The Four Lessons

As I have progressed through my 13 years of racing dirtbikes, I have learned a lot of valuble lessons. Lesson one is “remove all obstructions from the exhaust before attempting to start” When your bike does not start make sure you do not have a plug in the exhaust and if you do, make sure no one is around to witness it. Lesson two is “Make sure that before you race an Arenacross you have securely tightened the air box the carburetor.” Lesson three is “You can drive late into the night after a race if you drink enough Redbull” This may not be clinically approved by the most doctors but works non the less.

Of all of these lessons learned though, there is one that has become very apparent as my racing career has started to overlap with a growing family. I call this the “lesson of delicate balance.” This is a balance of points earned versus points paid. Now these points have no monetary value, they can not be cashed in at the bank or used in place of food stamps at the local grocery store. No, these are points that are transferred between myself and my wife. I don’t actually keep track of the quantity of points I have but I do keep track of how far I am from the fulcrum of the perfect balance. The tricky part is staying right at the fulcrum. Too far to the right and you are in the category of selling your dirt bike, driving a mini van, and attending your wife’s Tupperware party’s on Sunday afternoon’s. Too far to the left and you are in the category of eating cold pizza for supper, never actually taking your dirt bike out of the back of your truck, and sleeping in the shop. Now I have seen some pretty cool shops so this last item may actually be a bonus. The difficult part about managing this balance is that I am a racer. I like to race and I like to compete. Thus I want to get better and to do that I find myself wanting to race more. This starts to tip the balance to the left.

Some of you right now are probably wondering what the heck this has to do with anything. If this is you, you are probably 20 years old, a bachelor, and racing every weekend. To you my friend I say, keep on living the dream. I remember those days, we would ride 2 nights a week, ride on Saturday, and then go race on Sunday.

There is probably a group reading this right now that is thinking they wish they could even own a dirtbike. If this is you, you are probably rubbing your wife’s bunion right now and wondering if she will let you go to the grocery store by yourself this weekend. To you I say grow some balls, grab your check book, and head to your local shop and buy a bike damit, it will liberate you.

The other group that is reading this is saying to themselves, dang gus has got this nailed. If this is you, you mark all of the race days on the calendar at the beginning of the year, attend functions of her choice on non-race weekends, and don’t participate in any other extra curricular activities such as golf that could cut into your valuable points to be used for racing. To this group I say, I hear you barking. Families are great, if it wasn’t for our wives who would listen to our lame excuses about why we did so bad at a race, because if we would tell our dirt bike buddies, they would laugh and tell us to quit making excuses, take your skirt off, and twist the throttle more. If it wasn’t for our kid’s who would carry on the next enduro generation. Kids are great and I can’t wait to teach my daughter to ride. But in the mean time I am going to continue to manage the delicate balance and hope to see you at the next race.