oliver
Well-known member
Hi BARF,
The is the first of what will hopefully be quite a few posts, each detailing the ups, downs, and in-betweens of an endeavor that will hopefully last the better part of the next year.
My BARF career began unceremoniously with this post on 11/19/2005, 10 days after I registered. Since that time, I have become more enveloped in the act, sport, and thought of riding my motorcycle than I ever feared I would.
Traveling quickly through my surrounding environment is built into my DNA for some reason. My dad's an attorney and my Mom drives a school bus, so it didn't come from either one of them. None of my family members is something that could be called an enthusiast (except one uncle who owns a sports car). But I, from my very earliest memories, have eaten, slept, and breathed racing.
This manifested itself in a relatively successful 4 years of kart and car racing career that ended in 2001. I won a lot, but pulled the plug for fear of reaching the age of 30 one day and wondering what the hell I had been doing for the last decade. So I moved on into the real world, thankfully without ever ridding myself of the racing demons.
I somehow knew that this would happend when I bought my first bike. Fast bike --> faster bike --> racing. I didn't think it would happen in less than a year though! Until recently, I had been holding off attending a trackday because a) I didn't have a suit, b) I didn'y have a good way to get there and c) I thought I might really like it. But then it happened. A fellow BARFer sent me an instant message one Monday morning, letting me know that there was an empty spot in the trailer for a trip to Reno Fernley Raceway. Three days later, I had bought a suit and was on my way to the track.
Needless to say, those two days awakened that which had been lying dormant inside me for the past few years: a completely insatiable appetite for pushing the limits of a moving vehicle. On the way home from the track, the first phone call I made was to my good friend Kyle in Texas (my kart racing teammate in 1999 and 2000), whose life is motorcycles, and greeted him with:
I wanna race!�
So that's what I named this thread. In it, over the coming months, I will hopefully chronicle my transition from "regular dude with a normal job"� to 'regular dude with a normal job who races motorcycles."� It will begin this weekend with a trip to Buttonwillow to check out the final round of the AFM season.
After talking to people who know more than I do about this type of thing, I believe that I want to race the 650 Twin class with a Suzuki SV650. On the other hand, I already have a very capable Open Twin bike in my Aprilia, but it's expensive to race and probably pretty damn expensive to crash. Plus, it couldn't hang (horsepower-wise anyway) with, say, a 999R. But maybe there aren't any 999Rs and I'd be racing against other Aprilias and TL1000s? I don't know. That's what the trip to the race this weekend will help clarify.
I'm posting this thread on BARF with inadvertent but obvious homage to Liam and his "*Liam's Wild Ride*" thread. We all have followed him in his successful efforts to make it to the top of our sport, MotoGP. My hope is that others on this board, who may know they want to race but not where to start, will be able to learn alongside me as I try to figure it all out. I need a race bike, supplies, transportation, and knowledge--none of which I have yet--so this should be fun!
For those who don't already know, my name is Oliver and I am 27 years old. I have a job, but I also have a boss. Two of them, actually. Money is an object for me, as it is for you. I don't want to be a professional motorcycle rider, as I've gone down that road before and I'm probably not talented enough. I want to win races, but know that it will be quite difficult. But I want to try...so sit back, enjoy, and offer any advice you can!
The is the first of what will hopefully be quite a few posts, each detailing the ups, downs, and in-betweens of an endeavor that will hopefully last the better part of the next year.
My BARF career began unceremoniously with this post on 11/19/2005, 10 days after I registered. Since that time, I have become more enveloped in the act, sport, and thought of riding my motorcycle than I ever feared I would.
Traveling quickly through my surrounding environment is built into my DNA for some reason. My dad's an attorney and my Mom drives a school bus, so it didn't come from either one of them. None of my family members is something that could be called an enthusiast (except one uncle who owns a sports car). But I, from my very earliest memories, have eaten, slept, and breathed racing.
This manifested itself in a relatively successful 4 years of kart and car racing career that ended in 2001. I won a lot, but pulled the plug for fear of reaching the age of 30 one day and wondering what the hell I had been doing for the last decade. So I moved on into the real world, thankfully without ever ridding myself of the racing demons.
I somehow knew that this would happend when I bought my first bike. Fast bike --> faster bike --> racing. I didn't think it would happen in less than a year though! Until recently, I had been holding off attending a trackday because a) I didn't have a suit, b) I didn'y have a good way to get there and c) I thought I might really like it. But then it happened. A fellow BARFer sent me an instant message one Monday morning, letting me know that there was an empty spot in the trailer for a trip to Reno Fernley Raceway. Three days later, I had bought a suit and was on my way to the track.
Needless to say, those two days awakened that which had been lying dormant inside me for the past few years: a completely insatiable appetite for pushing the limits of a moving vehicle. On the way home from the track, the first phone call I made was to my good friend Kyle in Texas (my kart racing teammate in 1999 and 2000), whose life is motorcycles, and greeted him with:
I wanna race!�
So that's what I named this thread. In it, over the coming months, I will hopefully chronicle my transition from "regular dude with a normal job"� to 'regular dude with a normal job who races motorcycles."� It will begin this weekend with a trip to Buttonwillow to check out the final round of the AFM season.
After talking to people who know more than I do about this type of thing, I believe that I want to race the 650 Twin class with a Suzuki SV650. On the other hand, I already have a very capable Open Twin bike in my Aprilia, but it's expensive to race and probably pretty damn expensive to crash. Plus, it couldn't hang (horsepower-wise anyway) with, say, a 999R. But maybe there aren't any 999Rs and I'd be racing against other Aprilias and TL1000s? I don't know. That's what the trip to the race this weekend will help clarify.
I'm posting this thread on BARF with inadvertent but obvious homage to Liam and his "*Liam's Wild Ride*" thread. We all have followed him in his successful efforts to make it to the top of our sport, MotoGP. My hope is that others on this board, who may know they want to race but not where to start, will be able to learn alongside me as I try to figure it all out. I need a race bike, supplies, transportation, and knowledge--none of which I have yet--so this should be fun!
For those who don't already know, my name is Oliver and I am 27 years old. I have a job, but I also have a boss. Two of them, actually. Money is an object for me, as it is for you. I don't want to be a professional motorcycle rider, as I've gone down that road before and I'm probably not talented enough. I want to win races, but know that it will be quite difficult. But I want to try...so sit back, enjoy, and offer any advice you can!
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