PART 2

In part one of this blog post, I talked about my history in flattrack and my crazy scheme to win an AFT Singles National as a team owner. In the words of legendary broadcaster Paul Harvey, “and now, the rest of the story.”

Walking away isn’t something I do. If I can’t win, don’t they say “fake it til you make it”? Armed with some boredom, a decent following on facebook and the power of the deceptive, but written word, I got to work. There was an off-road race coming up in Peoria Illinois which was the perfect deception for the fun I was about to have with several people. I started warming up my personal social channels about upcoming “big things”. This is a phrase every two-bit flattracker says at the beginning of every season. It's something I constantly make fun of as well. I pulled my 2007 KX450 out of storage and started stripping it of it’s custom flattrack parts. The entire front end was removed, along with the removal of the subframe, linkage and muffler to remove the rear shock. For a finishing touch I also swapped the front fender, as current AFT rules mandate a “shortened” front fender on all qualified motorcycles. One bike down, one bike to go. Now it was the 2019’s turn to go under the knife. The whole process was repeated, photos and videos were taken, heck, I even loaded it up in my van as to say “we are on the road!” for posts later on.

I’m continuing at this point to stoke the fire on all my social channels. Creating Instagram reels, posting memes, equating what “we” were going to do in the sport to what Ric Flair did in professional wrestling. Honestly, it was pretty fun to do. I was able to exercise my creativity a little bit while generating a few laughs here and there. After 4 days of the blitz though, not only with marketing, but with working on “fake” bikes, it started to wear me down a little. I stripped the 2019 bike back down, re-installed everything on the 2007, and then built the 2019 back to “stock” so that a friend of mine could race it during this off-road race I was set to attend. Work concluded on a Friday and I saddled up in the race van for the 10 hour drive north. Nostalgia sat in as I pounded miles into the night, eventually tiring myself out around midnight and pulling out the bunk in the van to sleep on the side of the road. Just like old times!

I went out of my way once reaching Peoria to film myself “pulling into” the track but time and content were wearing thin. It’s one day before the race and at this point I have to figure out a well timed way to do the reveal. Mentally, I’m drained. It’s been fun, but at the end of the day, I really wanted to do this, ending the story soaked in champagne in the 309 area code. Instead, I’m faking all of this for a long winded joke. I wanted to stand in that winner’s circle, tell a comeback story and probably do a lot of ugly crying on camera, watering the track with tears of joy. As Sunday rolled around I filmed a short clip of my actual rider walking up to the bike, delivering his payment and having a chat about our antics. He played his part well and man was that race an absolute riot. The bike is home now, all cleaned up, and will shortly be torn down all over again to become MY vet class race bike. All with parts from Direct Cycle Parts of course. I’m sure along the way I’ll check in with details about the bike too, so if you want to build a flattracker of your own, I can certainly point you in the right direction.

You’ve hung in there reading this story for a couple of weeks, so I feel that you need to be rewarded for that. I exercised my ego, I rode the fun of the “prank” while digging to the core of what I really wanted to accomplish. If you’ve got something to buy, use the code “FFDT” at check out to save $10 off your order. Thanks for tuning in. Racing ain’t easy, but it sure is fun.  If you want to see how this all played out, the videos and posts will remain up on the Fight For Dirt Track facebook page. Take a look.