Flat Track Fever

Eric showing some style. Right before he hit the wall outside turn four and crushed his pipe. Doh!

Our buddies over at Sideburn Magazine were in town last week before heading up to Washington for the first annual Dirt Quake USA. The crew at Deus ex Machina in Vencice, CA thought it would be a good idea to take these hooligans out to our local flat track raceway: Perris. Somehow they made a mistake and actually invited us. An excuse to ride around the track in a no-pressure environment and free food? You couldn't sign us up faster. We called our buddy Eric "Third" Ryke who races Open Amateur and asked him to meet us out there, loaded up the square bodies and hit the road.

We've enjoyed spectating at the races for the years, and of course I was interested in actually racing, but I'm also interested in being an astronaut and that's probably not real likely either. I have enough distractions, unfinished projects and poorly healed collar bone fractures already and the last thing I need is one more bike to work on and one more thing to suck at. But... even on my old beater TT250, I had an absolute blast on the track. Apparently I'm not the only one, because a week later most of us (Black Rob, Christian, Otto, EZ) are all talking about ways to find the time and money to actually start racing.

Gringo + Moto Goggles = perfect set up

So, that's the plan. It's not a serious one and none of us expect to be national champs any time soon, but it does sound fun. My take on the whole practice night was that it's super easy to get out there and have fun, but will take a lifetime to actually get any good at it. When Supercamp comes around there will be a couple new students on the track for sure. In the meantime, it's time to hunt down a couple bikes and get out for more practice laps. Thanks Eric for putting up with all my stupid questions after the fact, and thanks to Shandra for the snappies!