The rider hunches himself tighter than a jockey on a thoroughbred, his neck jerked back at an inhuman angle, his chest pressed against the metal of the gas tank, which pounds his sternum when even the slightest bump comes too hard and too fast for the taut suspension to damp it. He hears his own engine screaming between his knees, its pistons violently reversing direction dozens of times per second, but he also hears the sound of another screaming engine, another motorcycle, somewhere over his shoulder, ridden by another, equally adrenaline-powered, hyper-competitive racer, who desperately wants nothing more on earth than to be in front of him. So he holds, holds, forces himself to hold the throttle as the braking marker rushes toward him, and at the last possible moment before the only outcome imaginable is a tumbling crash, he sits up into the 190-mph wind blast to slow for the right hand corner ahead. Now comes the really hard part. Despite the wind desperately trying to rip him off the bike, despite the speed and the acceleration and braking forces of his hurtling flight, his every move must be as precise as a surgeon?s. Every part of his body goes to work, every synapse of mental processing power called into play to sense every twitch from the bike and to maximize the precision of the instructions to all those parts of the racer?s body. Two fingers of his right hand squeeze the front brake lever, tensely seeking the point of maximum deceleration, which lies just this side of front wheel lockup and disaster. The left hand pulls the clutch while the left foot shifts down through the gears, and the right hand, already busy with its most crucial task of braking, works the throttle to keep the revs in line with the downshifting. The legs begin shifting his weight to the right, in one fluid motion, careful not to unsettle the already strained chassis, preparing to hang off for the turn. The upper body strains against the wind blast over the top of the small fairing, a strain that must not be fed into the handgrips, because the front tire, already at the limit, can take no more inputs. The stresses on the front tire heat it to the melting point, the strands of rubber compound melting and reforming at a microscopic level, leaving behind the tell-tale feathering typical of a spent tire at the end of a race. With the weight of the motorcycle and rider fully shifted to the front tire, the rear tire rises off the ground slightly, skimming the asphalt, a forgotten follower, for the moment, as all the action is taking place at the front. The rear of the bike moves side to side slightly, like a dog wagging its tail in super slow motion, the rider keeping the motorcycle?s two wheels roughly in line with minor changes in his position and pressure on the grips, so minor and instinctual after years and years of riding, that he doesn?t think of them, they just happen. As he begins his lean in the corner, he?s still trailing the front brake, but much more lightly now, as almost all the front tire?s precious traction must be reserved for cornering, leaving little for braking. Hanging off the right side of the bike, knee scraping the asphalt, elbow barely flying above the raised red-and-white curb, eyes intently looking through the apex of the turn, mind already thinking beyond the demands of this second to what must come next, the crucial moment when the right hand can again twist the throttle and desperately call for enough power from the engine and enough grip from the shredding rear tire to stay ahead of the other riders on the same edge of their ability and their motorcycles? capabilities. That?s one corner of one lap in the WMRC Senior Super Bike Race, there are 7 more laps to go? From "The Ride so far, tales from a motorcycling life"
