Flat out of luck

Woodling: Schreiner, Burkart miss state tourney after flat tire

Classmates’ jaws dropped Tuesday every time Nick Burkart told his sad tale.

“They were shocked,” said Burkart, a Free State High sophomore. “Everybody asked how I did at state, and I had to explain what happened.”

Burkart, the only city prep golfer to qualify for Monday’s Class 6A state championships at Hutchinson’s Carey Park, never made it to the Salt City. Neither did Jack Schreiner, the Firebirds’ golf coach.

With Hutchinson about a three-hour drive from Lawrence and with Burkart scheduled for a 9 a.m. tee-off, Schreiner decided to drive down the morning of the event. Thus Schreiner picked Burkart up at 5 a.m.

“That would give him plenty of time to warm up before his tee time,” Schreiner said.

To make the journey to Hutch, Schreiner opted to use his own car instead of a school van because, he said, “I thought we’d be more comfortable. The vans are OK, but they’re pretty Spartan.”

Also, Schreiner reasoned, why take a vehicle designed to hold seven passengers when there were only the two of them? So Schreiner and Burkart were tooling along comfortably in his 2000 model car on the Kansas Turnpike. Until, that is, they were about five miles from Emporia.

“I heard a pop and I thought a rock had hit the car,” Schreiner said. “Then I see a flap of rubber from the left front tire flying off. Then the wheel started smoking.”

Schreiner, who has taught summer driver’s education courses in Lawrence for the last 25 years, was able to maneuver the damaged auto safely to the side of the road.

“I’ve had maybe six flat tires in all the years I’ve taught driver’s ed,” Schreiner said, “but I’ve never seen anything like that. The tire just disintegrated.”

Free State High golfer Nick Burkart putts at Alvamar Golf Course in this file photo. Burkart, the city's lone qualifier for the state tournament, didn't participate after the car he and coach Jack Schreiner were taking to the meet had a flat tire.

Minutes later, he had the spare tire and jack out of the trunk. But he tried and tried and couldn’t budge the lug nuts. Burkart couldn’t, either. Finally, Schreiner called 911 – “Thank goodness for cell phones” – advised a dispatcher of his location and was told a tow truck was on the way. However, after 45 minutes, no tow truck.

Schreiner called again and learned the dispatcher had misunderstood the location and had returned to base. Eventually, the truck arrived at the correct place.

“By now it’s about 7:30,” Schreiner said, “and we’re about two hours from Hutchinson.”

Back on the cell phone, Schreiner finally reached someone at Carey Park, explained the problem and asked if it would be possible for Burkart to tee off with the last group at 10:50 a.m. That’ll work, he was told.

Meanwhile, the tow truck driver used a torque wrench to remove the lug nuts from the damaged hub. However, a lug nut snapped off in the process. Still, the temporary spare was usable and Schreiner drove to a tire store in Emporia because he wasn’t about to drive all the way to Hutch on one of those doughnut spares.

The folks at the Cooper Tire store were “extremely nice,” according to Schreiner, “But they didn’t have any tires that fit my car. Then they found a used tire that fit, but then they broke another lug nut trying to put it on.”

By this time, there was no way they could reach Hutchinson in time for the last tee-off. So, reluctantly, they returned to Lawrence.

“Nick was real disappointed. He was excited about going to his first state tournament, but he handled it well,” Schreiner said. “I was probably more upset than he was.”

That’s debatable. Burkart admitted he was plenty distraught.

“I was keeping it inside,” the Free State sophomore said. “It was a weird situation. There was nothing I could do.”

All Burkart can do now is hope he qualifies for next year’s state meet.

“He’ll be all right,” Schreiner said. “He’ll qualify again.”

If Burkart does qualify for the 2006 state championship, Schreiner says they definitely will leave the day before the meet and, he added, “I’ll probably never take my car again.”

In the meantime, both Schreiner and Burkart are counting their blessings. The two were in a dangerous situation when that tire blew on the turnpike, and they escaped unscathed.

“It’s only afterward,” Schreiner said, “that you think you were pretty fortunate that nothing bad happened.”

Whether all his days as a driver’s ed instructor helped Schreiner survive that sticky situation is hard to say, but you have to believe they sure didn’t hurt.