Me holding up the speeding ticket I got while driving from Anchorage to Fairbanks for the start of the race. The Trooper wrote me up for going 75. He said he was being kind.

Wheels of Misfortune

How I drove myself to distraction going 16 mph in a Daewoo Leganza

By Suzanne Schlosberg

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, July 29 -- I don't think you can fully appreciate how it feels to be useless until one of the tires on your rented Daewoo Leganza goes flat, and the only person able to change it is a man in a wheelchair who must slide down onto the gravel to get the job done, while you stand by and tie your shoelace.

If only I were fabricating this incident to enhance the entertainment value of this Web site. If only this were the sole example of my ineptitude this past week in Alaska, where I served as a volunteer for the six-day, 267-mile Sadler's Midnight Sun Ultra Challenge, the longest wheelchair race in the world.

Alas, the tire-changing incident was both witnessed and photographed. And it was just one of several mishaps that earned me the event's SPAM award, a 12-ounce can of the mysterious pork product bestowed upon the volunteer who most amused the race director. Among my qualifications for this dubious honor: receiving a speeding ticket, backing my Leganza into a motor home, hijacking a dilapidated Chevy Suburban, and allowing a wheelchair to roll into oncoming traffic in downtown Anchorage.

Remarkably, in between these fiascoes, I still think I was pretty darn useful. But you can be the judge.

I got the first hint of trouble before I even left for Alaska, when I received my volunteer assignment in the mail. I would be driving a pilot car for one of the athletes, trailing him during the race to protect him from traffic. "You are responsible for the safety of your athlete," the letter said, "and the maintenance of your vehicle."

Given my sketchy vehicular history -- twice I have driven off at a gas station with the nozzle still stuck in my fuel tank — seeing "responsibility," "maintenance" and "vehicle" in the same sentence caused me a bit of concern.

Preparations for the event began in Anchorage, where everyone -- the 50 volunteers, 10 event staff and 22 athletes -- convened at a church. The pilot car drivers arrived first, and we were shuttled over to pick up our rented four-door Daewoos. I was issued a white Leganza.

According to a brochure in the rental agency, the Leganza "embodies the beauty of Italian styling and the technology of German engineering." This much was immediately obvious: Whoever attributed the phrase "beauty of Italian styling" to a $13,000 South Korean mid-size sedan was either deeply deluded, deeply cynical or legally blind.

As for the German technology, I made a disconcerting discovery while driving back to the church: The car radio was kaput. This, I knew, could pose a problem. With music to entertain me, I have the driving stamina of a long-haul trucker; in silence, I can nod off while backing out of a driveway.

Back at the church, the drivers were issued cell phones, gas cards and flashing yellow lights to place on top of the vehicles. (I particularly liked my flashing light; it seemed to confer an air of authority on both me and my Leganza.) My confidence got a boost when I learned that one of my fellow drivers hailed from Australia and had never even driven on the right side of the road. Surely I would not be the worst driver among us.

Each morning before the race, I would affix my flashing safety light onto the car. I was fond of my light and felt it conferred an air of authority onto both me and my Leganza.

Next to arrive were the brave souls who had volunteered to drive the RVs, where the athletes would eat and sleep. (Not only was the idea of me maneuvering a motor home preposterous, but there also was the issue of my feelings about waste removal, discussed in detail in "Blackwater Blues."

Last to arrive were the athletes. Although the event is billed as the world's longest wheelchair race, only seven of the competitors would actually be racing in wheelchairs. The rest -- 12 men and three women -- would be covering the course in handcycles, three-wheeled vehicles powered by hand cranks.

Handcycles have gained popularity in recent years because they require less technique than racing wheelchairs and have an array of gears, making them less exhausting to operate. (Both contraptions, by the way, require more upper-body strength and endurance than any able-bodied person can possibly imagine. I find it tiring enough to crank my mom's chopped liver machine on the Jewish holidays.)

The racers were a diverse group. Some hoped simply to finish the event and were expected to take eight hours to complete each stage. Others -- the sponsored pros -- were competing for the $4,000 first prize. I was assigned to 33-year-old Michel (pronounced "Michael") Bond of St. Petersburg, Fla., who was paralyzed 10 years ago when his motorcycle was hit by a drunk driver. Michel, one of the world's best handcyclists, struck me as the strong, silent type. He had dark hair and big biceps and not a whole lot to say.

