Tag Archives: motocross

The Great Outdoors is Back

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On the road… again. Only sixteen thousand miles, 46 race days, 14 weeks, and 12 Pro National events lie between us and the end. We take a deep breath and plunge head first into it, starting with round 1 at Glen Helen.

It’s last year all over again, but totally different because now we’re living in style. With a 40’ Renegade and a 22’ stacker trailer behind us, fully wrapped, people stare and point as we pull onto the freeway. ‘Started from the bottom now we here.’ We sing and do a little jig as we head out.

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Some things remain the same though: The night before we leave, we’re still scrambling to pull it all together, packing, running to Home Depot, finalizing things at home to get us on the road. All of our plans to be ‘dialed’ have gone down the drain. By early morning we’re just hucking our stuff into the rig, telling ourselves we’ll get organized later.

Moto Buddy is still in tow, eager as ever (especially when we approach Glen Helen. His nose perks at the scent which he knows too well by now). But this time we’ve added Gatita–“little kitty”–or as she’s come to be known “Moto Kitty.” We’re like a traveling freakin’ circus alright. We never can make things easy on ourselves.

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Glen Helen is everything it’s cracked up to be: one can’t help but feel awe-inspired by its gnarly hills. What’s more is the speed at which the pro riders attack them. With all the momentum of that Talladega, they’re sucked through the turn like a whirlpool and slingshotted toward the base of the great Mt. St. Helens, then it’s up and down and up again, with no hesitation over the precipice, they just dive bomb the damn thing like a horde of lunatics–but very skilled, precise lunatics.

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When Josh Grant emerges from that horde with the speed of a torpedo, the crowd goes absolutely nuts. All speculation gets thrown out the window. Of all the people favored to shine at Glen Helen, Josh Grant was not the expected candidate.

For the first time that day my seat hits a chair and I breathe it all in: the brrraaaaaaaaap of the 450s, the warm sun on my face, the constant static of a cheering crowd, the impassioned fans throwing their bodies into the fences along the track. Because no matter who their favorite rider, the great thing about moto fans, is they love a good upset. What better way to kick off 2014 Pro Motocross than the hometown hero, the #33 bike of Josh Grant, leading the entire moto and sailing over the finish line with hardly a challenger.

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As the sun sets over Glen Helen that day, the mess of our booth and our hospitality and our rig all around us, we pull up a chair, crack a much-earned ice cold beer, and soak it all in. The Great Outdoors is back. And the journey has just begun…

“Thank You For Coming”

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Having come from another race in northern California the previous Sunday, we picked up our new rig in Phoenix, drove eighteen hours to the heart of Texas, made a quick stop to pick up groceries, and ambled down a dirt road that seemed to lead to nowhere, before we arrived at the world-class national track of Freestone County Raceway Texas Motocross.

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Exhausted and exhilarated, we watched the sun rise over the track, skies melting from midnight blue to pink to gold creating a brilliant backdrop for the eighty foot tall flags—one for Texas, one for America—that rippled in the dawn breeze. “This feels like pro motocross,” I whispered. The track was eerily quiet, the calm before the storm. You could feel all around you that Freestone was ready for it.

We hadn’t been alone in our mad dash to get here. We heard more stories from other families who had pulled their sons and daughters out of school, hopped in their motorhomes and driven through the night across country for the chance to earn AMA titles at the James Stewart Freestone Spring Championship. They came from Florida, California, Ohio, Colorado, Georgia, and all over the country. We even met people from New Zealand!

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Over the course of the day, once more as before we encountered that strange sensation of seeing familiar faces thousands of miles away from the last place we had seen them, this time in the midst of the backroads, family farms, and cow pastures of rural Texas. “I call them the traveling circus!” the announcer, Don Collings, said with a laugh, and we nodded, because the label fit.

The sun brought with it the day’s action and promise of glory. For every child who stepped proudly onto the podium before the flashing of cameras and cheering of fans, a dozen more trudged away from the track disappointed, even crushed, but with the hope that the next moto would yield better results. “The highs and the lows,” we always say to ourselves. Because in every corner of this wild circus, from the people who race to the people who support them—parents, families, mechanics, sponsors, fans, promoters, and track owners—there are the highs and the lows that lead to this strange moto addiction that simply cannot be explained.

