The Calm From the Storm

Friday, 3/24/2016  

48 hours before The VCHSS Joe Lloyd Memorial Classic Hare Scramble

There comes a point, a few days before the first race of the season, where training ends and the focus turns to good rest and final preparations.  Nearly 100 hours spent alone on the bike since November, to which piles of chewed up knobby tires and scuffed plastic fenders will attest and a matching number of hours spent in the gym as well, all working towards the end goal.  Race wins, a championship.  Domination.

With final hours approaching, there is no further level of  physical fitness, no greater riding skill or technique that can now be achieved.  I have done what I can.  Other than a new set of tires mounted pre-race, the motorcycle has been improved, developed and maintained as much it can be, as have I.  Test of bike, body and brain awaits.  Has it all been enough?

I think so.

Ignite

Internal combustion engines require three basic components to run: fuel/air mixture, ignition and compression.  With these three things and the universal laws of physics and chemistry (of which I have barely a gradeschooler's grasp), it will run, forced by tiny controlled explosions.

Aging racers however, require a bit more.  Pain that's a week old spreads across my neck and back.  I am no longer young, though I continue to act as if I am.  The body protests and sometimes the mind weeps.  Lacking youth's illusions, vividly aware of the potential consequences of these actions, some might call it immaturity.

But none of that matters when I hear the announcer scream "TEN SECONDS" and wait with baited breath for the flag to wave, feeling the tiny explosions inside that remind....

The flame still burns.

2004 Gas Gas EC300, beginning to look rather aged, like it's owner....

Fury Sustained

Thanks to Scott Owens for the photo.

As I was finishing my Saturday solo training ride, the weather changed drastically.  Winds picked up to gale force, temperature rapidly dropped.  An ominous chill and damp grew.  The rains quickly came.  And the hammering hail.  Thundering lightning.  Mother nature unleashed her fury on the 200 or so illegal acres we riders like to call home.  Sitting in my van hoping golf ball sized pellets would not break the windshield.....

And thinking about the upcoming race season, what would be needed to not only compete, but to win.  Recent life circumstances meant things were going to be twice as hard financially.  Along with a normal 40 working stiff hours, side jobs were taken in an effort to amass the scratch necessary, as well as selling off parts squirreled away for years.  It would have been an appropriate opportunity to take a year off, to "regroup", as they say.  But that wasn't good enough.  I asked what it was going to take to do this.  And in those brief, drenching minutes I was answered.

It was going to take the same energy, the same tenacity, as the storm that was now passing.

It was going to take a fury.

A fury sustained.        

Talking Shit

We live in a world of unfulfilled oaths, broken promises, words as useless as the hot air they are spoken with.  It has become a matter of course for people to say whatever is necessary in a certain moment, knowing full well they will never come through in the end, and knowing that no one is likely to ever call them out on it.

And we won't, because god forbid you butthurt some precious snowflake by holding them to their word.  The truth is less important than feelings.  If one should be so brazen as to point this out, actually ask someone to be accountable for their actions?  More words.  Excuses by the dozen.  I swear people must sit around thinking them up all day, these little pukes using their emotional fragility as a smokescreen for pure laziness.

That's what I like about racing.  It accepts no excuses.  And tolerates no bullshit.  You put up or shut up.  When the checkered flag flies, there is no question about who did their homework.  And who didn't.

Life needs to be a lot more like racing.

  

Looking Ahead, Never Back

Bridesmaid for the 2016 VCHSS season, I aim to be the bride in 2017.  The courtship begins on March 26th in Arrington VA and continues for the next six months.  As always it promises to be a challenging (difficult) season with plenty of ups and downs.  Wouldn't have it any other way.

Training has intensified, 6-8 hours a week riding the 2004 Gas Gas EC300, 8-10 hours a week in the gym, bike preparations continue.  I can't afford the luxury of brand new equipment, so I try to make up for it with work ethic.  As I learned during my roadracing days, you don't just fall into championships, you earn them, by working every day for it, on season or off.  That is the goal for 2017.  

Below is the 2017 Virginia Championship Hare Scrambles Series race schedule.  If you are in the area, come and check out some exciting, close quarters motorcycle racing!

      

2017 VCHSS Race Schedule

1	26 Mar	Joe Lloyd Memorial at Oak Ridge	Arrington, VA
2	9 Apr	April Fools at Oak Ridge	Arrington, VA
3	23 Apr	Central Virginia	Dillwyn, VA
4	7 May	Blue Ridge	Martinsville, VA
5	28 May	Reddy hole	Surry, VA
6	4 Jun	Tidewater at Eastover	Spring Grove, VA
7	18 Jun	Hillbilly Hare Scramble	Rural Retreat, VA
8	25 Jun	Harleywood	Bristol, VA
9	13 Aug	Blue Ridge II	Martinsville, VA
10	27 Aug	Coyote Run	Rural Retreat, VA
11	10 Sep	Peninsula at Southwark	Spring Grove, VA
12	24 Sep	KDHC Scramble	Charlotte CH, VA
13	1 Oct	Iron Mountain	Rural Retreat, VA
14	15 Oct	Rattlesnake	Rural Retreat, VA
15	29 Oct	Pipsico	Spring Grove, VA

Looking to the future.

Warnings

We all get warnings, it's up to us whether we heed them or not.  The last few months I had been ignoring all sorts of warnings in various aspects of life.  I didn't think much of it during last Sunday's rainy solo woods ride when I took my goggles off so I could see.

Five minutes later I was given a nasty, but merciful reminder when my front wheel caught a 1" sapling and turned it into a whip.  And where did this whip land?  Squarely on the the part of my body that was no longer covered with protective gear.  My nose.  Hurt like hell and I had to stop for a minute until the tears cleared, but it could have been worse.  A lot worse.  I could be typing this looking out of one eye.

We ignore the warnings at our own peril.  Listen to them.

A mere inch from partial blindness.  Stupid.

Not much good in this position, are they?

Get Your Mind Right

"You could end up seriously dead..." -Kenny Roberts Sr. 

Pavement or woods, road course or rutted single track, racing a motorcycle requires you to operate within a certain head space, nearly all the time, on track or off.  Step outside of that, lose focus for an instant and bad things can happen.  There is no room for your insecurities, daydreams or personal bullshit.  There is only the now.  You and the motorcycle and what you must make it do.  Moto-GP contender or weekend privateer, it's the same.  Like an unwavering law of nature.

Many choose to dabble, dip in a toe, play at it.  They don't last long.  They don't win.  Which is fine, some are content merely to say they have done a thing, cross it off some arbitrary list before dying.  Then there are those who want to do it as long, as fast and as well as possible.  The racer soul finding contentment nowhere else.

The best can get into the mindset with ease, I believe this is a major factor in what we would call "talent".  Some competitors have an express elevator to the zone, while the rest of us struggle to locate the fucking door.  Make no mistake, it is a huge advantage, because at the end of the day, racing is truly a mental game.  The fanciest equipment doesn't mean shit if you can't get your neurons firing properly.  To win a race, you have to know you are going to win, because it doesn't ever just fall into your lap.  A racetrack is no place for doubt.  Doubt costs time.  And lives.

Personally I have always found ritual helps me get to that place, or at least in the neighborhood.  Putting my gloves, boots, helmet and equipment on the same way every time, left foot first, left hand first.  Doing the same set of stretches in the same order, crouching down on the left side of the bike to get the leathers in place.  These things all tell my brain and my body what is to come, and what will be expected of them.

You have to do whatever it takes to get your mind right.

Because if it ain't right, it's wrong.

This is not the place to be thinking about work, or a fight you had with your woman.

Neither is this.