Doug Clark: Champion arm-wrestler punishes steering wheel in comeback attempt

Note to self: Never let Mike Beggs get behind the wheel of your car.

I tucked this thought away while motoring around with the north Spokane resident the other day.

In his truck, thank God.

It’s impossible not to notice that a large section on the top of Beggs’ steering wheel has been worn all the way down to polished, naked metal.

Vandals?

Factory defect?

Nope. It’s from the bizarre steering wheel strength-training technique that has this 57-year-old grandfather of four believing he can make a Rocky-like comeback to the top of the arm-wrestling world.

A couple of things stand in the way of this movie climax.

1. As you’d expect, this arms race is dominated mostly by youngish brutes in their 20s and 30s.

2. Beggs hasn’t competed seriously in at least nine years.

Back in the day was a different story.

Beggs’ silo-size guns (he competes both left and right) won him three world titles, five national titles and a basketful of state and other awards.

Does he have a chance to win on that elite level again?

Here’s where the secret weapon comes in.

Riding shotgun gave me a perfect up-close-and-personal view of the unorthodox training method that Beggs came up with last spring.

Beggs owns Spokane Traffic Control and naturally does a lot of driving. With 50 employees, the company supplies flaggers and other safety measures for lane closures and street projects.

So one day Beggs put his hands on the wheel at the familiar “10 and 2” position. He squeezed as hard as he could and began rolling his hands back and forth, back and forth … in a fast, fluid motion.

“I almost always scream in pain after every set,” he said.

“I do this in front of God and everyone while driving. You can’t be bashful and get that many done in one day.”

Question: How much roller-cizing does it take to denude a perfectly fine steering wheel?

Answer: Mike Beggs is a rather manic man.

Meaning that since last May, he has racked up 875,000 rolls.

Yes, he keeps count. Beggs hopes to pass the 1,000,000 mark when the one-year anniversary rolls around.

Which should be just in time to enter an arm-wrestling tournament at a nearby casino as a 205-pounder.

The tournament is a bit of a sore spot.

Son Tony, who owns two world titles, talked him into entering last year. Beggs reluctantly agreed, even though he was overweight and under-trained.

Just as he figured, he got spanked.

But Beggs also realized something quite interesting. The 11 days of steering wheel rolling that he put in before the tournament had made him much stronger than he expected.

What, he asked himself, would happen if he dropped 40 pounds and put in a full year of intense training?

Beggs went to work. Sure enough, a magical transformation began to happen.

To put it bluntly, Popeye would envy this guy’s forearms.

Plus all that hand abuse has given Beggs the calluses you’d expect to see on a major league catcher.

And don’t even think about testing this man’s handshake.

You’ll lose.

I first met Beggs back in the early 1980s when he and Tammy, his wife, were tearing up the arm-wrestling universe. Tammy, by the way, has won four world titles. Add the honors that son Andy has amassed and you get 170 trophies, including nine world titles and 13 national titles.

To Beggs, arm-wrestling is as much a science as it is a test of strength. He can talk for hours analytically about “high positions” and “fulcrums” and all sorts of tricks and subtleties that it takes to best another beefy arm.

“Ninety percent of the time I can tell if I’m gonna win just by how I grip up with my opponent,” said Beggs, who has some 2,000 matches under his belt.

“I’ve been called the world’s biggest cheater. I’ve been called the world’s best technician.”

It’s sort of sad what happened to arm-wrestling.

In the 1970s, it was big stuff. I know. I covered the 1976 world championships in Petaluma, California.

I was a sports writer for the Red Bluff Daily News.

Tennis star Billie Jean King was there, too, reporting for ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.”

Bet she wasn’t making $105 a week like I was.

Arm-wrestling has never come close to matching those glory days, but Beggs believes that its popularity is rising.

I hope so. There’s something undeniably raw and compelling about the sight of two sweaty-palmed lugs squaring off in a tabletop Armageddon.

I like Beggs. I like his enthusiasm and his energy, which are downright contagious. Just listening to him made me vow to walk briskly for my next donut.

I also like the fact that Beggs is willing to compete again on an open all-comers level and not just in an over-the-hill division for geezers.

Win or get pinned. Arm-wrestling is sport boiled down to its most elemental component.

“I’ve gotta be stronger now,” said Beggs, “because I’ve never applied myself like this.”

I believe him. The man’s got the steering wheel to prove it.