I also briefly met the rest of my crew. Sharing an RV with Michel was another top competitor, Dave Bailey, 38, a former motocross champion and current ESPN commentator. Dave had even bigger biceps and wore a purple hat with giant ear flaps that made him look like Frances McDormand in "Fargo."

Dave's driver -- my counterpart, but driving a silver Daewoo Nubira — was Lorenzo, a brooding, 23-year-old student from Milan. Our RV driver was Kristen, a 32-year-old Anchorage local. Finally there was Colleen, a 19-year-old student from New Jersey, who would divide her time between assisting the race official and helping out Michael and Dave.

After loading a week's worth of Chili Cheese Fritos, toilet paper and other essentials into the RVs, our entourage of 22 Daewoos and 13 motor homes began the trek north to Fairbanks, where the race would begin.

At the campground the first night, I removed my tent from its bag for the first time since 1994 and immediately wished that -- like my college roommate, Julie -- I had been born without a sense of smell. When the stench of mildew became too powerful, I abandoned the tent and headed off to mingle with the herd of volunteers.

Dave, Carlos, and Michel cycle into downtown Anchorage for the ceremonial finish of the race.

The group included a sizable contingent of young, chain-smoking Euros with names like Torsten and Holger and Ursula. At the upper end of the age spectrum was a pudgy, forty-ish blond man who introduced himself as "Dennis, As In The Menace." Dennis was fond of posing dire scenarios to the event staff: "Okay, emergency situation: Cyclist down. Blood everywhere. Possible broken bones. Question: Do we call 911 directly or do we call the race director on his cell phone?" (The answer: do both.)

The most entertaining of the volunteers was a 26-year-old Canadian named Guido Schnelzer. "It's pronounced GUEE-doe -- not GWEE-doe," he clarified. "I'm not an Italian mobster." Guido was in the midst of what he called a "lifelong journey of self-discovery" after a series of near-death incidents working at a pulp mill.

The cold night air managed to expunge the odor from my tent, and I slept just fine. The next morning we resumed our drive to Fairbanks -- Michel and David in the RV with Kristen, Lorenzo in his Nubira, Colleen and I in the Leganza.

It was about an hour into the ride when Colleen stopped fiddling with the knobs and finally accepted the fact that our radio was broken. It was about two hours after that when an Alaska state trooper came zooming out of nowhere and signaled for me to pull over. As I sat in the car mumbling "Shit, shit, shit, shit," Trooper Wassmann, a tall and not unattractive man, ambled over, and, in that maddeningly friendly voice that law enforcement officers acquire when they're about to nail your ass, said, "Ma'am, you were going a little fast there." I mentioned that I was a VOLUNTEER for the WHEELCHAIR race, to which Trooper Wassmann said, "That's great. May I see your driver's license and rental agreement?"

Meanwhile, this incident was being witnessed by the motorcade of Leganzas, Nubiras and RVs streaming by. Not that there’s any shame in getting a speeding ticket, but I did sense that when your main job is driving and your main responsibility is the safety of your athlete, a moving violation is not what you need to establish yourself as a useful and conscientious person.

"Shit," I said to Colleen. "Everyone will know it was me who got the ticket."

"Nah, don’t worry," she said. "All the cars look the same."

This remark triggered a flashback to the time I fainted while serving as a bridesmaid at my friend Randee’s wedding and had to be hauled off the stage in front of 300 people. Afterward, when I was hiding in the bridal suite, my mother said, "Don’t worry, no one even noticed." Over the course of that evening, no fewer than 50 wedding guests came up to me and said, "Oh my god, aren’t you totally embarrassed?"

So anyway, Trooper Wassman handed over my ticket and said, "Suzanne, you drive carefully, now," as if the personal touch was going to mitigate the fact that I was starting my volunteer mission 50 bucks in the hole.

When Colleen and I finally reached the campground in Fairbanks, I learned that my ticket was no secret. But my humiliation was short-lived, as word got around that race director Casey Corbin had done something far more inept: He had put unleaded fuel in the diesel truck carrying the racing equipment and had destroyed the engine.

