TrackSpotting – An Unhealthy Addiction to Motocross. Read this Scheiße

Take an engine, a frame, handlebars, tires, breaks, gasoline, air, combustion, pistons, carberators, oil, rocketfuel and put them all together. You have mans greatest achievment, fucking motorcycles, Fucking love them, its like an addiction, better than anything, better than sex… Every day, I want to have this few hundred pounds of metal and roaring fire rocketing out my arse and propelling me forward into the air while I ride a wheelie over anything that gets in my way with adrenaline pumping through my veins. I have ridden motorcycles since I was 12 years old. My first bike was a Honda CRF100 I believe and I just wanted to go fast as hell.

(Insert picture or mental image of 12 year old Jakey with dirtbike here)

Washing and waxing cars, mowing lawns, giving handeys in the alleyway, whatever the fuck it took, I hustled for my first dirt bike.  I earned it, it was not gifted to me, it was all mine. My CRF100 was perfect for a beginner, forgiving on the clutch. A great bike to learn the basics of what the concept of riding actually is… Turning, clutching, braking, gripping, working your whole body mercilessley and getting your bloody balls up on the gas tank in a tight turn. Getting that ass off the seat when you hit a jump.
A few many years later at 17 I got a YZ125 (Yamaha 2 stroke) A damn rocket, requiring clutch mastery, superior skill, and careful precision which i did not have in the slightest. I am talking about riding a fucking 2 STROKE, not a HORSE. This is like 60 HORSES injected with Cocaine and rocket fuel packed with testosterone and pure adrenaline. I had no idea how to handle this power, I crashed 20 times a lap on the track.

Every turn, I crashed. Every jump, I biffed it, every hill i had to climb, I fell. The fucking bike was just too fast, unstable and I hadn’t mastered its true hidden power. The powerband…all i knew is I just wanted to go as fast as I fucking could around every turn and on every jump and just going fast doesnt work in motocross…maybe it does in nascar but not on a dirt bike track folks. Inexpierience and a shit ton of power are a recipe for sweet disaster. Let’s just say I learned how to crash with style. It wasn’t until I slowed down and settled down on the track and kept the bike at a steady pace that I made it through the track with only about 12 crashes a lap. Which was a damn improvment! Then one day I got down to only a few crashes per lap and my speed was becoming ridiculous. I learned something from a wise motocross Sage, motocross god if you will, Sheldon: Sheldon used to race, sheldon taught airplane how to fly with one simple lesson: “When you take it slow, you decrease the time it takes to take a lap on the track, because you are not crashing like a dumb idiot. Also you keep breaking your bike and I am not fixing it, you are.” When i learned that simple lesson after years of riding, I started to actually win on the track, fuckin finally….

Breaking the habit…

For fucks sake… I broke my wrist. how do you ride with a broken wrist, how do you work with a broken wrist when your job requires you to lift things and hit things with hammers and all that. It was time to stop, I had to stop riding for a while because well… adulting….see my job required my wrist to actually work…Don’t worry, it was just my left wrist in the arm cast, I could still flog the dolphin…ha.  Adulthood, was happening fast and I was poor as shite, I needed to do something about this… I needed to join an outfit that will take me places. An outfit that doesn’t take people with broken bones or medical issues, an outfit with lots of uniforms and badges and paperwork and a whole force full of chairs. To join this outfit I had to stop riding, because riding would risk me being injured and ruin my chances of getting in with these fine bloakes. Once I was in, I could start riding again, I could get back on the horse, the wagon, get my good ol’ fix of pure adrenaline. To one day get back to the track to ride again. So I joined up with them, made it through the most basic of job training. And after I returned home from my training, I bought a new bike. A street bike…
A ninja, but its not the same. It is not ‘The Track,” Try to understand, the street has rules… the track only has respect for other riders and one fucking direction to go. There won’t be a damn semi truck running you over with a guy sexting his mate while eating a fuckin weinersnitzel chili dog. When you are on the track, you are free of the rules of the road. You are ONE with the BIKE; You dont even think anymore, after many years of track riding, it literally becomes like running a mile or jogging. You are cool, calm, collected, and super fucking high on adrenaline coursing through your veins as you FLY over table tops at break neck speeds and SWEEP through turns and burms, all while a rooster tail of dirt is shooting out the ass end of your bike into the face of the rider behind you.
You don’t know what logic or safe is, you only know: SPEED. Speed is your only friend on the track, speed is your holy savior, your lover, your bread, butter, your heroine your wine, your god and the holy trinity. Speed is all that and more, and the Well the track is your church mate, your fuckin’ church on Sunday. I really need to go back to church.

JakeymuthafreakinAirplane – cash me on the track, how bout dat.