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By the end of the day, still sleep deprived from the drive and running on fumes we began packing up our booth and debating what to cook for dinner. Something quick and easy, we decided. Almost as if we had summoned him, some unknown individual pulled up on a quad and said, pointing in a general direction, “We’re barbequing ribs. Come on by, we’ve got plenty of food.”

We followed our noses to the barbeque, pausing sheepishly on the outskirts of their pit, scanning the scene for a familiar face. “I don’t think we know anyone here,” I mumbled, but someone on the inside caught our hesitance and summoned us over, offered us a plate, and encouraged us to “Eat up! This is real Texas barbeque!” So we did, and those ribs were so melt-in-your-mouth delicious I can proclaim with honesty they were the best I had ever tasted. We loaded our plates with chicken and sausage, macaroni & cheese and salad and we ate until there was no room for more. We mingled through the group, shaking hands, trying to figure out who to thank for the food, but it seemed that everybody was host, and yet nobody was host. Maybe it was Jimmy, maybe it was Paul, but they were all from Texas, and they were all proud to say, “Thank you for coming.”

 

Why are Pros Racing Amateur Races? An Opinion Piece…

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“Why are PROS racing AM races?” a tweet notification popped up on my screen. A fair question, of course. One that I’m sure many MX riders, particularly women riders, are asking. As many of you know by now, women’s pro motocross, dubbed “WMX,” has been relegated to amateur events for 2014 after losing its home alongside men’s Pro MX.

The responses that followed from fellow angry tweeters were absurd, at best. No, it’s not because “some man” decided. And no, “that man” most certainly isn’t D. Coombs. For some reason people at large have crowned Coombs as the King of Pro Motocross, as the man behind all the decisions. I don’t know much, but I certainly know this to be a vast misconception. In the Pro MX world, there are much bigger players than Coombs. (And to his credit, it was Coombs who dreamed up bringing WMX to the Pro series in the first place, so give the guy a break.)

If you want to blame the television networks, or the sponsors, you’re getting warmer. The simple fact is that pro racing hardly exists without the corporate bodies who fund it, but let’s not pretend that these are acts of charity. We’re all in business to promote ourselves—our brands, our products—and thusly, we invest in the events and athletes that are marketable.

Female MX athletes are some of the most dedicated, die-hard athletes in the biz. Factory team managers are completely at a loss.  Imagine watching these girls with so much talent, so much drive, and nowhere to go. In fact, most people in the industry are pretty bent up about the state of WMX.

But the cold, hard truth is that WMX is simply not marketable—at least not yet. And if I’m going to charge anyone with that crime, I charge you. Yes, YOU: Motocross fans. There’s little money behind women’s racing because the fans aren’t behind it.

“But they’re not as fast as the guys,” you say, and I admit, this is largely true. And while there’s simple anatomy to blame (men are anatomically stronger than women, generally speaking), and while female athletes on the whole are at an evolutionary disadvantage (men have been competing in athletic events for thousands of years; meanwhile, in the powder room, the women are knitting), I think it goes deeper still. After all, we’ve seen the likes of up-and-coming female athletes like Courtney Duncan who has the speed to beat plenty of her male competitors in the amateur scene. Still, at Loretta’s I didn’t see a whole lot of people—sponsors or fans—who seemed all that interested in pursuing her.

If you really get down to it, I think you’ve got to dig into the very culture of motorsports, one in which women play a very clear role, and it’s a silent, porcelain-faced, half-clothed one. Let’s be honest, the Monster girls get more coverage at motorsports events than all the female racers combined. Female athletes can only hope to be blessed with a pretty face, so that maybe the camera will be so generous as to gaze upon them.

Now before you misconstrue my argument, please understand that I mean no disrespect to the models. Haters: pipe-down. There’s room for both Dianna Dahlgren and Jessica Patterson in this industry. All I’m saying is, what if we celebrated talent just as much as we celebrated beauty in our young women? What if we gave WMX another chance, a REAL chance? What if we, THE FANS, invested a little more time and interest into WMX, not just for ourselves, but also for our daughters, our sisters, our girlfriends, our wives, our mothers, and for the sport we love?

Maybe instead of being angry about WMX joining the amateur events, we can see this as an opportunity. After all, this year female racers have eight national events at which to compete, compared to last year’s measly three events with the Triple Crown. At least one of these amateur events will be televised, and that number is expected to grow in the coming years. Look at the attention amateur national MX events are getting these days: last year, Loretta’s garnered a larger television viewership than the X Games! These amateur events are going to get a lot of press, and WMX is going to be a part of that.

