Revving Up Regret

I sat in the middle of our chert driveway upon an idling red and blue Honda FourTrax TRX125 on that Spring evening in 1990. I am not much for idling especially while sitting on an ATV in much anticipated warmer weather and longer days, but I purposefully had the four-wheeler in neutral so that I could make an important decision. Simply put—I was fed-up, mad, disappointed, embarrassed—something had to give.

Rewinding back one month, I had outgrown my Kawasaki KD80 motorcycle and needed a new ride. I was only 9 and could not afford to purchase an ATV, but I could influence one being bought. I kept on and on nagging until my dad and Papa drove me to Oneonta, Alabama to the ATV dealer to see what they had in stock. Dad was planning to buy used—I knew that and was not disappointed.

I love the smell of ATV dealerships. Weird, I know. I guess it is the new tires and plastic. Regardless, I was excited and dreaming about destroying fescue and hillsides on our farm. When we walked back into the shop, I saw it—the four-wheeler mentioned in the introduction. I loved it. It was already mine in my mind. I was mentally riding it through the pasture back home.

My Papa was very experienced with gasoline engines. He spent his teenage years drag racing, blowing the motors up on a Friday, and having the engine rebuilt by Saturday night so that he could do it all over again. He wanted to crank the motor, listen to it run, and let me test drive it. As the motor fired to life and idled, he was not happy. He did not like the way the motor sounded. I, on the other hand, thought it sounded like a dream—bump, bump, bump. Bump, bump. He tried to speak a little wisdom and logic and convince me not to buy it. He might as well have been speaking Greek—I wanted it bad and didn’t speak Greek. I begged, pleaded, and won in the end. Dad bought it.

We took it back home, and I tried to drive the tires off of it. Soon after, cracks began to form in the foundation of my dream. Now, I could even tell that the motor was not running well, but I didn’t report my findings to anyone. The next afternoon, I came home from school, cranked it up, and began riding as usual. That is when it happened; the throttle became locked in the open position as I was flying across the field and toward the cattle crossing. I drew my thumb back to let off the gas and decrease my speed, but the motor stayed revved and momentum unchecked. Panic! What am I going to do? I quickly squeezed the brake handle on the right side of the steering wheel with all the strength that God gave to this 9 year old. Simultaneously, I used my right foot to push the brake pedal down like it was the head of a angry rattlesnake. My speed immediately began to decrease, and I was thanking Jesus in my head.  The brakes slowed the ATV down enough for me to flip the kill switch and cut the motor off.

My mind was racing along with my heart rate. I began to think of how that situation could have turned out. All scenarios were labeled “terrible.” What am I going to do? I did not want to push this thing 300 yards though the pasture to Papa’s garage, so I took a chance, cranked it back up, and idled in first gear to his garage. When he got home from work, I met him at his truck and told him what happened. He just looked at me with a classic “dad look.” Cue the lecture: “Boy, I told you that something was wrong with this four-wheeler before you bought it.” Then my favorite part, “But you just had to have it!” As you can imagine my response, “ Yes sir. Yes sir. Yes sir. Can you fix it?”

Papa put his lunch box down, sighed, and began tinkering with the throttle and worked methodically to the carburetor. I just sat there without muttering a word. After thirty-minutes, he had made a few adjustments and put everything back together. He said, “Go drive it and see if that fixed it.” Say no more! I jumped on, fired it up, and took off—a little more cautious than usual.

“I think he fixed it,” I thought to myself as I distanced from the garage. I drove a little faster, and a little faster. The FourTrax was alive again! It was performing as it should have. I drove over to my house and then back out our 1/8 mile driveway. Before I got all the way out to the road, I let off the throttle to slow down and turn around. Same song, second verse—the throttle was stuck again. I cut the engine, applied the brakes, and stopped before rolling into the road. “Good grief,” I thought to myself. I fired it back up, turned around, and headed back down the driveway toward the house. I let off the throttle, and she stayed revved up. I was furious! I couldn’t go back over to Papa’s house and hear another lecture. I was convinced that I had made a mistake and was not in need or want of his affirmation to the truth.

As I was sitting, stopped at the highest point of the driveway, and looking down it and toward the house, a brilliant stroke of 9 year old wisdom burst in the front door of my brain—I am going to blow this motor up. In my mind, if I blew the motor, my parents would be sympathetic and replace this red and blue pile of junk that I just had to have. After 4 seconds of deliberation, I began carrying out this beautiful plan.

I clicked into first and thumbed the throttle as far forward as she would go. The motor roared to life and away we went. At the end of first gear, I went to second, third, fourth, and fifth in the same fashion. I was slinging chert at top speed when I got to the old rusted cattle crossing in the driveway at the point where the pasture turned into our yard. All I could think was ,”Why has this thing not blown-up; I am running out of real estate, and I know this throttle is stuck!” When those front tires hit that cattle crossing, I knew that I had messed up.

I could not have expected the catapult that the dip of that iron crossing would employ to the Honda. The front two tires leaped out of that dip like a funny car on a green light, and for the first time I felt like a professional bull rider. Up in the air and to the left we flew, all four tires in the air. Now, my mind was fully focused on getting all four tires back on the ground. As soon as I realized that the landing would be a success, my brain identified another problem. I was now off the driveway and in the grass, still headed left and directly toward a barbed wire fence. Oh, no! I knew that I could not get traction and get turned back right in time—we were still wide open from a speed standpoint due to the jammed throttle. Hitting the fence was inevitable, but I could mitigate the impact and try to ride down the fence line instead of straight into it. I quickly jerked the handle bars as far to the right that they would turn, lifted my left leg, and put all of me on the right side of that four-wheeler. That quick-thinking paid off. I rode down that fence line watching the barbed wire have its way with those two left tires and the plastic fender wells. All I could think was, “That could be your leg right now!

The fence stood its ground and slowed the momentum enough for the tires to get traction and veer out of the fence just in time to miss the cemented iron swing set that Papa welded together and made for me when I was a toddler. I killed the motor and skidded to a stop in the middle of the side yard. Wide-eyed and panting, I was alive. More than that, I did not have a scratch and the tires still had air in them. I am unsure if Jesus pulled me out of that fence or one of His angels, but one of them was there with me that day.

I calmed down for a minute and reflected on what had just occurred. My disappointment, lack of patience, and anger had developed a plan that would not relieve me of my mistake. The only thing they were going to relieve me of was needing to draw breath and live the rest of my life. Since I got a second chance, I did what I should have done in the first place and admitted my mistakes to dad and Papa. To my surprise, they loaded up the four wheeler and took it back to the dealership. The mechanic could not fix the throttle problem, and they refunded our money.

Sometimes we make detrimental plans in anger and haste because we are unwilling to admit our mistakes. Pride is a strong and dangerous foe. One thing is for sure, I never, ever tried to blow something up in attempt cover my mistakes and circumvent facing them and the ultimate truth.