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I couldn’t help but day-dream about getting back on the track after vowing never to return. GothicbeaST and I were shooting the breeze as I was walking out the door this afternoon about doing a trackday in October. Like golf, trackdays are mighty cheap here in AZ during the summer. Since I’m a sissy, I’ll pay the extra duckets and wait the heat out. Normally, it would seem like not a big decision, but it is for me (read: my wife will be very pissed).

See, I’ve crashed twice in my life on the asphalt - both at Grattan Raceway in Michigan. Both were operator error. The first was a low-speed high-side. The damage to my bike was not too bad, but the body took a beating. I was the recipient of a concussion and a broken right collar bone. Heh - I don’t remember much of that day. The second was just the opposite as it was a high-speed low-side that sent the bike vertical once it hit the grass. The bike was junk, but I had a moderately fun carnival ride as I tumbled along side my pretty.

After that, I swore off track days. Why you ask? Its not that I didn’t enjoy myself, nor that I don’t realize that its safer (I’ll argue that point in a minute), but I always took mt street bike on the track. Let me clarify that…I always converted my street bike to be just a ‘barely street-legal’ track bike, since most of the miles were collected in the mountain twisties of Georgia, TN, and NC. I put a lot of time mod’ing the bike to get it just the way I like it with aftermarket goodies. My R1 just before it met its maker:

She had everything including Attack triple clamps, Lindemann forks with TiN coated tubes, Penske shock, Akra full system, BrakeTech R7 Big Brake Kit, Harris rearsets, etc. Everything was top notch. I had a lot of time into this but it was the labor of love and I did it right. Fortunately, that first crash only grenaded some marginal Airtech bodywork which was no big loss. The first crash hurt the brain literally, the second hurt it figureatively. After that loss, I haven’t been back.

I can’t say that here in AZ I really miss the track day stuff with mountain twisties only an hour and a half away, but it crosses my mind every now and then. For me, the track is not safer - I’ve proven that. Of course, the definition of ’safer’ depends on your perspective. When I ride the track all day long, I tend to get bored towards the end of the day. But because I’m too cheap to leave at that moment and want to get my full day’s worth, I carry on. Then I usually do something dumb like day-dream. That’s right. I admit it. I lose focus after an afternoon of the same 13 or so turns and the last two times I’ve wadded it up.

For me, I’ve never caught myself in this same condition while mid-mountain twisties. Second, I usually ride at ‘9 tenths’ versus the ‘10 tenths’ on the track. I know that around each corner be a semi-truck crossing the double yellow with the trailer. I know that there could be a cop waiting to write up them there city folk a ticket. I don’t know why, but I’m just better and smarter when I’m on the road versus a closed track…even when its for fun.

That and I love my Mille ‘R’. I would cry (yes fellas, cry like a little school girl) if I wrinkled up my Mille. Its going to take some soul searching to get over my bad karma with the track. I’m batting a thousand the last two attempts. I know I could buy a track bike, but I just don’t have the desire to spend the extra cash, or the garage space for another bike.

Finally, there’s the wife. She knows my latest track record very well. Since then, we’ve had two daughters. Now its even more difficult to convince her that “Honey, it can’t happen three times in a row”. I think I’m going to have to wait until she does her next girl’s weekend out and maybe call a sitter. If so, it would be imperative that I don’t crash. If that happened, there would be hell to pay. Definitely not safer here either.

Heh - you think she would buy “it can’t possibly happen four times in a row”?