The next day, the race was finally set to start. While the athletes were appearing in a local parade, we drivers went off to fill our gas tanks. This was when I realized that I had lost my gas card and would have to pay for fuel out of my own pocket. (After the ticket incident, I wasn’t going to admit to the event staff that I’d lost the card they’d urged us to "keep in a safe place.")

I munched on Chili Cheese Fritos in an attempt to stay awake during the race. The crunchiness helped perk me up, but the salt exacerbated the thirst brought on by Operation Dehydration, my campaign to avoid fluids so that I wouldn’t have to pee during the competition.

Eventually, all of the Leganzas and Nubiras lined up on the side of the road, waiting for our athletes to ride by. One by one, we pulled out to follow. After a few miles, Michel, Dave and two other handcyclists broke away from the rest, as predicted.

Later, about halfway through the hilly, 41-mile course, Michel and Dave were left behind by their two rivals: Carlos, a former Navy SEAL who’d been shot during the 1989 invasion of Panama, and Ziv, a confident Israeli economics professor who had flown in from Tel Aviv for the race. (Me: "So, you got your Ph.D. at Berkeley?" Ziv: "Impressive, isn't it?")

At first, the race was so exciting that I didn't miss the stimulation of a radio; all my attention was focused on following a safe distance behind Michel. But toward the two-hour mark I found that driving 16 mph —- as slow as 5 mph up the steep hills-- was making me very drowsy.

I also found that I seriously had to pee — a sensation that only intensifed the more I tried to ignore it. However, I couldn’t pull over and leave Michel unprotected, and there would be no breaks during the race, on this day or any other.

In my misery, I realized I’d need to prepare more thoughtfully for the ensuing five days of racing: For one thing, I would have to stop drinking — anything, ever. Operation Dehydration would be deployed immediately. Second, I’d have to bring a pile of snack foods from the RV to keep me awake. Chili Cheese Fritos seemed like a good bet because they’re crunchy and loud and our RV was stocked with a lifetime’s supply of them.

The first stage of the race ended with Michel and Dave about five minutes behind Carlos and Ziv. (The athletes' times each day would be totaled to determine the overall winner.)

You can’t get more useless than this: I stand by as a paralyzed athlete changes the flat tire on my Leganza.

The next morning as we were preparing to leave the campground, one of the volunteers dropped by to make sure I realized my Leganza had a flat tire. You won’t be shocked when I tell you this was news to me. Distressing news, too -- not only because the race was about to start but also because my usual solution to a flat tire, calling my auto club, was not really an option in Nenana, Alaska.

That's when one of the racers, 24-year-old CJ from Muncie, Indiana, stepped in -- or, I should say, wheeled in -- and took charge.

"Man," he said, "I really don't want to get down on the gravel," which he promptly did.

I would describe this scene to you further, but I was so overcome with mortification that I could do nothing but turn my back and tie my shoelace.

A few minutes later Colleen strolled by and asked what I was doing.

"Supervising," I replied.

On Race Day 2, the top four guys hung together for the 50-mile course, so four of us pilot drivers were clumped together, too. Every few miles we’d rotate so that we'd all get a view of the action, but the bottom line was, 75 percent of the time I was driving 18 mph while staring at the rear end of Lorenzo's Nubira. My Chili Cheese Fritos strategy was backfiring. The crunchiness kept me awake -- barely -- but the salt exacerbated the thirst brought on by Operation Dehydration. I would have to rethink my approach.

But first I would have to endure another episode of vehicular humiliation. Later that evening, as I dropped Michel at a community center for dinner, I somehow managed to back into one of the motor homes. A group of volunteers were signaling me to keep inching back, but apparently I spaced for a moment and missed the part where they held up their palms indicating I should stop.

After impact, Michel — still a man of few words -- rolled his eyes and shook his head. I shrunk into my seat and waited for the others to give me the damage report. Thankfully, both vehicles were unscathed.

Each day at a designated "feed zone" in the middle of the race, the pilot drivers would pull ahead of the athletes, hop out of our cars and hand each competitor a water bottle.

