Onaway businessman featured in biker magazine

by Peter Jakey, Managing Editor

Butch Thompson, an Onaway businessman, who can?t be accused of not getting the most out of life, never thought he was going to be a magazine centerfold. Not until he saw the spread in the June edition of ?Bike Magazine.?

Thompson is part of a 10-page feature article with two of his friends from the hunting club ?Cheap Shot.? At the center of the publication is Thompson leaning on his mountain bike, flanked by Mitch Freel of Rogers City and former Rogers City resident Tim Oaks.

The sub-headline, ?A Northern Michigan hunting club takes a shot at mountain bike racing,? was one of the reasons the magazine sent a photographer and writer from different parts of the country, but it?s also their unique relationship and the friendly needling between the men which seems to keep them involved in the sport.

THOMPSON, THE owner of Thompson?s Farm Supply, is know by most locals for being involved in the local pumpkin-growing contest, but his neighbors are all too familiar with his sometimes eccentric antics, which could include launching a lit bowling ball from his homemade catapult. He admits to receiving a call from time to time from neighbors wondering, ? ?what are you up to this time?? ? One can never tell.

Thompson might be involved in the off-the-wall, Wanigan Race, in which teams race in makeshift rafts on the Cheboygan River. It?s not just a race. It?s more than that. Teams have to cook no less than six quarts of chili from scratch while paddling for the finish line.

Thompson?s Cheap Shot group, under the ?Death Bunny? mascot flag, which looks like a skull and cross bones, has taken part in the Wanigan race five years running. This year, they brought home a trophy and a $500 check.

THE ARTICLE follows Thompson and the men as they trained and took part in the 27-mile Iceman Cometh race in Kalkaska, which attracts thousands of mountain bikers from all o

ver the Midwest.

?If we run it (the race), I?m convinced that we will set a new course record ? and not the good kind,? stated Thompson, who is referred to as Geezer throughout the article. He goes on to say that he can do 30 miles with one pedal, even at 58. ?My problem is that I have been a chain smoker for the last 40 years or so, and that tends to limit the amount of bike riding, like we do, but a bike racer that does not make,? stated Geezer. ? I also made the huge mistake of telling friends and relatives that I was going to run this race. If I don?t, I?ll be taking *%#! from hundreds of people.?

His goal was to beat ?the short bus? that clears the course of stragglers. He did that and finished the race in six hours, but was dead last. It is described in much more colorful terms, making the article not suitable for younger readers.

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