Jerome Idaho

On my first Sunday in Idaho I was heading northbound on the Interstate from Twin Falls to Mountain Home where I was stationed in the Air Force. Back then the Interstate that ran through southern Idaho was just a spur of the I-80 so it was referred to as the ‘I-80 North.’ The Honda was running better than it ever did while I was in Germany. I was so happy until the bike started to misfire. I knew something happened, about then the engine almost quit entirely. I was lucky to get it off the Interstate at the Jerome exit and up into town.

It was about 3:00 PM and I was just hoping something was open in town. I saw two older gentlemen sitting in front of the hardware store and so I nursed my broken bike up to them and shut it off. Pulling my helmet off I asked if there was a gas station in town.

“Nope,” One of them said. “Even if we had a gas station it wouldn’t be open on a Sunday.”

I told them that I was stationed at the air base and that I needed to get back even though my bike was broken. It all seemed hopeless, I knew my bike was dead and I was too far from base. Nothing is more hopeless when you just know you are too far from help.

Someone up there must like me because about then a man and his son were just coming by with a moving van, one of those rentals that you drive yourself. Mr. Gonzales and his nine year old son was also looking for gasoline and after a short conversation we agreed to load up my bike and he would take me to Mountain Home to drop me off. Just a short stop for gas up the road a bit. And he was going that way anyway.

Either I was stronger than I am today, of course that’s true, or that bike didn’t weigh so much because we loaded it up easily with the three of us lifting it into the van. I set it up on the center stand and off we went to Mountain Home.

Conversation in the truck was interesting. Cheech and Chong were big back then, Billy and I even saw them live at the Center Star Theatre only two weeks before, and of course I was interested in what some of the things they said meant.

Mr. G wasn’t too sure what “fuchi” means in Spanish; he thought it might be a select dialect or something. He said that “fushee” is an expression of discomfort when one smells something bad. But he said that “K-pesta” is “que puesta” and that means, “What stinks?”

His son thought it was all funny.

I directed him to take the exit for the business route through town, it was the Old Highway 30, and so he could drop me off at the main intersection and continue straight to pick up the Interstate at the north end of town. They dropped me off where Air Base Road runs into the old highway, I urged him to take me out to the base, an added 10 miles and I would give him $10.

“Sorry,” He declined. “We have a long way to go to get to Nampa tonight.”

And off they went still headed north.

I was still ten miles from my new home, I still hadn’t really gotten to know the place much yet and I was expected for work on Monday, my first day of duty here. So, I set my mind and stuck my thumb out hoping for a ride out to the Air Base.

“You headed out to the Base?” The first guy with a pickup truck asked me out the window, I had been there less than five minutes.

“Yeah, my bike blew up in Twin Falls.” I told him. “I need to get out to the base.”

“Well, let’s load’er up.”

“Thanks!”

Is it just the small town, or is everybody so helpful out here? Looking back I recall how I would go out of my way to pick up hitchhikers whenever I could. I loved the company and I wanted to be helpful. Today one would be putting his or her life on the line to stop and help a stranger. What a difference from then to now.

I finally got the bike home and checked it out. I could see holes burnt in the piston through the spark plug hole on the right side cylinder. The mixture on the new carburetors was too lean and the effect was for the top of the pistons to erode and finally burn completely through. I knew I should have fattened up the jets but I didn’t expect it to do this so soon.

Another lesson learned in a long line of expensive lessons in motorcycle maintenance. This one really stuck though; I raced Plymouth Hemis with Bob Cejka for a time from 1977 until they closed the drag strip in Irvine, somewhere about 1980. The lesson I learned along the Interstate in Idaho was key to our success in making the Road Runner perform well and kept us with a very consistent ET.

Back there in the Idaho desert I was thinking, “I don’t want to pull this engine out again and rebuild it all over again.” Plus, I will be without transportation until I rebuilt the engine again and got the carbs jetted right. Wait a minute; I saw a sign for a Kawasaki for sale, one like Steven’s.

I went in and found the bulletin board and sure enough there it was. “1972 Kawasaki 750 Triple for sale. $850 or take over payments.” I wrote down the phone number, got a dime, and called.

“Do, do…you, you…still have the 750?” I stuttered a lot, being afraid I may not be the first.

“Yes, I haven’t sold it yet”

“I’ll take it.” I said.

“Don’t you want to see it?”

“Yeah, when can we do this?”

I was a little over anxious. But that is how I got my first superbike. The bike that I made into a café racer from bullshit I heard back in the FMS Squadron break room with all those BMW, Kawasaki, BSA, and Norton owners. The Japanese scream machine that would take over my life for seven years.

The Honda rotted away. I saw it a few months later; someone had taken parts off it. Anything left in the desert will revert, eventually.

The rust spot is probably still there in front of the barracks.