On Day 3, Michel had his best day yet, outsprinting the field for his first stage win. I wasn’t faring quite as well. I had switched from Chili Cheese Fritos to cherries, figuring the labor involved in removing the pits would keep me plenty occupied. But I had not considered that fruits are loaded with water, and eating an entire bagful of cherries caused me some serious bladder discomfort.

That night we all met for dinner at a local restaurant, where our table spent a good 10 minutes arguing over whether the fried strips on our plates were chicken or fish. After dinner, Casey, the race director, was holding a group meeting when one of the athletes wheeled into the restaurant and announced, "Whoever is driving Michel Bond's car left their lights on."

"Shit!" I blurted out as I darted toward the door.

Day 4: The race didn't go particularly well for Michel and Dave, who finished four minutes behind Carlos and Ziv on the 52-mile course. But my brand-new stay-awake strategy -- gum-chewing -- worked spectacularly well. I gnawed my way through an entire jumbo pack of Juicy Fruit — 32 pieces in all — and left the Leganza littered with foil wrappers, but I never once caught myself dozing off.

Still, the gum was only a stop-gap measure. The sticky, sweet film on my teeth was not something I could tolerate a second day, no matter how thoroughly I brushed and flossed. And the whole experience left me desperately craving salt.

After Michel crossed the finish line feeling grumpy and tired, I had to drive us 32 miles down the road to the campground. About two miles into this journey, he glanced at my side of the dashboard and said, "Um, do you know that you're out of gas?"

Again, you will not be shocked to learn that I didn't have a clue. The needle on my Leganza was well past the "E," the orange gas-tank light was on, and I had no idea how many miles a Daewoo Leganza could travel on fumes.

Michel and I sat there in stony silence as I began to panic. After getting a speeding ticket and a flat tire, backing into a motor home and leaving my lights on, I didn’t particularly want to run out of gas 30 miles from our campground, particularly on a day when Michel was cranky and anxious to get back to the RV to lie down.

"I think these cars get really good gas mileage," I said, hopefully.

"Apparently," he replied, as the tension mounted.

At this point, I tried the only strategy I could think of: changing the subject. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: "So, how did you meet your wife?"

Him: "When exactly was the last time you filled the tank?"

Me: "So, how many Power Bars do you usually eat during a race?"

Him: "How long has that orange light been on?"

Miraculously, we made it to the campground gas station (where, once again, I had to foot the bill). After that, Michel and I were more than eager to go our separate ways.

On Day 5, I implemented an entirely new stay-awake strategy: Bugles. Actually, I shouldn't say "entirely" new, as the salty, crispy cone-shaped snacks had many of the same qualities as Chili Cheese Fritos. But the Bugles made me slightly less thirsty, and I found the little cones to be sort of adorable and even moderately entertaining, at least compared to the more pedestrian Fritos.

After the day's race -- Michel's second stage win -- I carpooled him and Dave to an airstrip, where they boarded a small plane for "flightseeing" around Mount Denali. When I retrieved them two hours later, Michel was on a tremendous high and said he'd like to take flying lessons. I mentioned that I had no such aspirations.

"Why not?" he said. "Because you'd run out of gas and crash the plane?"

I then drove Michel and David into Talkeetna (pop: 800) for dinner and managed to park directly in front of the town's only "No Parking: Driveway" sign.

As if I wasn't feeling bad enough, later that evening, our group's only Korean volunteer told me he thought I was Colleen's mother. I brightened when he added that all Americans look alike and he could distinguish us only by our clothing. That night I pitched my tent in yet another mosquito-infested swamp and woke up with 27 new bites. I know because I counted them.

Day 6, the last stage, was short -- only 23 miles -- so no alertness strategy was necessary. Thankfully, Operation Dehydration could end, too, as I felt I was on the verge of requiring intravenous fluids. In the end, the race results stood as they had on Day 1: Ziv was first, Carlos second, Michel third and Dave fourth.

During the entire six-day, 267-mile race, none of the top competitors had a single mechanical mishap. After the race, I tried out Michel’s handcycle and within 10 minutes had a flat tire.

After the race, I asked Michel if I could try out his handcycle -- a request I'd put off because I didn't want to risk causing equipment damage that might jeopardize his standing in the race. I was having fun circling a parking lot when Carlos shouted, "Stop! You have a flat tire!"

