When I decided to take my need for high-speed thrills to the racetrack I was immediately hooked, and racing became a way of life for me for nearly a decade. Nothing to his day can replace that thrill. And I know I would never have achieved the success I had in superbike racing if not for the help and encouragement of my family and friends. My best friend was my mechanic and voice of reason (I should have listened more), my sister was my manager and financier, my day kept me on track, literally and figuratively, and other friends rounded out my pit crew and helped me polish off the beers post-race.

Learning to race at 185 mph didn’t leave much room for error, and being new to the sport while moving at front-of-the-pack speeds landed me on my head more than once. 106 times to be exact, not counting low-speed mishaps, such as getting my boot caught on the peg and falling over in front of the Erion Honda crew on hot pit lane.) This often left me bruised and the bike smashed or scratched or sometimes cooked.

So most Sundays I spent the drive home from the track figuring out what needed fixed. More often than not included making a call to one of my best friends, Zach Leroy, in hopes of getting yet another set of decals cut out, so that by Thursday night we could sticker up yet another set or two of bodywork for the upcoming weekend’s race. Zach lived with his girlfriend, and he worked two jobs, but he always came through for me no matter what, even if it was 3 AM and his girlfriend threatened to break up with him if he didn’t stop with the decals and come to bed. He’s the kind of friend you could call to help bury a body and he would show up with a snack for you, tell you to take a nap and he’d do the dirty work, no questions asked and without expecting anything in return…a good friend.

Now Zach has always been a wild child, always operating in high gear, no alcohol needed, and he does and says whatever comes to mind. The man has no filter. He’s the last person our group of friends thought would settle down, have a pile of kids, go to the park, exchange motorbikes for car seats, get a house with a fence, build a swing set, get married to a great girl…but he did. And when he did, his first pride and joy, his 2007 GSX-R600 was let outside in the elements for close to three years. It was not that Zach wanted to abuse the bike, he just lacked a garage and his time and efforts were spent building a family. Sadly, the bike was left to grow moss and house a family of mice, and PA’s climate did her best to rust to a block of rotting metal.

One day I pulled in his driveway to chit chat and I mentioned that he could store the bike in my garage to keep what little bike he had left, together, Zach jumped all over the opportunity, which made me feel bad that I hadn’t thought of it earlier—like three years earlier. I knew what a big part of his life that bike was.

The bike sat in my garage untouched for about a year until one cold day in November when I decided that Zach had helped me out plenty, and it was time for me to pay it back. I decided that, when it warmed up, I would have his bike fixed up for him as a thank you for all the help he’d given me over the years.

On the first warm day I power-washed three years of weather off the old girl before I took pictures and the moss that was growing out of the frame still held fast. The plastics showed their wear from the sun and the rust was more noticeable when the mud and dirt were washed away. The mice fled when their home was flooded by the bath; upon a closer look they had made their home in the wiring harness. The bike was a mess, but Zach had pulled me out of some hot water, so I was glad to get the bike running for him. Then I got to thinking. I wasn’t just going to fix it up; I was going to build something wickedly cool from this corpse. –Blake “Dr. Funkenstine” Kelly

Bike rides are better when you have the safest motorcycle helmet. Consult a motorcycle helmet size chart to find the perfect fit on a custom painted helmet.