This also happens to be our favorite episode to date, and as always we sincerely hope you enjoy.

It has truly been a pleasure.

We hope to see you all sooner rather than later.

All the best,

Your friends at CCRacer.com

We hope you enjoy this little jaunt away from the racing world, and we hope that as our story continues we find ourselves able to step away from the racetrack more often to engage the many other sides of this little journey.

All the best,

Your friends at CCRacer.com

More to come.

Hope you enjoy!

I think they call it fear…

Sure, I’ve had many an “Oh, shit!” moment at the track.  That feeling of adrenaline coursing through the top of your skull at such heat that you might be able to ignite a match were it placed at your hairline, but this was something different.

This was consuming.

This was constant.

This made me simply want to go home.

It started with a simple thought…  my family.

It then blossomed into something greater.

That something was the constant question of what I was doing at a racetrack, and for the first time, I simply, dimly, and hopelessly had no answer.

This was a nightmare.

I was suddenly living a lie.

The risk far outweighed the reward.

And, I was dangerous.

There is precious little more destructive than a tightly wound, fearful being flailing around an unknown racetrack, relying on muscle memory and pure hope.

I hated every second of it.

Jeremy Toye asked me,

“How’s the bike?”

I answered,

“The Bike’s fine.”

He laughed.

He knew what I was saying…  “I’m lost, I’m fucked, I’m riding like shit, and I’m probably a danger to myself and virtually anyone out there with me.  The problems not the bike, it’s me…  all me.”

At the end of it all, I survived the weekend.

Race 1… I DNF’d.  I kept losing the front and felt that it was a matter of time passing before I wadded the 848 again.

Corey Nuer said two words to me as I pulled in,

“Rider Input”.

Yep, rider input…  still would’ve crashed, because I was still scared.

Told everyone goodbye and went about getting my gear together to go home.

To my family.

The only thing on my mind.

John Ethel of Jett Tuning came and sat by my side.

“If you go home now, you’re gonna regret it.  Please, do me a favor and race again.”

Virtually everything of John radiates the goodness in a man and when he shines such a thing your way…  well, let’s just say there wasn’t much choice.

Race 2…  I think I finished 10th.  Honestly, I don’t even know.  I didn’t care.  I was in pure survival mode, waiting for the flag to tell me it was over so that I could get the fuck out of Fontana.

I pulled in from Race 2 to hear John Ethel say two words to me,

“Thank you.”

How do I repay a man for that one?

I’m not sure…

But, I can damn sure tell you that the fear passed.

And, I can damn sure tell you that I’m counting the minutes to get back out there and start having fun again.

Vegas, here we come…

We hope you enjoy. We certainly felt privileged to have the opportunity to make it.

More to come!

More to come!

It’s been awhile since I’d lined up on a grid to test my mettle.  So long in fact that I couldn’t help but question why I’d even bothered to show up.  My speed used to be respectable…  now, it simply isn’t.  And, enough time has gone by that I’d lost the right to place blame on things like setup or geometry.

If the source is suspect then the information flowing from it shall mostly be tainted, and I had become highly suspect in such things.

This was my Friday.  A day of slow times, no confidence, and zero feeling with the front end other than feeling as though it would wash away from me at any moment which led to nothing more than a few actual minutes of riding.

Now on this evening it was time for tortillas at the airstrip, and sitting amongst men who make their living at the track.  Men who are faster than I.  Men who know that the only cure for what currently ails me is saddle time.  Sure, the bike is fucked too, but it’s the rider’s job to make it go regardless.

With a full stomach and on the tail end of patient listening, Corey Neuer of CT Racing simply said, “You don’t need to win, man…  you just need to ride.”

Music to the ears of the insecure.

SATURDAY:

There’s a certain freedom to knowing that you’re probably gonna lose.  You no longer care about the guy stalking you from behind.  You no longer care about lap times.  You no longer care about even getting on the bike.

So…  I didn’t.  Didn’t even bother to suit up.  Instead, I spent the day floating around the pits, waving off the confused looks of people wondering why I wasn’t out there practicing for the races on Sunday.  You see, I’d given up.  I knew now that there was little to no hope of me having any sort of good weekend.  I was sweating in the desert for nothing.  I wouldn’t figure out what was really wrong with my bike because I hadn’t ridden enough in the past two years to be in touch anymore.  I’d lost the finesse and I wouldn’t know it again until I spent time where time mattered in such things, but such time would not be spent well in the combat sport of racing.  No, that time must be found in less combative environments.  Therefore, with hope gone, there was nothing to do but take a stroll.

