You know I love my Mr. Rogers quotes. -One of my favorites: "Deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex."
I can collect projects as good as any of 'em. Before becoming a deeply involved and devoted father I used to be able to keep more than a few projects on the burners at the same time. Maybe it is just old age or the aggressions of time itself. But I have felt lately like a drowning rat trying to keep my head above water while a gang of little league swingers are wacking me from all sides with wiffle ball bats.
I have learned to not only pick my battles but more importantly to pick my dreams. I seem to be cursed with having a lot of my dreams come true. What a world! I can't stand to watch the news. The unbearable un justs are just far too many and way to wicked and horrendous. But I am what I am. I reckon my Mom did me a very good thing buying me that clapped out dirt bike from the classifieds adds and re-marring a cattle farmer when I was 10. I've been more than lucky. But still I have conjured up some dreams that ended up coming true only to find myself strapped to a suicide machine. Or just racing motorbikes and not having any fun doing it. It is hard to imagine until you find yourself in the middle of it. Like a gun fight. Or more like a hostage in a gun fight. I can't recall how many times I have shot down offers to ride expense free on a Baja 1000 teams. Or had very good solid job offers in the motorcycle industry that would entail lots of travel. I reckon what I am getting at here is that I like my freedom. I have worked hard to get what I have and I want to keep on doing whatever it is that tickles my fancy. Work hard - play hard, has become a motto ever since I started racing motorbikes 30 years ago. So where the fuck does that put me now. I absolutly refuse to hang up my leathers though thoughts of why I dont creep around more and more like a leaky faucet that you only hear on hot sticky nights when the whiskey and weed were too much and your balls wont stop itching but you know that damn drip drip drip is the same place that provides the quenching salvation your dry tounge needs so desperately while you just toss and turn just trying to sleep. -FTW.-I seemed to have really latched on to the two too many wheel sickness. First the bug, fun but I wanted more power, then the stock car, plenty of power but too damn big and heavy for a motorbike racer. So I set out to build my own little light weight rage cage with a big ol Hayabusa motorbike engine. - The Goldy Locks race car.... mmm just right. At least the shake down runs have me thinking so. This race season will tell. But as I am finishing up the last refinements and picking out the perfect paint livery, along comes a market place ad for a Wells Coyote. The most successful hill climb car in America. Built by a true salt of the earth legend John Wells. It is in rough shape. Perfect. $3500. A fair price. But I don't have that kind of money laying around. I need another race car like JFK needed another hole in the head. But damn if it aint too fucking easy to leave a comment with a few clicks of the keyboard; " I wonder if they'd trade for a motorbike?" Instant message comes back saying I know you build a hell of a bike Newbold, what do you have for sportbikes? Well, I just happen to have a knackered 2000 CBR600F4 in my bone yard that my tow truck driver buddy harvested for me, title and all. Of course I can turn it into a $3500 bike. That is why I was hoarding it with the other 100 bikes in my yard. I end up putting way more elbow grease and a few bucks into it wondering if the deal will ever pan out.... The plan was to hitch a ride with Mom down to Arizona for her craft fair gig and pick up the car with my sketchy old trailer in tow. And damned if it didn't all go down without a hitch. well the trailer popped off the hitch, but just once and that's what safety chains are for. And as far as I know the trailer ramp flopping down for, I don't know how many miles on the interstate did not start any Arizona wild fires. I love my Mom for teaching me how to make it in this world without being another sheep in the flock. But what I am getting at here is why the fuck am I doing all this!? Sure I am stoked to have my dream hill climb car but it needs a shit ton of work and then some. I have my own version of the car that I have spent over a year building from scratch and that is all I really care about at this defined ADHD moment of clarity. I have side projects like the XR650R Baja racer ghost of christmas past that is really all I need to play with here at home in the desert. I have serviced all the chassis, rebuilt the already built forks and recently completed the exciting hybrid CR500 shock bodied rear shock giving it more travel, larger cooling fluid capacity plus high speed compression damping control. Thing is going to be a sick ass mother fucking factory replica Johnny Cambell 5th gear whoop eater! And every day I walk around my lift in the front of my shop hoisting this beautiful Champion framer XS650 with Shell engine covers... And I think what kind of a sick trophy chasing, double ended candle burning, wacked out whisky wanting weirdo would try to do so much with so little. Help me Mister Rogers.
