August 13, 2020
Today defined racing for me Yesterday our exhaust system failed. With no tig welders in the area to fix it, I thought we were doomed. Again. But we patched it with sheet metal and hose clamps instead. Only problem is exhaust headers get red hot. We all feared the mild sheet metal that we used would fail today. Stainless steel would have been better against that heat but stainless steel…
August 12, 2020
Enough! First of all the Coronavirus is my fault. This season is the first in 30 years that I was actually ready for. My body, my mind, my bike. All were ready by January, instead of Saturday morning in March, 2hrs before Round 1. Then the virus hit, and 2020 Round 1 was cancelled. Round 2 was cancelled. Round 3 was… you know the drill, we’re all still living it.…
March 10, 2020
Adrift in the bay one warm summer day, on a boat, reluctantly tied-up to an old man and the sea, I asked a spiritual question; “What do you feel, in your soul, when you drag the teeth of your rake through the dying life of the bottom?” Words flowed so easily from my doubtful image of this old man that I was instantly showered with guilt. “We are all connected,“…
February 17, 2020
One of Tracy’s least favorite things about me, in competition, is also her most favorite thing about me outside of competition. Generosity. Often when I discover a secret that gives me an edge, I offer it to those who oppose me. Why help a competitor I am trying to beat? Because the better they are, the better I need to become. The more intense our fight. The more meaningful our…
February 15, 2020
Just hours after my father died, with my face warm-red, soaked in tears, and my mind lost in a space where suddenly nothing that used to matter did anymore, Jim Allen called me. Jim was the boss at Dunlop racing. Although at that point we had never met, a month prior I had written him describing my plans for the upcoming season. I don’t…
August 12, 2019
My knuckles cry all day now, especially reaching into my pockets. My right leg stays bent when I walk, it can’t straighten or kneel. My foot turned black last night, I’m swollen all over, my lower back took a shot, and somehow a hundred hammers beat my knees in my sleep. Other than that I’m fine. Except my head. I’m all twisted inside now about how to avoid this happening…
March 12, 2019
A week before 2019 AFM round-1, I got a call from a friend who I first met at a racetrack, crouched in my pit. He’d come out of no place that day, offering to help. I was shy about accepting. I knew who he’d helped before, and I feared I could never live up to him. …No. I knew I could never live up to him. Could you live up…
March 12, 2018
Photo by: Eric Gulbransen I interviewed the soul of a weather-torn showman at Vanson Leathers last year. His name was Rhett Rotten, he wore a cap everywhere he went, and his eyes looked back at me in a way that suggested there was more to his story than his words might tell. He struggled as he sat there on the edge of his Wall of Death, to explain what…
October 31, 2015
Today I searched my 2015 race folders for pics. Typically these folders are filled with laughter, Tracy half dressed, a few wrecked bikes and lots of pics at speed. This year’s folders are filled with pics of asses. Everyone’s asses. Nearly every pic I took last year shows somebody bent over working on our Superduke. That was the theme of 2015 it seems – if you entered our pit you went to work.…