That is until I crossed paths with one Tige Daane who took a passing look at my 848 and said, “That bike is fucked, dude.  I can’t believe you haven’t crashed yet.”  When I told him I had is fact done just that recently up at T-Hill, he said, “Let me guess, front end washed out without warning.”  I nodded, quietly amazed.  “Well, of course it did bro, it’s fucked.  I don’t even need you to get on the thing to tell you that.”

“Can you un-fuck it?”

He answered by grabbing a socket, telling me to lift the front of the bike and grumbling, “I hate working this way.”  A man bound by his own work ethic is often the most inspiring of things to see.

And thus Mr. Daane held aloft a single lantern at the end of a dark tunnel with a promise that perhaps light might ultimately be enjoyed.

SUNDAY:  RACE DAY

I was entered into three races all of which were WERA West Novice Class.  Since it’d been so long since I’d raced, I was and will be required to race Novice until I amass enough points to bump up to Expert.

Regardless, it didn’t matter because I was destined to lose… or at the very least was destined to do something unremarkable.

Then again, who am I to try and define what will be?

Race one was a wash as for results.  Got about as shitty a start as a man could without stalling.  Probably didn’t help that I hadn’t practiced a race start once since picking up the bike in the first place.

I passed one person to finish eighth.

My times were still slow, five seconds off the pace I used to carry around Willow Springs, but they were faster than they had been all weekend and that was a good thing.  Not to mention that because of Tige, I could now feel the front end and where limits might live.  All in all a good test run.

Race two…  The flag waved, I dropped the hammer, and I won.

1st place.  I could write more on this, but why?  I was as happily surprised as anyone might be.  I was quicker and more confident than the rest of them.  I had a bike that finally worked, just enough time in the saddle to pick up the pace, one race start under my belt, and a good amount of “Who gives a shit?” to run it up under anyone in my way.

The lesson…  there is great freedom in letting go, in not caring, and in embracing the wide-openness of what will happen regardless of how you feel about it.

Race 3?

No need to line up.  I’d won my little plastic cup and now had to be off to other endeavors.  Therefore, I watched with a bittersweet heart as the others took to the grid.  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel as though I’d made a mistake in not taking to the track once more before heading home…  but then again, I’d gotten back in the saddle and surprisingly done what I came there to do.  Not necessarily win mind you…  but ride.  And, that I had done at least well enough for now.

I love the track, and I love the type of people that I know there.  There is something so special about a breed of human that openly engages the processes of life without regard for what may have come before or what may come after.

It’s good to be back.

Before now, I’ve not ever broken down a Ducati.  A GSXR600…  a CBR600RR…  but never a Duc.

Armed with little more than a set of sockets and just enough knowledge to get into trouble, I went to work.  The one thing I have going for me when it comes to being a home mechanic is that I’m fearless.

Unlike any other bike I’ve prepped to race, this one had not one superfluous piece to it.  No plastic rivet whose sole purpose seems to be to discourage any would be do it yourselfer to go further, no unnecessary flap of plastic whose presence seems to communicate that the factory knows better than you, so why bother?

No… this was different.  This was something new to me.  Each bolt led to the other, serving as a roadmap into the palm of the engineer’s hand responsible for its physical creation.  This was a machine that carried with it into my garage a message.  “I’m here now…  I’m here to race, or to become whatever it is that we will become together.  I welcome you to join me, and I will not stand in our way.”

An old racer once told me that a motorcycle is nothing more than a collection of parts.

I believe he was wrong.

For, behind every part is the hand that placed it there.  And behind that hand is the soul of a human.  And a piece of that soul’s energy finds its way into every element of that motorcycle.  Every smile, drop of sweat, and heartbeat that transpired on the assembly line leaves a little bit of itself in that machine.

Collectively, this combination of energy, metal and plastic came together to form this motorcycle…  from this ore of the Earth. the gold is refined.

Though we have ridden together, this is the first time we’ve truly shaken hands.

Nice to meet you, friend.

To have a good day.  Only thing missing is Mojave, and we’ll be there soon.

Simply stated, before you knew better.

A good bike…  for someone else.