Thursday, November 19, 2015

Quoth the Hawk: "Ye Shall Be Four"

Friday, October 23, 2015, 3:53 PM

This being part XV of a Racer's Final(s) Diary

Cannonball Cobb soon finds his way by me.  I love the look and sound of the bike he is riding: Joe Pomeroy's Banshee/RZ engine hybrid in an Aprilia chassis.  The thing flat out works, obviously well developed, a real race bike.  I've often wondered what it would be like to own and race such a piece, something that is the class of it's field.  Built not out of budget, but for the utmost in performance.  Racing is never an easy job, but when you have the right tools....  (If I spent more time focusing on a career and making some money when I was in my twenties, instead of "finding myself", I might be in a better financial position to afford a machine like that.)  Hindsight.

Joe Pomeroy's hybrid


I watch as Cobb and the red rocket slingshot past me making that sweet, unadulterated two stroke song.  They are gone and I am left to my own devices in 3rd place.  Just as it starts to get lonely,  I hear what sounds like the faint throb of a v-twin engine.  My mind scrolls through the V6LW entries and I realize I have been caught in the talons of a hawk.  A Honda 650 Hawk that is.  It's Wade Parish, and he is all over me, all of a sudden.  It certainly feels like I have been swooped upon by some thundering bird of prey.  And he wants third.  Bad.

I know I can beat him if I pull the plug out, but there is much trepidation on my part about getting into a kerfuffle.  I have nothing to prove here by dicing and everything to lose.  The old axiom 'To finish first, you first must finish' has never been truer than this moment.  But my pride won't let me just roll over for this guy.  We go back and forth for a few laps.  Apparently from the stands it looked like quite a battle, but deep down I am holding back, afraid to crash.  This gives Wade and the Hawk all the impetus required and he makes the pass stick. My initial instinct is to chase down this raptor and tear it apart.  For once, maturity comes out on top and I let it go.  I finish the race in fourth. Sometimes you have to lose a battle to win a war.  Quoth the Hawk: "Ye shall be four.".








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