It was remarkable: Over six days and 267 miles of racing, not one of the top racers had experienced so much as a loose screw, let alone a flat tire. Michel could do nothing but shake his head and direct me to retrieve his tool bag.

Considering that race was now over, you might expect the story to end here. It does not.

After the real finish, the athletes were scheduled to ride seven miles into Anchorage for a ceremonial finish at a downtown park. The support vehicles were to park a mile away.

Colleen and I ambled over to the park somehow oblivious to the fact that we were the only volunteers not pushing our athletes' everyday wheelchairs. (Most of the athletes -- Michel especially — wanted to switch over immediately after each day’s competition because the racing machines were uncomfortable.) When we arrived at the park, Kristen noticed that we were empty-handed: "Um, those guys are going to be here any minute, and they're going to want their chairs. Um, where are they?"

Colleen and I looked at each other, our eyes bulging, and then started sprinting as fast as we could back to the parking lot. Gasping for breath, we grabbed the chairs, assembled them with the speed of a NASCAR pit crew, then realized we didn't know the fastest way to get them back to the park. We tried sitting in the chairs and wheeling them down the sidewalk ourselves, but I kept veering off the to the left. We tried carrying them overhead, but that was too tiring. We tried pushing the chairs, but that was too slow. Nothing was working, and the clock was ticking.

Then Colleen had a brainstorm: carjacking. "Let's stop that guy!" she said,

pointing to a beat-up, maroon Chevy Suburban driving down the street. When the Suburban stopped at a red light, Colleen ran over and yanked open the back door while I shouted to the driver, "We’re putting these chairs in your truck!"

"I don't think there's room!" he feebly yelled back, as Colleen shoved Michel’s chair into the cargo area. "There’s lots of tools back there! Lots of tools!" Before the poor guy knew what hit him, Colleen had jumped into the truck herself and was bracing herself for me to hand her Dave’s chair.

After carjacking a Chevy Suburban, Colleen and I sprinted to the finish carrying Michel and Dave’s wheelchairs.

Then the light turned green, and cars behind began honking. The guy wanted to drive off, but at this point he had two strangers hanging out of his truck. Finally, with the chairs and Colleen stowed safely in the back, I closed the door and jumped in the back seat, right behind the driver.

I told him where we needed to go and he obligingly headed in that direction. When he stopped a block from the park, I jumped out and ran around back to free Colleen. But as we were unloading the chairs, a slew of wrenches and drills and screwdrivers fell out of the truck. I was bending down to scoop them up, when a man on the sidewalk yelled, "Lady! Your wheelchair is rolling away!"

I looked up and saw Dave's chair careening into traffic. I dropped the tools, sprinted into the street and grabbed the chair moments before it would have been hit by an oncoming Jeep Cherokee. Then I sprinted back to shove the tools into the truck and send our carjacking victim on his way. Colleen and I ran as fast as we could to the park with the chairs overhead.

I was thrilled that we had made it in time, a good five minutes before the athletes arrived. I was also quite pleased that I could share the blame for this particular fiasco. But Colleen wouldn’t let me. "Actually," she said, "I think I just caught your disease…whatever it is."

Suzanne receives the prestigious and much coveted...SPAM award which goes to the volunteer who provided the most laughs.

That evening at the awards banquet, Michel received his $1,000 third-prize check, and I received my can of SPAM. All in all, I felt pretty good. Sure, I’d had my share of small disasters and near misses, but I’d had my useful moments, too. I’d assembled and disassembled Michel’s wheelchair at least 50 times, I’d shuttled him to buy t-shirts and newspapers and visit tourist destinations, I’d been around for last-minute equipment and clothing emergencies, and that’s only a partial list. I could honestly say that I had not screwed up so royally as to have affected Michel’s performance. He’d probably have finished in third place with or without me.

At the end of the banquet, I was talking to the members of my crew about my next mission: building houses in Papua New Guinea with Habitat for Humanity. After they stopped laughing, they expressed serious concern about what might happen with a hammer in my hand. As usual, Michael just rolled his eyes and shook his head. "At least," he said, "they won’t be issuing you a rental car."