The Winter of Our Discontent

"Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York." Shakespeare, Richard III

After the weekend at Summit Point it was clear I needed to continue racing (as if there had ever been any doubt). Also blatantly obvious was that I would need to step up my game. These WERA guys did not screw around and if I wanted to be competitive, my bike, body and brain would need to be on point. I had the winter to do so.

Body was the least difficult of the three, I upped my workout regimen from four times a week to six and concentrated on eating properly. The program was effective enough that I had to have my new leathers taken in. Whenever things seemed to get easier, I would add on more repetitions, new exercises or longer duration for cardio. I needed the endurance to run several races a day at full pace as well as bump-starting the motorcycle each time without fatiguing, not to mention loading, unloading, wrenching and doing all the driving to and from the track. Oh yeah, and work a full-time job to afford to do all that!

Brain might be the most difficult of all. There is a fine line to tread mentally speaking in regards to racing. You have to be focused, serious and ready, but at the same time relaxed, flowing and enjoying yourself. Get lazy and guys you can beat will smoke your ass, get too keyed up, make stupid mistakes and maybe end up sliding across the pavement on your head. Intimate knowledge of the racetrack is critical, but waste too much brain space on one corner and you will botch the rest of them. I studied, watched videos and read everything I could about the tracks we would visit next season. I made lists, budgets and cached spare parts for any contingency. However prepared you might think you are, racing always has a few curveballs to throw when you aren't looking.

I agonized over what to do with the bike. It needed improvement in all areas: power, weight, handling, brakes. The biggest issue I currently faced was tires. The wheels I ran could not accommodate proper sized racing slicks. I could continue to run the "Racing Street" Bridgestones, they were cheap enough, but they put me at a huge disadvantage as the other racers were running slicks and tire warmers. My answer came from the same source that got me into this mess: Craigslist.

I saw the ad for an "EX500 Parts Bike $150" during my lunch hour. I could tell from the blurry cell phone photos that there were some nice parts on the machine, not to mention the nice price. I contacted the seller to tell him I would take the bike and that I would be there within the hour to pick it up. He said he already had over 25 emails, I told him I had the $150 cash, no haggling, he agreed. I then contacted my boss to let her know of the "emergency" I had to take care of toot suite and I was on my way, heart beating like going out on a first date.

As I loaded the machine into the back of my truck I did a cursory exam and knew I picked up a good deal on what was obviously a former race bike. Someone had installed a CBR600 F3 complete front end including the wheel and a ZX6 aluminum swingarm with a CBR600 F3 rear wheel. Those items would solve my tire issues, and all the machine work had already been done. Not to mention the Woodcraft rearset footpegs, Muzzy stainless exhaust, Fox Twin-Clicker rear shock absorber and whatever good parts the engine itself might yield. This dog's ass thought he felt a little ray of sun....

V For Victory

Remember, remember, Summit Point 'tis cold in November!
Running low on reason, my bankroll about shot
My return to racing, at least by me, shall never be forgot.

I didn't blow up Parliament and I certainly didn't set any scorching lap records that frigid weekend November, 2013, but I was there. Turnout was light, probably due to the temperatures, which struggled to hit the mid-50s during the day and dipped down near freezing overnight. The weather did not bother me, my only concern was that the straight water we run in the cooling system as per the rules might freeze. When I checked the digital gauge first thing on Saturday morning it read 34 F. Close.

Morning practice is cold. Two guys crash on the first lap of the first session. I know better and skip it. I already know which way the track goes. Second session is warmer. I find myself all alone out there, which can make things tough, as you don't have a frame of reference. I am tentative and making rookie mistakes trying to find my rhythm. At the end of practice I am eight seconds off the pace of the leaders in my class. Eight seconds. A fucking eternity.

I know I will get two to three seconds faster during the race, probably pick up another second or so as the pavement warms up. The other guys will get faster as well, which means I have a lot of work to do. I try not to feel too discouraged and remind myself that this is my first race back, finishing and not getting lapped will be an accomplishment. Somehow that's just not good enough. And somehow, it seems, I have brought a knife to a gunfight. Again.

Stock motor and street tires on an outclassed machine is a recipe for underdog, eternal longshot status. I've just hit the upward slope of the mountain again and it already feels familiar. I grit my teeth and decide to give it everything I've got.

