A racer’s tale - the start
“because some of the most important lessons about life I learned on two wheels”
Nothing.
In my mind there is nothing – no thought, no sensory inputs, no consciousness of anything.
The only signal that I allow to penetrate is the image intercepting a degree or two of my visual field — an irregular-shaped patch of green nylon fabric peeking out from the starter’s hands a couple hundred feet away. When his hands, the green patch or the tip of the flag stick moves it means it’s time to go.
Until then this patch of color and his hands, perched twenty feet above the start-finish line, is the totality of my universe. I can’t hear the snarl of my engine or those around me. The vibration under my seat, the pavement under my boot, the smell of race fuel from the fifty or so other bikes rumbling around me, the surrounding grass hills seared to gold by the hundred degree heat, my own slow breathing — none of these sensations registers. Only that bit of green.
From the fourteenth row it’s hard to see it at all, forcing me to concentrate even harder to detect that slight movement that would turn into a full fledged display of the start flag. This is an advantage. Some racers will wait to release their clutches until they see that full square, their mad dash to the first turn delayed by a several hundredths of a second. Which means if they are anywhere within three or four rows of me I will blow right by them — that could be 15 bikes.
Many are razzing their throttles now, building rpms in a misguided effort to somehow improve their launch. I’m sitting quietly, focused on that little patch of green. My bike is in gear and as my left hand lets the clutch out until the plates start to engage, my right hand gently squeezes the front brake just enough to keep from moving forward. We’re ready to get to work, taut, relaxed. Still nothing.
Suddenly my bike lurches forward as my left foot engages second gear, my front wheel floating four inches off the deck. It’s game on, and I start picking a line through the pack as we all rocket toward the first turn. Leaning left and then right I thread my way through the two rows in front of me and a couple of slower bikes in front of them. They waited to see all the green and are only now getting a move on. Newbies.
Now the pack is six or more wide and fifty of us are charging for turn one, a 100 mile per hour ninety degree left hander. The front guys are already through and heading down to turn two as the rest of us maneuver to find a sliver of room to lean our machines into.
Several bikes near me are bunched up on the inside heading toward the apex, the classic Turn 1 line. I’m outside and behind them on the same line. Seeing the bunch setting up in front I let my machine run wide and stay there, picking through the traffic, and trying not to focus on the dust cloud billowing up off the end of the track where someone ended their race early.
Three more turns and things are settling down a bit, the pack thinning to only two or three wide in most places as we all head up a steep hill toward Turn 5 — the Cyclone. This is a scary turn. You toss the bike into a short, blind left that flings you over its crest and then plummets you five stories down the other side. The fast guys go through here three across, leaning on each other.
Everyone in front of me is heading up the hill single file, going through one at a time. Seeing this I take an inside line up the hill not knowing what I’ll find at the top. Will there be a bike there trying to clip the inside curbing at the same time I’m trying to turn my bike?
I’m too far off to guess but I decide to give it a try anyways, trusting that I’ll figure something out when the time comes. Four bikes glint past on my right as I start my mad charge up the hill. It’s working.
The top and the turn now come into focus and I realize things could get a bit sketchy. The two bikes in front of me are nose to tail with no room between them, blocking the very space where my brain’s race computer determined I needed to be when it’s time for me to turn in.
By the time we get to the turn Bike Two realizes I’m there and grudgingly gives me eighteen inches or so of track so I don’t have to run over the top of the inside curbing (or him). Nice. My fairing grinds on the curbing, raising my bike up a bit and causing what racers refer to as “some major pucker factor.”
In an eyeblink I’m clear and craning my neck to find my exit line down the five story high hill. I’m back on line and on the gas, Bike Two is safely behind me as I tip into the right hander at the bottom, knee scraping the pavement.
Now I’m trying to force my mind to ignore the shiny black tar patch that usually causes my front tire to slide sideways several inches. So far it’s always hooked back up for me, but others have been less fortunate. My brain screaming at me to slow down, I open it up and set up my next pass. The front tire sticks and the two bikes heading into the next turn are slowing each other down trying to find the right line.
I shift slightly to the outside and I’m around them, hauling the bike back in and trying to see the exit. I spot it, pin the throttle and feel the engine spinning up fast. We’re wide open and at maximum lean dragging a knee through two more fast turns, then up another hill with a blind corner at the top.
Each turn I’d flick past another one or two bikes on the entry or the exit. They either got on the brakes too early, got on the gas too late, or committed any one of several other sins that result leaving precious seconds laying on the track.
As I charge down the hill and move into position to set up one of my favorite passing turns a corner worker is waving a red flag and I see a herd of bikes slowing down and stopped. I get on the brakes hard, ending what was shaping up to be an epic first lap.
Bikes are pulling up behind me as we all wait for direction from the safety crew. I look over my shoulder and am surprised to see the growing collection of machines. I started from the last row, so anything behind me now is a bike I passed in those first ten turns. I start counting. Twenty six bikes! There are twenty six bikes behind me, passed in the first ten turns of this 14 turn track!
The safety crew gives us a wave to move back to the pits where we’ll line up again. I smile to myself as I thumb the starter and begin slowly rolling back to the start line.
I know I shouldn’t have been gridded so far back - my bad, my late entry doomed me to starting at the very back. I knew I would have my work cut out for me to move up to the place in the pack where my gang usually rode. What surprised me was managing to do it on the first lap.
Never assume anything. And never give up.
