BREAKING OUT OF THE ASYLUM (part 1 of 2); Florida's Bike Week provides its usual, er, thrills.

Byline: STEVEN COLE SMITH

During Daytona's Bike Week 2004, a man from Oklahoma, on his new Kannon V8-powered motorcycle, apparently fell or jumped off the bike, which then sped on riderless for several blocks. It struck, among other things, a delivery truck and injured the driver, before crashing into another motorcycle and seriously injuring the two riders. Interestingly, that was not the most bizarre thing that happened during Bike Week.

For that, we go to New Smyrna Speedway, a paved oval stock car track just south of Daytona Beach, on the final Friday of Bike Week. In the infield, it is not difficult to find Kevin Ruic, who requests we refer to him as the "World-Famous Kevin Ruic.'' That is what his business card says. Ruic is the potbellied man wearing shorts and a gold "ME LOVE ME GANJA'' T-shirt, gold-rimmed glasses and bowl-cut hair, looking as though he hasn't slept in a couple of days, which is apparently accurate.

Even as the 17th Annual Motorcycle Demolition Derby and Thrill Show is about to get under way at New Smyrna Speedway, Ruic, the promoter, has work to do. He must find a white sheet. Quickly! Jesse "the Human Bomb'' Aviles blows himself up while lying atop two barstools, with his explosives concealed behind a white sheet. It is tradition. A suitable white sheet is located. Whew!

There are other problems. "Death Wish'' Dan Elders tries to drive a black Cadillac up a ramp, in one end of a 65-foot house trailer, and out the other. He makes it through 60 feet of the trailer, but gets stuck on the toilet (the Cadillac, not Death Wish Dan). Little things like forgetting to remove the toilet from the trailer, not to mention the refrigerator, can torpedo the best-laid plans of Ruic, world-famous or not.

Peculiar things always happen at Bike Week, but among the strangest has long been Ruic's show at New Smyrna Speedway. Ruic, who lives in Cleveland, took two years off to rest and recharge, but this year he returned. The crowd of maybe 2000, at $20 a head, isn't bad, but Ruic says it is about half of what it used to be. "It'll take us awhile to build this back up to what it was,'' he says.

The evening, which has the feel of a frat party gone wrong, begins with stunts by Death Wish Dan and J.J. Steel, referred to as "The Junkyard Dog.'' In fact, both stuntmen will perform under several different names, ostensibly to give the impression there are more than two stuntmen, or three, if you count the Human Bomb, who pretty much confines himself to the one barstools-behind-the-sheet bit since he accidentally blew off a testicle during a show in Lansing, Michigan.