I get a great start in my first race and lead going into Turn 1. For a brief moment I wonder if I have a chance, then the fast guys come wailing by me and the question is answered like a slap in the mouth. I watch three of them disappear into the distance like rocketships piloted by madmen. I chase, catching nothing but exhaust fumes and humility.

I finish the race fifth or sixth overall, but because of my Novice status I am actually second place, but it's a really distant second. Oh well, nobody needs to know that, second it is!!

The next race is a repeat of the first, without the good start, and the results are the same. I can live with it, at least for now, knowing what work needs to be done for next season.

Wandering around the paddock that evening, taking in the sights, sounds and smells that I had long been absent from, I re-discovered something I did not know was lost.

Myself.

Bless the Mavericks

Long before the current cafe racer/bobber/flat tracker vintage bike trend that has every monkey with a hacksaw thinking he is a bike builder, there was Phil. Before the hipsters were old enough to grow a beard or even think about wearing glittery metal flake helmets, there was Phil.

He raced a BSA Goldstar at scrambles and flat track events during the early 1960s, was the first to compete on a Japanese motocross bike when everyone was still enamoured of the British Empire's offerings ("Damn thing handled so bad and had so much power, it was always trying to kill me."). He came from the hardscrabble farm life in Upstate NY, did a brief stint in the Navy and worked at the local Kraft cheese plant before hanging out his shingle in the small engine repair business. He soon earned a reputation for being able to fix things other mechanics could not. His out of the box solutions had some detractors calling him crazy. Phil's genius was the ability to look at a problem sideways and come up with an elegantly simple answer that would leave the engineers and mathematicians wondering why they didn't think of that.

He said lawn and garden work was the bread and butter, allowing him to pursue his first love: motorcycles and other motorized toys. I believe his love of riding/competing was rivalled only by the love of building them. And build them he did. He stripped down motorcycles to their bare essentials and tuned them until they functioned better than the designers could have hoped for. He put car engines into snowmobiles, and turned snowmobiles into wheeled vehicles. His machines had a brutal beauty, almost puritan in their honesty and rigid in their purpose. They had to work, and work well. And they couldn't cost much.

Phil's work was a constant attempt to buck the system. He refused to accept that big money had to be spent to have big fun or be competitive and quite often he was right. He took particular delight in showing up at the local snowmobile drag races with, to use his words, some "weird harold piece of shit" and kick some ass. They might have laughed as he unloaded the machine from his two-wheel drive Toyota truck with no power steering, but no one laughed after they saw him run. I remember the gasps of amazement from the crowd as the "yellow thing" took off down the track. I recall my own sense of pride as I thought, 'That is my friend.'.

There are a million stories like that, I am grateful that I got to be a part of even a few of them. I am also thankful that I became caretaker to one of Phil's machines. "Modified" by Phil in the mid 1990s, it began life as a 1970s Kawasaki KZ400 twin-cylinder streetbike, a beginner's ride with the typical Universal Japanese Motorcycle styling of the day. A pedestrian and quite forgettable bike:

Not so after Phil turned it into a dirt machine for himself:

Barely muffled, sporting knobby enduro tires and no front brake, this is not a machine for the faint of heart. The weight is under 300 pounds and it carries it low, which makes the handling quite nimble, and the balance is superb. Power is instant from the well-tuned carburetors and is more than adequate for playing off road and while boasting a top speed near 90 mph. The gas tank is from a Jawa moped, shocks from a 1000 Kawasaki and exhaust turnouts from NAPA. Obviously you won't be hucking this over any triple jumps, but as an affordable fire roads bomber, it fits the bill. Phil confessed he had less than $300 in building the machine, including the purchase price.

You see, Phil understood that at its core, a motorcycle is just that, a motor and two wheels. Strip away all the faff and plastic, bold new billboard graphics, shitty chrome, GPS, LEDs, 0% financing and you are left with the heart: a simple conveyance of internal combustion with the power to move men's souls.

Bless the mavericks, for without them, who would show us the way?

Loss

I was excited about my return to the racetrack and impending return to competition. Family and friends were not so enthused. Frankly it was tiring trying to explain it to them.

