Continued Haphazardly as I find the time.....

But over 3 years?, yep. In that time Dale the subject of the previous post passed from the leukemia that afflicted him. This year I lost my wife to Pneumonia as a result of a stroke she suffered last September. They say you must go on and that things get better, I'm sure they are right, but it's easier said then done. Grief is the dog that yaps at your heals and bites when you  least expect, but always seems to be there.

My resolve has been tested as I near yet another year out on the Salt Flats. It was just days after I returned last year that the stroke hit and changed my life forever. It made me ponder the way we hold on fast to life, its normal, it's expected generally......and yet. As I reflect on what has passed recently in the way of motorcycle events it occurs that there are those that lay our lives on the line in the pursuit of speed, the be the best, whatever the consequence.

Cliff Gullett succumbed to his injuries in 2008, when he lost control of his streamliner as his passed the timing lights on the Salt Flats, the course was closed for the rest of the day. Next morning a few tears were shed at the morning meeting with some kind words,  then racing commenced. Perhaps a few glasses were raised in his name...... This year during my first trip to the Isle of Man, Japanese rider Yoshinari Matsushita died during qualifying on the day I arrived, again the race goes on as do we all. This is no ordinary undertaking that these modern day warriors embark upon, as "safe" as MotoGP is with its inflatable barriers and precautions, Marco Simoncelli is no longer with us. Showa Tomizawa, Peter Lenz, Lee Vernon, Mark Buckly, Victor Gilmore, Lee Richardson, Sandor Pohl, Andrea Antonelli, Luis Carrieria and most recently Italian rider Andrea Antolelli in a supersport crash in Moscow, once again a moment of silence at Laguna Seca this year and then start your motors. I am sure there are more that I have not mentioned and those that as I write this are still rehabbing from injuries on the track.

We do go on, and we do honor those that have fallen, and we do respect the skill, the nerve and the resolve of these men and women that undertake this sport at all costs to go fast and in some cases faster then anyone has gone before, to set new records, to make history. As Dennis Manning said in an interview several years ago about Bonneville, "We are not racing here, we are making history".

Moment of silence is over, start your motors.........