Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 11:54:17 -0700 From: "Kelly, Katie" Subject: Glory Days Oh the great trike race? I think I was seven or eight, and Maggy was five? I actually don't remember who put it on or why, except that it was in a park next to the river in Sacramento. I think it was like SFR workers versus kids or something. I remember lots of long hair and shaggy beards. There were all these grown-ups in these handmade, and very fancy tricycles, with gears and handbrakes. And there were all these other kids there with fancy vehicles. My sister and I drove her stock Mattel Big Wheel, the kind with the ribbons on the handle bars. We were the known underdogs going in. I remember lots of snickering when we pulled up to the grid. Maggy was our qualifying driver. She had some problems in the sweepers, and we didn't get such a good starting position. I don't know, she just wasn't pushing it very hard. We were pretty close to the back. It was a LeMans start, and Maggy's start was good. More motivated than in the qualifying session, she immediately worked her way up to the front of the field. This was an endurance race: two laps each, then driver changeover. I don't remember the total number of laps but it felt like forever. What I mostly remember, besides trying to dodge all these other expensive trikes, was feeling like I was going to puke. Driving a Big Wheel at its absolute limit on the heat in Sacramento is incredibly hard work. For one thing, you can't coast. We won this race, defeating not only our girls division, but the boys division, too, and all of the grown-ups. Unfortunately, the trophy just says, "Fastest Girls Team." They had no idea that we'd also take TTOD. Neither did we. There was some controversy in the pits, however. Apparently, our driver changeovers weren't really "legal." But there was no rule actually governing the changeover process. The protest committee determined that this slight changeover variance in no way gave us any inherent performance advantage, but we were warned that a future committee might give us a different verdict. Our peers were incensed. The Kelly Girls had developed a reputation as overly fierce competitors, willing to stretch our interpretation of the rules to win at any cost. We returned the next year determined to prove that this victory was no fluke. The governing body clearly outlined the proper pit speed, a rule which we followed. We won again in Maggy's Big Wheel. Meanwhile, my mother began her string of Solo II National Championships. The beginnings of Kelly Legacy were now solidly set. The next year, I was now nine years old, stronger, wiser, and I had my own Green Machine, complete with its own spoiler, which I thought could do some damage. My dad worried that this wasn't really the vehicle for the win, so he got Maggy this other fancy looking trike. Though there was a bbq, no one else even bothered bringing their trikes, as it turned out. Why bother. Those Kelly Girls were turning into buttheads. That marked the end of an era. The Kelly Legacy, at least on the part of the Kelly Girls, would be put on temporary hold, and in fact, it appears it still is. But I'll tell you what: I never lost the fire. The images of that Summer of '77 fuel me to this day. In an old issue of "The Wheel," circa 1977 I think, there is full coverage of the first year's race. There's a picture of Maggy and me performing one of our infamous and controversial changeovers. We were very little people back then, and even kind of cute in our little matching uniforms. When I first saw this spread many years later, it was somewhat disappointing. What I remember is feeling so tough, yet the intensity is somehow lost in the photo. All you see are these two blond kids playing with a Big Wheel in a park. Katie K.