BAKERS DOZEN RUN – DAY 4

If you want to tell an effective story there are a handful of basic templates that everyone loves. One of them is called the Man in a Hole arc. It goes like this: The protagonist starts the story doing just fine, then tragedy strikes. The protagonist must then climb out of the hole and triumph, and the crowd go wild. It’s simple, effective, and everyone knows the beats.

Winning the first two days was the Gila powered Derbi top tank of Jose Castanon of Team Asian Amigos. Day three was the tragedy part of the story arc, a cracked frame, a top end swap, and a whole lot of extra time. Day four begins the redemption upswing. Crossing the line first on Wednesday with plenty of time to spare, this leg of the journey only added 2 hours and 5 minutes to his total time. It won’t be an easy climb back to the top though. The frame developed another stress crank along the front engine mount. With the final three days being much more mile intensive than the first four and first place team T3 having a 3 hour lead, it remains to be seen how the story will end.

Todays ride was short and most teams arrived within three hours. Five of the seven riders arrived within a twenty minute window from 12:30 to 12:50. Now that makes it sound like it was an easy day but nothing is free on Bakers Dozen Run and the road demands it penance. Despite that, Maitland, Jordan, and Chad, arrived more or less intact and in good spirits. It was the remaining teams doing the tithing today. To start their day Team T3 spent some time talking to the cops. Attempting to explain state moped law reciprocity on the side of the road, while Jordan blasted by all of them. Later, they tried to explain reciprocity to their broken clutch but it stayed broken. They still finished the day second with a time of 2 hours and 30 minutes.

If you are not familiar with what a Bye Bike is, well I can’t help you, because I don’t know. I do know it is not a Derbi. And it follows that Derbi kits do not fit it. Luckily QCB had two 70cc kits, the only two 70cc kits in the US. Well, now they have one. Plus a renewed desire to learn how hard it is to adapt a derbi kit to a Bye Bike with basic tools.

That just leaves Team Clark. The ignition failed today. Now that’s not uncommon, but it did require replacing it with the stock ignition to get going again. The only thing standing in the way of that was the allen screws that held the plate on and the simple fact they didn’t have allen keys. Papa Clark got to pull out the backup moped, a full sized Harley, and went to fetch some. This little trip cost the Clarks plenty of time and brought them home at 2:48pm, a full 2 hours later than the 6th place bike. Now that wouldn’t be the end of the issues since the root cause of the stator failure was the underlying crank bearing. You know what that means, everyone say it with me now: FULL ENGINE TEARDOWN!

Day 4 means the teams are over the hump. But this year the longest days are stacked heavy at the end. With most teams having endured mechanical failures, dwindling supplies, and untold amounts of psychic damage from the road, it was about time for a little bit of sunshine. Then Maitland informed everyone that weed would officially be legal in the state of Virginia at midnight. Sunshine indeed.