The one person I wanted to tell was friend and mentor, Phil. He kept me going during the frustrating inaugural racing years. It cannot be overstated how his calm demeanor, patience and sense of humor (not to mention cheap labor rates!) kept me grounded in sanity as I cut my teeth. As a long retired motorcycle racer, he understood the passion and the madness.

I knew from a friend that Phil had not been doing so well. We never spoke on the phone much, although I did make it a point to go see him on my yearly visits back to upstate NY. The mutual friend told me that Phil had been diagnosed with Rapid Onset Dementia, and that there were good days and not so good days. The picture he painted had my stomach in knots. I needed to make a pilgrimage north.

I won't discuss what I witnessed, but I can say, at least for me, death would be the more preferable option. I could have handled death, a chance to grieve, to mourn and then finally, remember fondly. But a decaying half-life that would allow none of them? The callous, savage irony of it made me seethe with anger, want to punch god in the mouth and scream until my lungs bled.

There is no salve for the horror of watching a brilliant mind malfunctioning. It is a filthy and perverse joke of nature for such a thing to happen. I was sick over it.

It was a long drive down a helpless road home.

The bike Phil helped build

Tick Tock

It appeared the remainder of my 39th year would be spent riding around aimlessly at trackdays, but plans were hatching for next season.

WERA (Western Eastern Roadracing Association) held races at several tracks within a few hours drive, namely Summit Point and Virginia International Raceway. They agreed to accept my prior race experience in lieu of taking their race school, provided I returned as a Novice for the first season, which was amenable to me.

I planned, budgeted and trained. The first race at Summit was in May 2014. One weekend before that there were two trackdays, both running on the Main circuit. The trackdays would be perfect for blowing out the winter cobwebs and learning the track before racing. I had all winter to get the bike and myself ready. This was it.

Then, as so often happens with racing, things changed. WERA had a scheduling conflict that forced them to move a race weekend to late November 2013 at Summit Point. Could I make it happen? Before the clock struck the big FOUR OH? How sweet that would be, and what a motivator, to get that homecoming race under my belt before I was officially over the hill.

There was still the matter of licensing fees, an oil containment belly-pan, safety wiring, tires, time off, but to hell with it, I was going racing!

Wasted Air

I survived the first track day, and several subsequent ones. While enjoyable, they were not entirely fulfilling. Many of the participants were not particularly friendly, aside from a snide comment or two along the lines of, 'An EX500? My girlfriend used to ride one of those until we got her a real 600.' Very funny. I watched as the dick waving horsepower junkies wobbled around in the corners, got the bike perfectly upright and then opened the throttle to blast down the straightaways. Granted there were good riders, but there was a lot more talking about it than actually doing it. They seemed happy to play the part of racer, without having to actually back it up in the crucible of competition.

Braggadodico does not survive well in the racing ecosystem. Motorcycle competition is far too humbling an endeavor to allow for much bullshit. Just as the racing motorcycle is stripped down and all that is deemed unnecessary pared away to lighten and simplify, so streamlined must be the attitude and approach to racing. Spartan, uncompromising and above all prepared for anything. Results speak for themselves, anything else is just wasted air.

I decided to look at these trackdays in a different light, not as stand alone events, but as preparation to return to racing. After six long years away, I knew where I wanted to be: lined up on that starting grid ready to find out if I still had it in me.

Forever Young

"I shall work harder." -Boxer, Animal Farm

"Work smarter, not harder." Dave Bishop (my former boss)

A return to the racetrack meant a return to decent physical condition. I knew from past experience that getting tired during a race led to mistakes. Mistakes hurt. That was unacceptable.

Since making the exodus south, I was working toward those ends. My diet improved greatly. I finally understood I was no longer 18 and the foods I existed on then would surely kill me now. Already exercising regularly, it grew into a six day a week affair, 1 to 1.5 hours a day. Workouts include weights, elliptical, stationary bicycle, stretching and a whole lot of swimming.

Neither easy, nor particularly enjoyable, I remind myself the true purpose of this torture whenever my enthusiasm wanes. Every rep, every mile contributes to the ultimate goal: Speed. The body and the mind must be tuned just as is the motorcycle.

Weakness in any of the three will be exploited by an adversary or by fate itself. At the end of the day, the competitor with the best combination of the three, wins.

While the piss and vinegar of youth may have mellowed slightly, the potency is now all the stronger owing to focus, efficiency and strategy.

Work smarter indeed.