The decision to hold WMX races alongside amateur events was merely a financial one, one that was necessary in order to give female athletes the opportunity to race this year. Now, it’s up to us to decide what the future of WMX holds. As for me, I’ll be at the track with a front row seat when the women take the gate.

-Rachel Witt

Sixteen Thousand Miles

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16,000 miles driven; 2,130 gallons of fuel; 313 hours of driving; 298 cups of coffee consumed; 105 days living in a trailer; 45 truck stops slept in; 30 races worked; 8 National Parks visited; 5 tires blown out; 3 people (and a dog); 1 cross-country adventure.

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Fifteen weeks later we rounded the corner of a familiar street, and we arrived: Home.

People ask, “How was your trip?” and you might try to convey in a word or a sentence the experience, but it is near impossible to do so…

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On the northernmost outskirts of the United States, we felt the impact of 2,800 tonnes of water per second as it plummeted over Niagra Falls.  In Butte, Montana, we placed a toy motorcycle on Evel Knievel’s grave.  In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, we helped an Amish man push a downed tree out of the road after being ambushed by a flash flood.  In Morgantown, West Virginia, we ate baguettes and aged Provolone in the Racer X boat on Lake Cheat.  In Omaha, Nebraska, we caught bullfrogs and trout that we threw back into a little stream.  

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In New York City, we gaped at the magnitude of man’s creations—giant sky scrapers reaching to the clouds. In Ottawa, Illinois, we spent hours sipping Yuengling watching fireflies dance around a cornfield. In Park City, Utah, we wandered through a street fair, eating crepes and buying necessities, like a hand-made wooden crossbow. In Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, we ate steaming bowls of spicy jambalaya at a campsite, surrounded by strangers who treated us like family.  And between all of these experiences, we drove and drove and drove.

Every week we arrived at a new destination—a world class track—where the best motocross racers in the world would duel it out for our entertainment.

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We came to know most members of the track crew by name, and they laughed with us as we regaled stories of the latest breakdowns and blow-outs encountered on the drive there. We backed in, set up, cleaned up, as we moved a million moving parts, to create our booth.  We slogged through rain and mud, persisted through sweat and muggy heat, buckled down as thunder shook the earth, and squinted through wind and dust storms.  

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Each Saturday, we addressed crowds of 20,000 plus, hearing our words ring out over the loudspeakers.  We reminisced with fans, listening to stories about Hangtown in the 70’s, about 40 years of racing at Southwick, about meeting Bob “Hurricane” Hannah and the GOAT.  We trekked around the track taking photographs, cursing our cable providers as we tried to post some epic shot of the day to Instagram.  We pushed our way through crowds to the podium, to be there for that brief moment when the champagne would fly.

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Then, after the gladiators had battled and crashed and triumphed—Villopoto, Tomac, Dungey, Barcia, Stewart, Canard, Roczen, Musquin—after they had spoken their thank you’s on the podium and returned to their hotels, we lounged around in the mess, high fiving and sharing beers with the show masters, procrastinating cleanup, so that by the time we trudged toward bed, we were exhausted, but content.

Each week we left the track, having learned at least a dozen new things. And then? More road. More truck stops.

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Now that we’re here, at the end, we ask ourselves what was gained. We stumble with words because how does one express the experience as a whole, when it is made up of so many tiny moments?  We can only say that we ventured, that we discovered the soul of motocross, and along the way, we felt life pulsing through the veins of America.

 

When Rain Came to Loretta’s

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We had heard many stories about Loretta’s, but they varied mostly by degrees of heat. August in Tennessee: one could only imagine it as a smoldering place. And since my good moods are sometimes held hostage by humidity, I thought only of heat as the event approached.

So when I pulled into the Hurricane Mills Wal-Mart parking lot in Tennessee at 2:00am and jumped out of the truck and shuddered with cold, well naturally I was incredulous.

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The day after our arrival, it rained. And rained. And rained some more. Some people vaguely remembered a year here or there when it had rained. But in 32 years, they had never seen the likes of a storm such as this.

By day two the races were postponed due to rain. Golf carts teeming with teenagers hydroplaned through the backwoods. Flooded camps produced inflatable boats captained by tenacious moms. All manner of mud-fights between crews of rascally kids ensued.

