The inaugural years of my racing journey can best be titled, “How Not to Go Road Racing”. Utterly unprepared I dove in face first like some horny teenager. The depth of my ignorance cannot be overstated. A green-horned newbie and a thick-headed one at that. For me to learn anything at all it was going to be the hard way. Friction was something I was to form an intimate, chafing relationship with, that is to say friction between my body riding along the world’s longest belt sander after yet another crash, friction of a poorly jetted two-stroke engine seizing again, friction with officials and race organizations that I somehow couldn’t help pissing off and the friction with other racers who did not like the loudmouth American I certainly appeared to be.
The closest racetrack was Shannonville, Ontario, Canada. This was before passports, enhanced IDs and Homeland Security. Border crossings were simple, the agents friendly, curious about racing, while the American dollar was strong, which meant everything from race fees to food were nearly 40 percent cheaper for me in the land of poutine.
The racetrack itself was in poor repair, built in 1974 and then apparently having no updates or maintenance since. The pavement was rippled, pocked and potholed, the runoff areas which appeared nice and grassy actually concealed rocks, ruts and other traps waiting to destroy rider and machine. To go off the racing line here meant tank-slapping headshake, loss of time and position, to make an excursion off the track meant risking an ass over tea kettle tumble from dropping the front wheel in a hole. In the evenings, after the motorcycles left the track, the Fast and Furious rice-car tuner crews would show up in winged Civics with LEDs and fart can exhausts, hand over undisclosed and undocumented amounts of cash to turn some laps while the owners turned their heads. No ambulances or corner workers present for the Asian Mafia (as we called them), but plenty of smoky spinouts, burst radiator hoses and oil on the track to greet the motorcycle racers in the morning. The presence of Oil-Dri spread over the course always made first practice interesting.
I slept in a tent on that cold Canadian ground; my gear consisted of a toolbox and cooler. I used the cooler for a chair and propped the bike on a jackstand. Freezing in the night and scorched by the sun in the day, so overwhelmed by the entire experience that I could not fathom the necessity of creature comforts such as sunblock and pillows. Unequivocally a stranger in a strange land, the racing experience started lonely and scary. I travelled solo and knew no one at the track, frequently I caught myself thinking out loud. The new kid at school had the wrong shoes on and a bad freakin’ haircut. Every time faster riders (which were all of them) passed me it was a like a bully’s shove from behind that makes you shit your pants just a little bit as you wait for the next one that knocks you down.
This all would have been bearable, if the bike didn’t keep breaking down. It was hardly the bike’s fault, the mechanic who was also the rider, sucked. Phil helped as much as he could at home, but he was not one to travel, which left me to my own devices at the track. I ran the wrong carburetion and seized top ends, I over-revved the poor suffering motor and cracked cylinder heads, spun crank bearings, set points incorrectly, over and under tightened fasteners. This goes without mentioning my piss poor riding.
The joy felt that day at the race school was gone. I had a tough nut clenched firmly in my fissured teeth that was threatening to split my jaw. I started to think this may have been a mistake, not for the last time.
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