What I’ve Learned

For me racing is the most fun and exhilarating thing I could ever do.  I love it.  I love the race track, the road trips, the preparation, the work you have to put in, and winning – wow, is it the best thing ever!  What makes racing fun for me is pursuing that checkered flag.  It's like a drug addiction.  Dicing it up at the front and having a great time with friends afterwards.  I sat in the garage last week just staring at my bike and it all hit me like a crashing wave.  The adrenaline, the excitement, the fun.  It's like nothing else.  Not like baseball, basketball, mountain biking, cycling, track riding, street riding, or anything else I've ever done – none of it can match that feeling.  I don't think any drug could come close to matching that high either – and sometimes you just can't explain it in words to people.

Our first win on a 600, after not knowing if we had what it took to compete with the big boys.  That was a wave of emotion, with dad and I sharing a big hug after the race exclaiming, "We did it!"  You'd have thought we just won a world championship.  The countless races against Sam where we'd battle back and forth, beating each other by tenths of a second and pushing each other every single weekend.  Those were great battles.  The race when Jeff got airlifted out and nobody (and I mean nobody) wanted to go out and race.  Seeing 63 on the temperature gauge before getting on the bike and then just having the most calm and surreal race ever – and afterwards, pointing up on the cool down at each corner station, the corner workers knew what our team bikes looked like and they nodded in acknowledgement – it was overwhelming – and a different, more sobering kind of emotion, but an incredible one as well.  I came into the pits afterwards and none of us really said anything because nothing needed to be said – taking the checkered flag kind of said it all in a weird and eery way. 

As I continued to sit, lost in the glare of the light's reflection on the bodywork, I snapped back into reality and was hit with the sudden depression that I was still merely just sitting in the garage.

Racing is the ultimate individual sport and the ultimate team sport all at the same time.  Your team has your back and they're crucial to your success.  They want you to succeed, do well, have fun.  They understand what's all involved.  With not being out on the track for most of this year, I learned a lot about being on the other side of the fence – being the support crew/provider and not just the rider.  A few hard lessons were learned this season and a couple hard kicks to the stomach throughout it.  Some people have different goals, want different things, have different approaches – and that's alright.  What works for some people might not work for others.  I learned that, perhaps the hard way this season.  Sometimes racing can turn into a business and I don't want that to ever happen.  It's a sign something isn't right, so it's time for some changes.  Fun is the key.  It's too much money and work for it not to be.  I'd much rather replace the sleepless nights with dreams of running around the racetrack, doing what I and many others love.

Overall though, we've received a great deal of positive feedback from how things went this year, so we're on the right track.  Our time at the AMA Pro scene went very well this year and I'm looking forward to what 2012 brings.

Thanks for reading,

– eddie