Using your Penton to bag that bird !

[Paul Danik]

Greetings,

   As the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays roll around I am reminded of how "back in the day" my Penton was sometimes used to bring home the turkey for the big meal, I am sure some of you have similar experiences and stories and I do hope you share them. Possibly I have told this one before, if so lets just blame old age for me retelling the story, besides I do like to reminisce a bit

  "Back in the day" there was a motorcycle club in the Pittsburgh area called the Leaping Links Motorcycle Club who mainly put on hill climbs, but they did put on a few Observed Trials events. The one trials event that Augie and I always tried to make was their Turkey Trials, usually held about a week or so before Thanksgiving. I vividly remember telling my mom to hold off buying a turkey as Augie and I were going to the Turkey Trials and possibly a bird would make its way home on the seat of Augie's pickup.

   Augie had a really nice Sherpa "T" trials machine and I was riding my Steel Tanker, it was a cold and snowy day but we never let minor issues keep us from getting together for an event. As luck would have it Augie and I both scored a bird and it was two pretty happy guys who headed back home that day with the two frozen turkeys sitting between us in Augie's faded yellow Ford pickup.

  I don't know if tie downs were invented at that time, but I can still picture the chains that Augie had permanently attached to the floor of his pick up that we would loop around the handlebars and then stick a long screwdriver through to hold the bikes in place. Usually there was a case of the cheapest beer that money could buy tucked into the corner of the bed as well, I think Old Pub was usually the refreshment of choice.

   Traveling with Augie was always fun, he was about 15 years older than I was and he always had interesting stories about racing his Harley "K" model, BSA Gold Star and then his beloved ESO 500 Scrambler which he still had and could usually be found leaning against the back wall of the barn with burlap sacks covering it up to keep the bird crap from getting on  it.

   Hope I didn't bore you too much, and please feel free to tell one of your own  

Paul

[LeeBuff]

Paul thanks for jogging my memory. Back in the day we had a turkey hillclimb at Whiteford, Md.  This was a drag strip uphill, running 2 bikes at a time . They started the race with a long 1/2" round rubber band stretched across the starting line. When both riders were ready the starter would let the rubber band fly and they were off to the top of the hill, with the loser being eliminated. The winner had to run again till everyone else in the defeated in your class. To win a class you could run 6 or 7 times.  

NOTE: Some riders tried to jump the gun and got caught in the rubber band resulting in a loss and a possible bloody nose!!!

  The guys from our shop "B&B" bagged around 9 turkeys. I bagged 2 with a 2nd place in the 125 class with my Penton Berkshire and a second in the 500 class on my 360 GP Montesa.
 Those were the good old days, Lee

[Chuckwoodard]

Great stories guys.  Really love to hear stories from back when it was new

Raymond Woodard

[Pat Oshaughnessy]

Out in Dist. 36 . We had the Turkey Enduro at Oakhurst Ca. Only thing I won was 6 inch tall trophy.My first one ! No turkey;)