was a little punch-drunk but unhurt. Finally I looked over and there was my sled - it appeared to be relatively intact and laying on its side.
I tipped it back rightside up, and pulled the cord and she fired right off. I checked out the steering, suspension, brakes, skis, and it was just fine mechanically somehow - other than the front bumper missing and the rear bumper horribly mangled. Unbelievably, the windshield was still there too. Other than the bumpers and some cosmetic damage, it was fine.
Later we went back and measured it, and I'd flown 97 feet from the drift to where the back touched down. It was a one-in-a-million wreck. The sled had 'walked' on the bumpers, saving the machine from total destruction on the hard wind-packed snow... just the right amount of speed to pull that off, I guess.
I thought a lot about it afterwards and realized that I wasn't a young buck anymore and had a wife & children that were depending on me to provide for them. It was reckless and I was a family man... it was a miracle that I hadn't broken my fool neck, that was the last time I rode my machines at high speed.