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CLAYPOOL - If pictures are truly worth a thousand words, then almost any question you have for 17-year-old 1999 Tippecanoe Valley High School graduate Doug Barnes can be answered by strolling through his bedroom.
Open the door and the first thing you see is what Barnes, known as "Plugg" to his friends, would say is his favorite shirt. The long-sleeve pink, black and white shirt attached to a clothes hanger is neatly placed next to the bedroom window of his Yellow Creek home and bears a number one and the name McGrath.
Ask him his idea of the perfect place and he'd probably point to a poster tacked to the wall just left of the shirt. The poster shows a setting sun and a man doing just what Barnes loves to do in his spare time, ride his dirt bike.
Ask him who his hero is and he'll show you a three-ring binder that has a picture of Jeremy McGrath tucked beneath the plastic cover.
His favorite hat is yellow and fading and has the Fox Racing logo on it. He wears it almost everywhere he goes. He wears it to work at Wabash Valley Mfg. He wears it when he rides around in his 1988 red Ford Thunderbird.
He has toolboxes in the corner of his bedroom. He has even more tools laying on the blue carpet next to a small pile of engine parts. He has two plastic dirt bikes, still in the package, on a bookshelf next to his bed. There's a third, the one his parents, Garry and Bobbi Barnes, bought him for Christmas, on top of the television.
For Barnes, who will celebrate his 18th birthday Tuesday, working on and riding dirt bikes and other ATVs, especially his yellow 1979 Suzuki RM 100, is a way of life.
"I've been around them my whole life," said Barnes. "Dad's had a motorcycle since I was a little kid. I can remember Dad taking me for rides when I was little."
Barnes credits his parents, mainly his dad, for his interest in motorcycles. Garry is chapter director for the Gold Wing Touring Association and Bobbi is secretary/treasurer and newsletter editor. Barnes says it runs in the family.
Barnes got his first bike when he was 11 years old. He still remembers the sacrifices he had to make to buy the 1977 Honda XL 75 he paid $275 for.
"I used to mow lawns all summer long," said Barnes, who wanted to keep any answer short and sweet, as if he'd rather be riding than talking.
So here on his mom's blue sofa sits this 17-year-old kid, wearing his yellow, faded hat backwards. His right knee sports a muffler burn he got while working on his bike. He's touched on everything from mowing lawns to buying his first bike to being just a few months away from living out his dream.
"It would be just the ultimate to work for a team," said Barnes. "It's every mechanic's dream."
Before Barnes can work for a team he must first go to mechanics school. He has met with a representative from Motorcycle Mechanics Institute in Phoenix, Ariz., and would like to go within the next few months. Barnes calls it a privilege to attend the 10-month school. Only two MMI campuses exist in the country, the one in Arizona and one in Orlando, Fla.
"I don't think just anybody could do it," said Barnes. "You gotta kind of want it, I guess. I'd be taking a course called Honda Tech Mechanics. I'd like to come back and work for a local shop."
During his senior year at TVHS, Barnes had to rebuild his bike. Again he had to make the sacrifices. This time he did not mow lawns but worked at Wal-Mart in Warsaw. One year and $1,000 later, he was able to ride his bike and get a new motor, new seat cover and new plugs and wires. The works.
Barnes said he never opened an instruction book during the restoration for one reason: "I didn't have one."
Barnes says being around his friends with dirt bikes or ATVs, like Shawn Bucher of Akron and Adam Wood of Silver Lake, puts him in what he calls "the zone."
"It's what I call the zone," said Barnes. "The world could be at war and I'd still be paying attention the freedom of riding."
Barnes said he would like to do the same thing with kids that his dad did for him.
"I'd like to see my kids get involved with it, to see if they like it," said Barnes. "If they don't, that's OK. If they do, all the better."
But he doesn't have any kids right now. He's less than a week away from his 18th birthday. But until that day, tucked away in this house on Yellow Creek Lake is his bedroom.
The posters, the plastic dirt bikes still in the packages, the tool box, the engine parts and the pictures on the bookshelf of Barnes and his brother, Jason Spore, at the super-cross race a few years ago in Indianapolis, are the only answers he needs.
