2017 Racing Reflections

With the end of one season of racing brings the start to a new one. I feel I did less racing in 2017 than years prior. The Bottpower bike was an exciting and all encompassing experience and it was the focus of the first half of the year. Getting to go to Spain and test on the MotoGP Aragon track was special even though I never had a complete lap without the bike literally falling apart. The Pikes Peak race week was stressful with the bike seeming like a sure suicide machine but coming away with a class win and respectable overall finish was rewarding. Since the race I have not spoken with Bottpower. After reading my story in Sideburn I imagine I am not well thought of. I see pictures of me on the Bott all over social media and the internet and rare is any credit given to me. When I see my picture on 10 foot posters at the Eicma show and no mention of my name or instagram pics of my race number with out a tag I feel almost plagiarized. I reckon the monkeys that were sent into space never had mention of their name either though.
Other highlights of my 2017 season were purchasing and racing the late great Carl Sorensen's ZX10. It is a proper race bike and I look forward to taking it to new tracks and having fun with it. Raging a DIRTBIKE through Morocco for Sideburn was totally rad! At the beginning of the year I got to race an electric Alta at the Indoor short track is Salem Oregon. That bike is amazing and I want one very much. The ultimate urban enduro assault bike! Later in the season I had a lot of fun with vintage MX. It is a very fun form of low pressure racing. I am building a yamaha twin for this coming season. For the 2017 season the only series I followed was the Colorado Hill Climb Association. these are not hill climbs like you think but more like a sprint rally. Gravel road racing on a 500cc or less dirtbike. I hope to get more moto racers involved with this great form of competition.
Much love and happy trails for this upcoming race season.

Farts in the wind

I find it amusing how series some of us racers take our racing. I know that if we do not take it serious it is very hard to succeed but at what cost and for what reward? I fondle the thoughts often. People ask me often how I manage to sacrifice so much of my resources or why I choose to spend so much time preparing, fixing or driving to and from.  Racing is life is an easy enough answer but I know it goes a lot deeper than that. Maybe my molecular make up still harbors some cosmic radioactive space dust spit off of a passing fire ball of a comet. Or maybe I just watched a lot of Dukes of Hazard. Stunts are cool! and A-team; Vans. With a van you can.  And MacGyver taught me that I can build anything out of any old piece of trash. Chips; bikes get babes. But seriously, I get tired of people asking me with such astonishment how it is that I can do what I do. And I get tired of looking for an answer. Shit, 2017 saw me chase only one championship series. Only one. Maybe people are getting to me. The mortgage broker, the insurance sales man, and the square family poster people. Ugh! The more I think about it the more I feel like signing up for the most absurd race I can and getting the fuck away from normality. I have been lost before. After enough time in handcuffs I found my savior. It has for the last 15 years taken me places I could never have dreamed. I have given my all to racing bikes. And I feel that the bikes and racing have never left me short changed. So I fully plan on committing my nearly 35 year old carcass to the closest thing I have found to nirvana. I cant begin to fathom the amount of passion towards racing motorbikes all the past and present racers have sweated out. The greats of the Isle of Man to the 80% sportsmans. How many lost souls have found the light and lived my it's creed faer beyond their prime. Just giving it you all every lap. What else? Why else. The best I can ever hope is to live with out regrets. Complete combustion. Back in grade school the first quote I ever memorized went something the sorts of:

Life is not the intention of arriving in the grave in one pretty and well preserved piece.
But rather to slide broadside thoroughly used up and worn out shouting Geronimo.

I am only babbling on about such thoughts because I have some pictures to post of an old race bike I dug out of a neighbors weed pile. The previous owner had lost his passion to race long ago. a cold 50$ was all he cared for. The mechanic who built the bike however still had a passion and after hearing of the sale found my shop and told me all of the battle stories he had. The front brake, half hydraulic and half cable was built to rid the problem of breaking "expensive hydraulic brake levers. The MRA sticker on the fork is a badge of colorado Mountain Racing Association that I races the ZX10 with this year. With some cool old Bates pegs and nifty safety wiring I wish I could say that I revived the old racer but my passion as of acquiring  the bike was with my TT500 vintage motocrosser. So I sludge hammered out the old rusted piston and sold the bike to another keeping only the Bruce Sass built head. I put it on my TT for the last race of the season. It had a sticky valve that sounded like a jack hammer but it kept up the fight for all four motos and without a problem to speak of together we took home some trophies , some glory, and some reason.

I'm just chill'n, like Bob Dylan

I have been struggling with the world around as I perceive it.  Mostly disturbing because I am part of it and most harsh on myself I can feel. It is my attachment to my phone, My bad driving, My frustrations with people I must interact with. Like the pissed off check out manager who cant swipe my card either. I am America. Check it out on instagram.  A picture of pecker head perfection.  Piss on your neighbor.  All my friends are made up. But my old truck has loud ass fucking pipes. I smoke weed all day playing Super Mario bros NES and am drinking beer for lunch. Don’t bust my balls at the stop light bitch. I’m working a real honest 9-5.  Keep your chicken picken fingers off my bread dough. I get up and make an honest effort every day to find meditating moto jesus farting on my yoga mat.  I am my own 18 year olds laughing bald spot of a douche bag biker. Cash register clinking polo shirt petrol pimp. Two wheels of glory spent my life writing this story. From a bmx back ally barspin to hired moto ninja racer. The real freedumb I have found is profound. Double bound. Or else I would be in the pound. I am going to take this exit and abscond.