Victor's pre Cannonball run

[Iron Dinosaur]

5/28, Well boy's, here's your nightly dose of Victor. I got a lot to say tonight. To start with, many of you may not know, I am the Chief surgeon on Victor's bike, I have to say, I do believe I am more nervous than an old whore in church here! I have done ALL the work on this bike and it is very nerve racking to have one of your creations being put through a test such as this. I am proud to say, that all is progressing well. Victor has offically reached the half way point in only 6 days with a total of 1687 miles under his belt! I think we owe him a round of applause here... He had no problems with the bike today at all other than using another 4 quarts of oil. Tonight I'm going to give you guy's a little hint of his location. He was able to round up a new set of spark plugs today, believe it or not, at a local Harley boutique in Springfield Mo. He went to the counter to ask for plugs and the whole shop had to come outside to see this ancient piece of iron making history. The parts guy was so impressed, he called a local tractor dealer 30 miles away and this guy closed his shop and drove 30 miles to hand deliver the plugs to Victor!! He got in a total of 9 hours on the road today, just shy of another 300 mile day. He is feeling just fine and said he felt as if he could "go out on the town" this evening if he didn't have to get up and do it again tomorrow. He said "all with no drugs". I asked him how his butt felt and he said it was pretty good, must be numb, he even removed one of the two gel pads he had under him. He did mention that he seemed to notice that it had been down on power once in awhile for the last couple of days. During his nightly 2 hour once over he found that the intake manifold nuts were loose and the carb was sagging. A pair of borrowed water pump pliers from a local handy man took care of the problem. He was on a main highway today and had to ride on the shoulder of the road for several miles. I asked again today about the brakes and he said he hardly ever uses them, not an issue what so ever. He did get his new back tire delivered today, but..... he said "he thought he could get another day's worth of riding on his old one", so he strapped the new one to the handlebars and plans to change it tomorrow. I think the cannonball bikes will get much better tire wear because they won't have to carry near the load that Victor is. He has been carrying a bottle of juice under his jacket to sneak a sip every now and then to keep hydrated. He had 90 degree weather today with blue skies. He happened to run into a local cop at a stop today (must have been a donut shop) and the smokie pointed out that the oil pump packing nut was dangling loose. Turns out, I guess they are good for something. On a humerous note, He was jacked up by another cop at 4 am this morn. outside his motel room. They wanted to know who he was and what his buisnees was there. Turns out a crook had robbed a bank and spent the night at the same motel and the cop was waiting for the FBI to show up.. Well this is about all I can type in one night, my little fingers are starting to smoke. Check in tomorrow for more tales of Victor, on the road. Dave