Time Traveling at Speed

Like many of us who ride motorcycles, I worry a bit about the aging demographic of the sport. I’ve encouraged a few younger folks to make the shift from the automated-everything steel cage to the freedom of two wheels, but a while back, I decided to do something even more radical: time travel.

I ran WERA endurance races with some buddies back in 1981-83, riding a Suzuki GS450 in the first season and graduating to a Kawasaki GPz550 for the next two years.

Although I hadn’t been on a track since 1983, when I saw a low-mileage 2016 Kawasaki ZX-6R on the floor at Vetesnik Power Sports in Richland Center, Wis., I knew that time travel was in my future.

Or my past, depending on how you want to look at it.

I took the bike home in the summer of 2018 and spent long hours in the garage over the winter, the goal being track days in 2019. The bike already sported some go-fast parts, including a Dynojet Power Commander, a quick shifter and a full race exhaust system.

During the winter, I fitted fiberglass body work and painted it gloss black, enhanced with a coat of glitter and a high-temperature clear coat. I added rear sets, axle protectors, a steering damper and a camera mount, among other items. I safety-wired the bike and replaced the antifreeze with water-based coolant. I also invested in a nice, one-piece leather suit to complement my high-end helmet, gloves and boots.

The build was a good, fun challenge, and the hardware was interesting, but the primary concern was my personal software.

By the time I ran the first of seven track days in 2019, I was 69 years old.

One of the reasons I wanted to get on the track again was to test myself. I ride the back roads of Wisconsin pretty vigorously, shall we say, and I wanted to engage a motorcycle under controlled circumstances to assess my abilities. In other words, was I fooling myself? Should I dispose of the sport bikes I’d been riding and demote myself, performance-wise, to a cruiser or an adventure bike?

My track days were booked through Sportbike Track Time, and I need to compliment them on a thoroughly professional operation. I ran track days in Michigan at both Grattan Raceway Park and GingerMan Raceway, as well as two events at Blackhawk Farms Raceway in Illinois.

I got some great riding and tire advice, along with a fresh set of tires, at one event, and suspension advice at another event, all of which added to my comfort level while reducing my lap times.

The STT coaches also were a great help. More than once, a coach led me through a lap to show me a faster way around the track. A typical day involved seven 20-minute sessions, and, by the end of the day, I was pretty whipped. Perfect, in other words.

Did I set any lap records? No, but I might have been the fastest 69-year-old out there, since I’m pretty sure I was the only one in my age bracket.

Did I crash? No, but I did run off the track—three or four times, maybe—after getting into a corner too hot.

What did I learn?

I learned that I’m actually pretty good at this motorcycling thing, so there’s no need to buy a slower street bike just yet. I also learned that there are lots of people faster than me.

But, then again, I expected that. One of the beauties of running a 600-class bike is that you do have something of an excuse for being passed; no such excuses are available if you’re riding a 1,000cc fire-breather.

More track days may be in my future. But I know I’ll continue to strafe apexes on the back roads of Wisconsin.

The time travel trick failed. I’m 70 now. So, I decided that a new street bike is in order, a fire-breathing Honda CBR1000RR SP.