Life on the Wire

It’s Thursday, February 9th. Tomorrow I will be driving to Talladega for the WERA Sportsman Series opener. After months of anticipation, I’ll finally get to ride my R6, so I’m very excited about that. I wanted to get a little seat time on it before now, but that never did work out. No matter. The race season is about to get under way, and this weekend will kick it off regardless of my level of preparedness. Actually, my 2006 season started last week.

I spent the off-season courting sponsors, and I was very very fortunate to have hooked up with an amazing cast of supporters, about whom you’ll be hearing right here. Mark Peterson of Fasttrack Motorsports Productions had agreed to make the sponsor decals for my truck and bike, if I agreed to display his logo as well, in a ‘title sponsor’ kind of way. I already knew Mark to be a good guy, and even though I had a multitude of companies battling to be the title sponsor of my ‘team’ (not), I agreed. I figured, ‘what the heck? I get some free stickers, so that’s nice of him…why not?’

So, Friday afternoon I got the truck all packed up with my gear and my good friend Jason Coleman’s two bikes, and I headed for Fasttrack Motorsports in Atlanta. The drive down was largely uneventful, which is a good thing because it was my first trip in my new truck. The drive wasn’t entirely without drama, as I saw this off and on the whole time. I’m not sure what the problem is, but I’ll have it checked out when I get home. The truck is driving fine, makes no banging noises in the engine compartment, doesn’t leak any vital fluids, etc. so it can wait…I’m hoping it’s just a bad sensor of some sort.

I did encounter some traffic, so I decided to stop for the night about 100 miles out from Mark’s shop. In the AM, I headed out to cover the remaining distance, and met up with Mark at 9:00, just as we’d planned. After squeezing the truck through the door to get inside the Fasttrack shop (it was raining outside), we all went to work. “We all?” you ask? Ya, you’d think it would really only take one guy an hour or so to cut some decals for you. Little did I know that Mark had far greater plans. 18 hours later, Mark and his 2 partners applied the finishing touches to my stuff.



Yikes, that is cool, and totally not what I expected. If you come out to any WERA events this season (I’ll be posting my schedule shortly), come by and check out Mark’s handiwork. I’ll have info for you on how you can jazz up the appearance of your stuff. Yikes, that is cool.

Saturday night I stayed with Keith (one of Mark’s partners) who very graciously offered his guest room to me so I didn’t need to get a hotel room. In the AM; I headed for Barber, where my pals Jimmy V., Dan Carr, Gil Cutchen and Jim McDowell were all participating in a NESBA track day. I wasn’t planning to ride, but Dan, Jimmy, and I (along with Jason Coleman, and a few others) had rented out Talladega for a private track day for Monday.

Well, to make a long story a little shorter, Monday was a complete washout. It was about 35f and pouring rain all day. We gave up on the idea of riding, and everyone split. I headed for Gil’s house, where I was very lucky (again) to be invited to stay during the coming week, so as to avoid driving the truck back and forth to Louisville two extra times. I’m not going to go into great detail about how many cool toys Gil has, but here is a frame of reference for you…

Today I watched “Serenity” on DVD. I watched it on a 60" LCD projection TV and listened through a Yamaha-powered 7.1 surround sound system featuring powered Infinity Reference Series speakers (built-in subs) and matching Infinity satellites. It was awesome. Gil has an amazing home theater setup. This isn’t it.

I do want to take this opportunity to thank Gil and Tammy for their wonderful hospitality. I really only met Gil a couple of times at the track, and he invited me into his home for 4 days, just to save me hotel money. Listen to anyone who tells you that the people are the real reason we race, as people who say that know of what they speak.

So, here I am. It’s 1:30 in the morning, and tomorrow I’ll be heading to the track. I have yet to ride my R6, and the time for pre-season testing has come and gone. I’ll be able to practice on Friday, and Saturday, I race. I have no idea what to expect. Will the new bike be a joy to ride, instantly elevating my performance threshold to new levels? Will it scare me into riding like a wimp? Will it be un-freaking-believably cold all weekend? Will I be able to hang with the young guns of the C classes? I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out.

Papa Wallenda, of the Flying Wallenda Brothers once said, “Life is on the wire. Everything else is just waiting.” The waiting is over.