Stage 12: Tunica, Mississippi to Arkadelphia, Arkansas. 243 miles.

After several days of hard fought miles through some terrible weather, the motorcycle gods smiled upon us today with clear blue skies, sunshine and cool, if not chilly, weather. Within about 30 miles from the starting line we crossed over the Mighty Mississippi River into Arkansas.

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Just after crossing the Mississippi River bridge we noticed that our riding companions Jacob Martin and Shane Masters were not behind us. After waiting at a fuel station a mile up the road for almost half an hour, and hearing from other riders that Shane had lost the rear exhaust valve cover off the ‘25 Indian Chief but had a large group of riders helping look for the missing piece, Nikki Hancock and I decided to soldier on alone. It turns out that minutes before Shane would have been required to put the bike on the race’s official dead machine trailer, the valve cover was miraculously discovered and he and Jake were able to continue on, although they never managed to catch up with us until the end of the day.

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We continued on through the many thousands of acres of agricultural farmland in Eastern Arkansas for a good portion of the day. Our travels took us over the White River, the Arkansas River and the Ouachita River today. This afternoon’s routes progressed from long straight stretches of farm roads into some very pretty forested roads, though the condition of the roads themselves was fairly poor. Many jarring collisions and rear seat air time for Nikki from the numerous potholes that we couldn’t see until it was too late due to the sunlight and shaded spots.

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All day long our ‘28 motored right along, with just fuel stops and two oil changes at hundred mile intervals. With the non-recirculating, total loss oil systems on these era machines, it’s a good maintenance practice to change the oil every 100-150 miles and re-prime the crank cases with a couple of cycles on the fuel tank mounted hand oiler. No issues other than a few large junebugs to the face at 50 miles an hour.

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Tonight’s finish line was located in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, where Mayor (and rider number 25) Scott Byrd in conjunction with the local Fire and Police Department and countless others provided an outstanding show of hospitality and southern cooking for all riders and support crew. Sincere thanks to all. The local turnout of supporters and race fans was impressive and greatly appreciated. A big thanks to Kelly Modlin and his family for providing all riders with handmade, personalized pottery mugs with our rider number and Cannonball logo stamped into the sides.

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Tonight’s agenda for the 28 was light; chain adjustment, rear brake adjustment, exhaust valve adjustment, intake valve adjustment, re-clocking the front cylinder intake tower to prevent the intake pushrod from rubbing the cylinder any further and topping up all the fluids. As always, a huge thanks to Art Frank and Ben Brown. We couldn’t do this or have near the success thus far without their help. Tomorrow will be a great day as we cross into our home state of Texas, having ridden every mile thus far from the Canadian border. Just over 250 miles from Arkadelphia to Nacogdoches, Texas (putting us just over an hour away from our Texas home).