BEST OF JODY’S BOX: OUTFLANKED BY THE BURGERMEISTER’S PANZER FORCES

I’ve been up at the crack of dawn, when only garbage men and bakers are awake, running five miles in the hills near my home for the last six weeks. After my run, I do 50 sit-ups to the amusement of my dog, who gets a lick in at the top of every stroke, but has to wait with tongue extended for the last ten. Then, I gulp down a breakfast of low-fat yogurt and a hearty cup of steam.

You’re probably thinking that I’m getting ready for some big race. I’m not. I learned years ago, that the only way to get ready for the “big race” was to stuff six $20 bills in your wallet to pay the exorbitant entry fee, pack something by Tolstoy to read during the interminable wait between your first and second motos and accept the fact that you should have cherry-picked two classes down if you really wanted to win that ten-percent discount coupon on a quart of tranny oil. When Saint Peter greets me at the pearly gates to determine in which direction my soul will go, I’ll gladly tell him to “open the gates because I’ve already been to the World Mini Grand Prix.”

Why am I running and eating yogurt? For the same reason as everybody who is injecting themselves with the fat drug, only in my case it is to avoid the needles and having to spend $160 on a new pair of pants. Or rather, new leathers with the dreaded next-size-up label—which for me would be a size 36.

I never thought I’d be wearing plus-size pants. Nobody told me that it was in the cards, preordained, as inevitable as taxes, death and angry black characters on on every TV show on cable TV. If they had, I would have eaten more—and faster. Instead, I fought the good fight and held my ground. For most riders, myself included, the Maginot Line of the pant’s war is fought at size 32. My defenses held until I was outflanked by the Burgermeister’s Panzer forces.

Back in 1982, while racing in Europe I visited the Yoko factory in Finland to have a special pair of red, white and blue size 32 leathers made. Unfortunately, somewhere on the flight from Helsinki to Anaheim I outgrew them. I remember the day I couldn’t get those size 32 pants cinched the same way most people remember where they were when Kennedy was killed. From that moment on I was a 34. No crime. No shame. No rice cakes.

So, it came as a surprise to me when a month ago, I suffered a Viet Nam-style flashback…only about my pant size instead of napalm. It was shades of the summer of ‘82.

“They must have shrunk in the dryer,” I said when Jimmy Mac eyeballed me holding my breath like a deep sea diver as I tugged on the zipper.

“Your dryer must be nuclear powered,” said the Mac.

A normal man would have bit the bullet and bought a brand new pair of size 36 leathers. After all, 20 years was a good run for a guy who lived on the verge of the next largest size for 19 of those years. But, not me. From that moment on I started training, drinking diet soda, counting calories and eating Kale. I figured that after a few weeks of watching what I ate, regular exercise and sucking my stomach in, I’d slip right back into my trusty 34’s.

Even if I was the one to admit it, by the end of the month I was looking good. My gear fit really well. I had no trouble zipping my pants up and when I landed from big jumps the snap didn’t come undone. I was looking suave.

Even Jimmy Mac was impressed. “A month ago you couldn’t get in those pants and now you have room to spare. How’d you do it?” he asked as we sat on the tailgate of the Jodymobile.

“This was my secret weapon,” I said as I reached into my ice chest and pulled out a container of low-fat yogurt. “I quit eating red meat. I took up transcendental meditation. I run five miles a day. I shuffle Deal-A-Meal cards. And, when I feel hungry, I eat low-fat yogurt.”

The Mac was impressed and he would have stayed impressed if I hadn’t spilled the yogurt on my lap and yelled, “Cripes, I just paid $160 for these new pants.”