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When the racing resumed, we watched as bikes piled up in the mud on the holeshot; otherwise experienced riders sought speed hopelessly in the slop; tiny kids on 50’s came off the track with hot tears streaming down their faces; vet riders peeled steaming gear from their bodies and dumped buckets of cool water over their exhausted, muddy faces. Miraculously, rarely a complaint was heard.

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By Thursday the rain stopped and the sun returned to bake the track. Friday brought blue skies. But the storm was scheduled to return on Saturday—the day of the first ever live broadcast of the AMA Amateur National Championship on NBC.

The rain arrived once more in a steady drizzle, followed by the rumble of engines on the starting line. Between the morning races, tractors resumed their tasks of plowing and scraping the track, searching for a dry layer beneath the puddles. More scraping. More plowing. When they discovered a crushed drainage pipe that would have served to drain the track, when they had scraped so low that they were almost to the water table, when they saw the clock counting down what little time remained, the situation appeared truly hopeless.

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It was then that the heavens stopped their crying. Forklifts were enlisted to bust open the blocked drainage pipe. The track received its final grooming. Cameramen assumed their positions. The best amateur racers in the world took their places at the gate. Hearts pounded as the long-awaited moment approached, when the Loretta Lynn’s AMA National Champion would be crowned.

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Watching, I remembered something that I had heard once, that though today might bring rain—it might bring grief or pain, challenges, or even death—

Tomorrow, we race.

Redbuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuud!

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At any track we witness the natural progression: empty space becomes structured, camping lots emerge and fill up, and with them, pro pits, vendor rows, media centers, and VIP zones appear.

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But Redbud takes it to a whole new level.  Their campsites have campsites.  There’s even an 18 and older lot, where the real debauchery unfolds.  Take a morning stroll past Lot B, and you will see more than a few people face down in the grass next to mountains of beer cans, music still blaring.

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But don’t get me wrong, there’s more substance to the extravaganza than can be found in a can of Bud Light.  I’m not sure if it’s because of the Fourth of July holiday or the incessant back-to-back race events (five events in three days!) or perhaps it’s simply the frantic excitement generated by the resounding, guttural cheers of, “Redbuuuuuuuuuuuuuuud” that make it such an extravaganza.  Whatever it may be, it is an event that can only be learned through experience.

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Working the podium at all four amateur events, we got to talk with the many people who come to Redbud to race.  We greeted the champions who returned to winner’s circle again and again.  We high-fived tiny kids who had just finished their first races.

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We celebrated with proud moms and dads who we knew put in all the behind-the-scenes work to make it possible for their children to compete.  We reminisced with vet riders, who were pleased that they ‘still had it’ after a good run on the track.

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Watching the fireworks exploding, showering comets of red, white, and blue over the ruts and jumps of Redbud MX Park, I decide that if Redbud owes its reputation to any one thing, it’s tradition.  Each year, the Ritchies and the rest of the Redbud staff put on the biggest, most impressive weekend of racing on the series.  And each year, fans, competitors, friends, and families return to celebrate Independence Day together, creating the memories and traditions that shape our lives.

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This year, I finally got to experience Redbud, and I must admit, it was worth the hype.

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A Brief Walk of Fame

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When they asked me if I wanted to be the 30 second board girl for the pro race on the following day, I was hesitant.  “Well I’m not sure about wanting to do it,” I said, “But if it helps you guys out, certainly I am willing,” and I told them to put me down as a backup plan. 

I was aware that donning a sexy outfit and sauntering across the track doesn’t do much to help a woman establish her credibility in a man’s sport.  Wasn’t it just recently that I had read a thread on Vital MX debating whether or not all trophy girls were sluts?  An absurd assumption, of course, but that did little to assure me that this was a position I wanted to put myself in.

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When 1:00 came the following day, I was whisked off to the starting line for the 450 class race.  Standing just a few feet away from the front lines of battle, I waited for my cue.  I watched as team managers and crew chiefs prepared the gates, carving out ruts in the dirt and carefully aligning the bikes as they came in.  Malcolm Stewart leaned in and exchanged a few words with his brother; Ryan Villopoto’s gaze remained fierce and stoic as people bustled around him; a pretty girl in a pit shirt handed goggles to a privateer I didn’t recognize; and someone leaned in with an umbrella, offering some last minute shade to Ryan Dungey. 

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There was a controlled, frenetic energy in the air.  We were just moments from combustion. 

