Mini Bike Summer..

It was 1973..I was 9 years old.

My friends in our (somewhat) upper middle class South, Fl neighborhood all had small boats or mini bikes, but not me, not yet.

One night my father took our family down to the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show. We loved boats and owned a cabin cruiser we used to take out on the ocean and sleep in occasionally. As we walked through the convention marveling at the yachts I scoured the place for small boats like my friends had. Dad owned a Deli and a Texaco station so I thought we were rich, but truth is we were struggling, and charging hard into the 1973 Oil Embargo which would eventually cripple our gas station..but that’s another story.

Up on a stage I saw a 2 seat metallic purple speedboat for kids. It was absolutely the coolest thing I had ever seen. I pointed and said I’ll be over there and ran over and got in. It was like my own little version of the Bat boat. I sat inside and grabbed the wheel as my sister got in the passenger seat. I ached for this little boat, my 10th birthday was just around the corner so it was a possibility. We sat and talked the night away with dreams of cruising the waterways that snaked through our neighborhood. Eventually like all things do, the boat show ended, so we left..without the boat.

In the weeks to come I complained about not having a boat or at least a mini bike, all my friends had one or the other (some had both). June rolled around and it was my birthday, I was hoping for BIG things. Dad came home that afternoon with the trunk tied shut. “John” I heard from my bedroom, I ran outside and saw a handlebar poking out of the trunk. It wasn’t a boat..but it would do..it would definitely do..MY OWN MINI BIKE..

It was used and not as fancy as the ones my friends had but it was in pretty good shape. I helped my father get it out of the trunk and there it was in the driveway, a no frills baby blue mini bike. He showed me how to start it and I took a careful ride around the house. I was so excited I could barely breathe.

I couldn’t wait to ride with the other kids in the neighborhood.Tom down the road had a mini bike similar to mine but with a new engine pilfered from a neighbor’s lawn edger. Mark had a cool little Bennelli that we all wanted. Pretty much all of the neighborhood kids with mini bikes were in our gang, one had a Honda another a Yamaha, there was a kid on a Rupp, it ran the gamut, one kid had a little Indian and one kid even had a Hodaka.

In the weeks to come it became clear that mini bikes might be cheaper than boats to buy..but not in the long run. The repair bills for mine added up quickly (broken weld/carburetor trouble etc. etc.) and then there were the run ins with the police, I got a bunch of tickets one day for not having a license, registration or insurance. (I thought I was going to jail, I was 10). Dad wasn’t happy either and I was grounded (again).

We had a blast that summer though, riding all over the neighborhood and the sand dunes (pile of dirt for new home construction) but as kids eventually do, we got bored. So we were perpetually on the look out for new things to jump and new places to ride. I remember being grounded after my tickets and told not to ride out of the yard. So once my father left for work I got the hose out and watered down our newly landscaped lawn. I rode around the house for hours until our meticulously groomed grass was nothing but a rutted muddy mess. I was a terror on that thing, it felt like an extension of me. I spent my days working on it, riding it with reckless abandon and then dreaming about it at night. As our little gang grew bored with small jumps and cruising we started to consider more adventurous stunts. We built bigger ramps, we jumped everything you could imagine (including each other) and now Mark was talking about jumping the canal at the end of his street.

Eventually we talked Mark into something a little less reckless and got the neighborhood kids together for a meeting. Our aim was to plan the first annual summer mini bike race. It would happen in the deserted section of the development, half built homes and fresh streets. With kids aged eight to twelve we hashed out the details. I was pumped for this but felt outclassed on my mini bike. That thing was constantly giving me trouble and the other kids had none of these worries. Race night came and everyone was there, No kid would miss this. I have no clue where our parents were? It was the seventies, things were looser then.

We had kids positioned at the start and finish on this giant deserted mile long oval surrounded by half built homes, empty lots and a lake. I remember nervously sitting at the starting line with motors running, the South Florida sun was just setting. I spent the day souping up my machine as did my friends, fingers crossed, the moment of truth was here. A pretty girl from the neighborhood raised her hand and said loudly over the noise of the engines,

Ready, Set, GO and we were off.

Right from the start the the kids with the better mini bikes pulled away while mine hesitated and sputtered. It was becoming clear that not only would I lose the race, I would be embarrassed in front of the whole neighborhood. I had to do something fast so I got off the bike and angrily kicked the motor which revved maniacally and spit blue flames from the exhaust. I grabbed the handlebars and jumped on as the bike just took off. In the hazy night air I could see the pack of mini bikes about 20 yards ahead, I heard the crowd cheer as I quickly gained on them. My bike never ran like this before, the blue flame coming from the exhaust (albeit dangerous) looked and felt like I was driving a missile. I caught the pack in short time and smiled as I passed them, I won handily that night, I was the champ.

My mini bike never ran right after that, later that year my father lost the business, the house, the deli and we limped back to Buffalo..without my mini bike…