LOWER LAKE >> The law of gravity says that what goes up must come down. And it holds true whether what is going aloft is a rocket ship, a DC-3, kites, a pole vaulter, a golf ball or a rock. Sometimes with tragic results.
Such was the case for Larry Batistoni on Sept. 17, 1971 at a motocross track in Carlsbad that no longer exists. In all, 40 riders started the fateful race that would be his undoing.
Batistoni, 64, calls it his “day of infamy.” For certain it was his last motorcycle race. And his first race in which he ever suffered multiple injuries in that sport.
The leathers and expensive boots he wore that day were cut to pieces by anxious doctors and nurses in their haste to treat him at a Carlsbad hospital. And Bastitoni’s bike itself, a vehicle with a 250cc engine, was given to a volunteer who was doing the flagging by a race official.
But Batistoni does continue to ride a motorcycle, sharing it with his dog who, helmeted and goggled, answers to the name of Wheeler and goes wherever Larry goes — which is not very far — in a small sidecar. You can usually find Larry and Wheeler, given to him by a federal trapper, sitting out front of the Lower Lake Coffee Company.
His motorcycle is BMW-engineered. He got it by selling his horse trailer and truck, which earned him enough money to make a down payment. Wheeler’s side car came with it.
Batistoni shares his story with anyone who requests that favor.
“They laid out a track a mile and a half long on natural terrain in Carlsbad,” he recalls. “They weren’t supposed to improve the track to make it better. They had an obstacle across the dirt track that was 15 feet high. There was no way around it. You had to go up it and down it.
“There was a chance to do good and I was a daredevil, I guess,” he continued, “because I hit it too fast. I went straight up the wall and came down on the other side and when I landed on the rear wheel it kind of whiplashed me. Because helmets weren’t scientifically designed back in those days and when I landed it caused a blood clot.”
At this point Batistoni shifted into high macho. He was, by God, going to finish the race. He got up and got back on his bike. But when he started riding again he felt dizzy.
“My left hand went numb and I couldn’t grip the clutch,” he said. ”Then I got a pain in my elbow and my left leg stopped working.”
He called it quits at the top of a menacing hill when his bike fell over and he did, too.
“I realized I shouldn’t do this,” he said.
“I was just so dizzy and incoherent that I didn’t know what was going on.”
Fortunately for him, a doctor in the crowd did.
“He ran over and said ‘I’m a doctor! I’m a doctor!’”
Batistoni somehow found amusement in the painful incident and replied, “’I’m a patient! I’m a patient!’”
After one hospital rejected Batistoni, another one accepted him. His troubles, however, continued when no one came to claim him.
“I was very disoriented and I had an oxygen mask on me,” he said. “I was in the hospital for a month down there. I didn’t even know I was in the hospital. My parents (both now deceased) were in Daly City and the two guys I rode with to go down there didn’t know what happened and couldn’t find me.”
In a way, that might have adjusted him for the life he now lives in small mobile home. Wheeler is his only companion. In the last year he has said goodbye to his mother and his 32-year-old pony, Gambler.
But Batistoni’s motorcycle riding career was great while it lasted. In 1969 he won top U.S. Motorcycle Association honors as the best rider in the country.
“A neighbor down the street had a motorcycle,” he said in describing how he got stated. “He showed me how to ride and I saved enough money to buy a Yamaha 100 street bike that I turned into a dirt bike after a while. There was a (motorcycle) program that I didn’t even know about. I was just a member of the Motorcycle Association and I started racing bikes and I was winning and stuff.”
Batistoni was a good enough rider to break in new bikes.
“Riding was just being young and fun and I was good at it,” he said. “I had my track at McClaren Park in San Francisco and nobody could beat me on it.”
He also became a stunt-riding member of the cast for a little-known Hollywood horror film named “Alabama’s Ghost.”
“I was a vampire on a motorcycle attacking Los Angeles and I wore rubber teeth,” he confided.
For 16 years (1988-2004) Batistoni was also a cowboy of sorts, herding cattle for the Grand National Rodeo at the Cow Palace up Geneva Avenue from the railroad, which was sometimes shown as a part of that day’s Bay Area TV news. He also rode herd as a caretaker for a rancher on Lower Lake’s Morgan Valley Road.
He played baseball for school and town teams as a catcher and second baseman and was injured when hit by a pitched ball. His efforts to play sandlot football ended the day he caught a pass and turned around to find a telephone pole in his face. He also fell off a horse at full gallop. He broke his pelvis in two places.
Batistoni’s only marriage lasted one month shy of two years. Now he lives alone and keeps his place of residence confidential. Why?
“After my accident I was 20 and a half and in a wheelchair in a San Diego hospital thinking, ‘Gee, what’s life going to be like when I’m 60?’ Well, I’m past 60 and still going around kind of gimpy. I guess I still feel kind of ugly,” he replied.