Countdowns were announced.  “Three minutes!” someone called.  Another minute passed. The officials pointed at me, “You’re on in 10-9-8…”  I silently completed the countdown and started my brief walk of fame from one side of the track to the other. Image

In the subsequent two minutes, the earth trembled beneath my feet as the low grumbling of engines grew to a powerful roar.  The fans who were pressed up against the gates all around the start line let out a collective cry of anticipation.  The 40 world-class riders crouched over handlebars like predators, their sights intent upon the next thirty minutes and two laps that lay ahead of them.

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In the midst of my personal concerns, I had failed to realize how freaking cool this would be!  The gates dropped, they funneled into the first turn and through the holeshot.  In a quick blur, they were out of sight.

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When they asked later if I would be willing to fill in again, this time I responded confidently, “Absolutely.”

The Serendipitous Tale of the Stolen Bike

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This is a story about human goodness, about life’s serendipitous events.  Sometimes, the pieces fit together in just the right way…

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For the past six weeks of racing events, the bike had served as a focal point of our display.  Branded in the Lucas red, white, and blue, the CRF 250 #36 Troy Lee Designs Honda had been the backdrop for the amateur champions who posed on the podium; it had served in photo opps for the little kids who were placed on top of it, encouraged by proud parents to smile for the photo; it had been oohed and awed over by super fans and veteran racers at all the events we brought it to. 

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So when we woke up on Sunday morning to find that it had been stolen in the middle of the night, to say that we were devastated doesn’t accurately convey the dark cloud of anger and shame and sadness that moved in to hover over us.  We had lost the precious cargo that had been entrusted to our keeping. 

Filing a state police report and making announcements over the loudspeaker at Budds Creek did little to reassure me that there was any hope of finding the bike or the culprits.  Surrounded by backwoods trails, the bike could be anywhere.  Most likely, it was long gone by now.

But it was amateur race day, and there was work to be done.  The boss at home urged us to move forward–make the best of the day–so we lugged our supplies through the hot morning drizzle that was all around us like a suffocating bog, and got back to work.

Once our booth and podium display had been erected, the amateur riders who had stuck around to race, along with their families, the track staff, the promoters, and the vendors, began to trickle in to our booth. 

They commiserated with us over the loss of the bike.  They offered their own stories of lost and stolen property.  They cursed the thieves and summoned karma.  “They’ll get theirs,” they said, shaking their heads in solemn disgust.  They searched for solutions and directed us towards nearby trails to search.  

Thirteen year old AJ, who knew the area well, even hopped on his ryno and rode through miles of backwoods to search for the bike, in hopes that it had been stashed somewhere while his dad fed us lunch.

When it was time for winners to be crowned, the mood lifted.  Pint-sized kids on their 50’s showed up to claim their trophies and prizes and stand on the podium, as mom called out “Smile!” and dad added, “Hold up your trophy, son.”  They all beamed with pride.

We snapped photos, shook hands, gave out bags of prizes, offered congratulations, and gradually, in the midst of the excitement, the gloom of the morning burned off.  It’s hard to feel down when everyone around you is so happy, so appreciative, so empathetic.

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When Bryce Mauldin, who took first in both his races, realized we were taking photos of all the winners, he went back to his campsite for his racing boots.  He didn’t want to be photographed in his tennis shoes. 

In the meantime, we got to talking to his parents, Shelly and Vance, and the story of the bike unfolded.  We described in detail the events of the morning.  They wished that there was something they could do.

As the afternoon drew to a close and the evening brought some coolness to the muggy day, we said our goodbyes to the Mauldins, along with the others who, just yesterday, had been strangers.

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A few miles away, Frank Wood turned off the main road to stop at his property. He parked and got out of his truck.  His eye caught on something out of place–down a ravine, in a half-concealed ditch, something red, white and blue peeked through the dense foliage.  When he trudged down to investigate, he found a dirt bike.

Having had his own bike stolen in the past, he knew that thieves in the area would steal bikes from the track, stash their finds in the woods, and come back with pickup trucks during the night to take off with them.  So he called the police.

The police officers checked police report records for a stolen bike, but found nothing.  They called a tow truck to haul it off to impound.

Meanwhile, Vance and Shelly Mauldin were on their way to the grocery store, but they missed their turn.  Just as they were turning back around, they spotted a red, white, and blue dirt bike strapped onto a tow truck on the side of the road.

