Sixteen Thousand Miles

16,000 miles driven; 2,130 gallons of fuel; 313 hours of driving; 298 cups of coffee consumed; 105 days living in a trailer; 45 truck stops slept in; 30 races worked; 8 National Parks visited; 5 tires blown out; 3 people (and a dog); 1 cross-country adventure.

Fifteen weeks later we rounded the corner of a familiar street, and we arrived: Home.

People ask, “How was your trip?” and you might try to convey in a word or a sentence the experience, but it is near impossible to do so…

On the northernmost outskirts of the United States, we felt the impact of 2,800 tonnes of water per second as it plummeted over Niagra Falls.  In Butte, Montana, we placed a toy motorcycle on Evel Knievel’s grave.  In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, we helped an Amish man push a downed tree out of the road after being ambushed by a flash flood.  In Morgantown, West Virginia, we ate baguettes and aged Provolone in the Racer X boat on Lake Cheat.  In Omaha, Nebraska, we caught bullfrogs and trout that we threw back into a little stream.  

In New York City, we gaped at the magnitude of man’s creations—giant sky scrapers reaching to the clouds. In Ottawa, Illinois, we spent hours sipping Yuengling watching fireflies dance around a cornfield. In Park City, Utah, we wandered through a street fair, eating crepes and buying necessities, like a hand-made wooden crossbow. In Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, we ate steaming bowls of spicy jambalaya at a campsite, surrounded by strangers who treated us like family.  And between all of these experiences, we drove and drove and drove.

Every week we arrived at a new destination—a world class track—where the best motocross racers in the world would duel it out for our entertainment.

We came to know most members of the track crew by name, and they laughed with us as we regaled stories of the latest breakdowns and blow-outs encountered on the drive there. We backed in, set up, cleaned up, as we moved a million moving parts, to create our booth.  We slogged through rain and mud, persisted through sweat and muggy heat, buckled down as thunder shook the earth, and squinted through wind and dust storms.  

Each Saturday, we addressed crowds of 20,000 plus, hearing our words ring out over the loudspeakers.  We reminisced with fans, listening to stories about Hangtown in the 70’s, about 40 years of racing at Southwick, about meeting Bob “Hurricane” Hannah and the GOAT.  We trekked around the track taking photographs, cursing our cable providers as we tried to post some epic shot of the day to Instagram.  We pushed our way through crowds to the podium, to be there for that brief moment when the champagne would fly.

Then, after the gladiators had battled and crashed and triumphed—Villopoto, Tomac, Dungey, Barcia, Stewart, Canard, Roczen, Musquin—after they had spoken their thank you’s on the podium and returned to their hotels, we lounged around in the mess, high fiving and sharing beers with the show masters, procrastinating cleanup, so that by the time we trudged toward bed, we were exhausted, but content.

Each week we left the track, having learned at least a dozen new things. And then? More road. More truck stops.

Now that we’re here, at the end, we ask ourselves what was gained. We stumble with words because how does one express the experience as a whole, when it is made up of so many tiny moments?  We can only say that we ventured, that we discovered the soul of motocross, and along the way, we felt life pulsing through the veins of America.