Racing isn’t for everyone, it requires a certain level of skill, tenacity and hard work to achieve a level that most people will not have the time and funds to accomplish. I’ve heard people be blunt in saying that racing isn’t for the faint of heart, if you are willing to stack $100 bills and light them on fire then you may be crazy enough to race. I chuckled at this comment, but had I been smarter, I may have actually turned and ran. However, I am who I am, I love a challenge and instead of heeding that comment and taking it to heart, I decided that it was something I wanted…needed to do to prove to myself I could accomplish that unlikely goal. If you are interested our local club racing chapter is WMRRA.
It has been a journey to get my expert license, to race those ten races and finish. Just because you sign up for ten races doesn’t mean you get credit for them, you must finish, which means you cannot crash and you must cross start/ finish. I’ve done more than ten races and crashed out on a few, it is heartbreaking, you question your abilities, the pain of the injuries makes you second guess your skills or your bike, you get the picture. As a racer, you are constantly trying to improve yourself or your bike to give yourself the upper hand. Let’s be clear, I don’t have the latest bike, I have a 2004 Yamaha R6, bone stock and with Ohlins cartridges and a GP suspension revalved and resprung rear shock (cuz I’m a girl), Vortex brake and clutch levers, rearsets, clip ons, case covers, sprockets, sliders and chain. There is no slipper clutch, no electronics or gp shift. It’s old school and it has made me a smoother rider not being able to rely on electronics to save my ass. What I have developed is skill and smoothness, no dumping clutches, trail clutching and trail braking, learning it takes patience to initiate a turn with precision at times and that multitasking all these things as you are entering a corner in triple digits is an accomplishment like nothing else. Not everything goes right all the time, timing can be off, your mind not clear, so many things can happen to mess up that could be perfect turn, but it is the trying over and over again to do it that says volumes. We are not anything if not tenacious and seeking that feeling of the perfect lap (i.e. the drive onto the straightaway, patience to your brake marker, braking, gear selection, trail clutching and trail braking to the apex, letting the bike finish the turn, rolling the bike up on the fat part of the tire to get the perfect drive out of the exit, repeating this process 16 times a lap at the Ridge Motorsports Park) is what brings us back over and over.
June 27, 2015 I finished my last novice race and when all was said and done I came in 7th. It was a personal goal that I achieved on that day, I had promised myself one day I would get my expert number and at least place in the top 10 and that day I did both. I went from #809 to my chosen number #72. My love of riding, whether it is on the track or on the street, is about passion for a sport unlike anything else. Anyone who rides understands, those who don’t, think we are bonkers risking our lives. It just appears that our sport raises more fear in people than many other sports, yet I find motorcyclists to be some of the most interesting intelligent individuals out there. Even if you never race, come to the track, take lessons from a trusted individual, read, absorb as much information on how to be a better rider. In doing so you will be a rider for life and reap the benefits of that information when a situation arises that requires you to use your skills appropriately. Ken Hill was the person that said to me, “Practice makes permanent” meaning practicing without a plan means the development of bad habits that will be hard to break, so go into every practice with a plan and make “Perfect practice permanent.”