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They pulled over excitedly, explaining that they knew the bike’s owner, and then lead the police offices back to the track with the runaway bike in tow.

When Bryce and his friend Joey raced up to us on their bikes breathless from pedaling to tell us that the bike had been found, we were incredulous.  But that is just how we found it—strapped to the back of the tow truck, surrounded by a buzz of excited people, everyone chiming in to tell their part of the story. 

Carrie Coombs-Russell, the front-woman of MX sports, smiled serenely, sipping on a Coors Light, and said, “I told you it would turn up.” 

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[Photo: Frank Wood]

“If Frank hadn’t stopped at his property,” we mused, “they would have come back for it tonight.”

“If we hadn’t missed our turn,” Shelly realized, “we wouldn’t have seen them to identify the bike.”

“If I hadn’t gone back for my boots, we never would have gotten the story,” Bryce observed.

“If we had given up on the day, and flaked out on running the podium…” I said to Jason, and he nodded knowingly. 

We hugged and cheered and stared long and wild-eyed at the prized bike before us.  We couldn’t believe our great luck, and looking around, we couldn’t believe we had so many new friends with whom to share the triumph.

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[Photo: Vance Mauldin, Shelly Mauldin, Joey Farrell, Bryce Mauldin]

Much Yet to be Written…

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“This,” she says, holding up a figurine, “Is an Evel Knievel collector’s item.” Her lips curl into a mischievous smile. “Dave was a big fan.”  She goes on to tell a story of one particular road trip, when he went on a quest to meet Knievel. 

My eyes wander across the rows of signed jerseys—everyone from Carmichael to Villopoto; medals bearing almost four decades of pro motocross series insignia hang from various hooks.

“First edition Redbull can,” she laughs, and sets a stout gold can back on the shelf.   

The room is a treasure chest of motocross history.  Each piece resonates memories, but judging from the far-off glow I see in Rita Coombs’ eyes, I imagine that it’s only through experience that one appreciates the true value of these treasures.

“And this,” she cackles, “Someone sent us their application on a boot!” She holds up an old Scott motocross boot made of red plastic.  It’s covered in a handwritten resume.  I’m not sure whether or not the guy got the job, but his application made the memorabilia room, which is, in itself, a great accomplishment.

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Later we meet Davey Coombs, editor-n-chief of Racer X Productions.  When we tell him we’re planning to hit some of the Civil War sites on our way up to Budds Creek, he begins to map out an itinerary of places to see, starting with Antietam.  “23,000 killed—more deaths during the 12 hour battle at Antietam than any other single day of battle on American soil!” he exclaims.

“So you’re a history buff?” I observe. 

“I was going to be a history teacher,” he says, smiling. 

“You didn’t plan on working the family business?”

“Not at all,” he reflects.  “I went to college.  Got degrees in English and history.”  I raise my eyebrows in surprise.  One would assume Davey would have simply fallen in line with his father, Dave Coombs Sr.—founder of MX Sports, father of professional motocross, the man who invented off road moto as we know it today, who knocked on Loretta Lynn’s front door and asked if he could host a national amateur motocross race on her ranch (and she said yes!). 

“Carrie Jo too,” Davey continues.  “She went off to law school.  She’d been practicing law for a little while when I graduated, and she gave me a call.  Told me she’d spent some time out there.  Told me it wasn’t that great,” and we laugh because we’ve all spent enough time working in the ‘real world’ to know that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. “I was a journalist and a photographer, and I grew up racing motocross, so I came back here and started a newspaper.”

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He pulls out a browned newspaper entitled The Racing Paper, dated March 1990.  We pause for a moment to marvel at it as the reality of just how far they’ve come, sets in.  It seems Dave Sr. wasn’t the only visionary in the family.

Davey’s nonchalance belies his accomplishments: The Racing Paper evolved into what is now Racer X Illustrated and Racer X Online—the world’s top source of motocross and supercross news, videos, features, and photos.  Racer X is the source I turned to a year ago—when I left my classroom and my books and my students—to follow a sport I didn’t know much about, to nurture the fledgling business that Jason and I had created. 

During the five days we spend camped out in the Racer X parking lot, they offer up not only their office and Internet, but their hot shower, their cabin by the lake, and their boat.  We’re astounded by their generosity.

When we reluctantly return to the road, I sit down at my computer as the Racer X building fades into the distance.  The page before me is blank.  But I know there is much yet to be written.