Crutcher’s Corner | Posters, Autographs & Opening Ceremonies
Share
After the second weekend of racing the Hoosier Tire Arenacross Nationals, while breaking down the 10×20′ back wall I made for the ATC FLPSDE team, I started thinking of the autographs signed earlier in the night. An old memory flashed back of a Jeromy Buehl poster I had hanging on my bedroom wall for half a decade. After being national number 25 in 1992, a series of oddball injuries that lasted a few years, and a screwy points advancement system that caused him to lose his ride, Buehl thought his racing days were numbered. After somewhat retiring and trying his hand at being a professional plumber, the Ohioan raced select events at the PJ1 Super Arenacross series in 1995 and impressed the TUF. Racing Kawasaki team. The Illinois team picked “Top Fuel” to ride the entire series alongside former Peak Honda teammate Jimmy Gaddis in 1996.
I had no knowledge of who Buehl or Gaddis was but had their autographed poster, and to me, they were the same as any other professional motorcycle racer. Because I attended a handful of the PJ1 AX races annually in the 90s, the guys racing professionally were stars I could literally reach up and touch. Most of them probably worked a regular job, were on their way out of professional racing, or were just locally fast guys showing up to a few events here and there. You could’ve told 50cc-racing-me just that, but it would not have mattered because I had their autograph on a poster.
For some reason, Buehl has always stuck out to me as one of the few riders I associate with the mid/late 90’s Arenacross. I don’t know the guy and obviously have nowhere near the accolades he does in his racing career. He was a two-digit rider in AMA Pro Racing; I was never near that and don’t think that I was “one day away” from that fate. Still, I feel connected to him, and many of the other guys that had their sails creased again with the Supercross-in-a-bottle racing series.
Going back to the poster I had on my wall, I realized that there might be a kid out there that has my autographed poster on their wall that could think of me in the same manner. While rolling up the giant back wall vinyl on the arena’s dirt floor, it was as if I was taken back to 1996 at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Rodeo arena dirt is a particular sort of soft, one you can only find under a roof. I remembered playing in the dirt with a boy named Trey as we built little dirt bike tracks in the same type of soil that I was wiping off the vinyl at the Claremore Expo. That weekend in Guthrie was when I scored the poster.
I mean, you guys know what kind of racer I am and my level of relevancy. I fall into the “locally fast guy” category mentioned in paragraph two. But to the kids that line up to get autographs at the 6 PM team signing, I’m the one with the permanent marker. Twenty-five years of racing have passed since I was the blonde-headed sprite in a crowd of 7-year-olds, all eager for a poster and a sticker. It’s wild to think that one day a little racer may think of me the same way I still think of riders such as Buehl, Gaddis, Antunez, Stephenson, Gonzalez, Hagseth, Jones, Adoptante, Cooper, and Goodman.
Sometimes those little flashbacks start a whirlwind of thoughts that make me realize I’m a paid professional motorcycle racer (I left the stadium with 225 new-to-me dollars perfectly folded in the money clip), just like all of those names were at one time. Accolades and achievements aside, it’s a wild fraternity to be part of.
During Saturday night’s smoke, fire, and laser-filled opening ceremony, I sat in the dark on a roller watching the laser lights zoom across the crowd and thought, “This is so cool.”
