talking smack

my buddy Brian texted me this morning, asking if i'd ever been to Jennings GP. Jennings is a motorcycle-only road course in the middle of north-Florida nowhere. we're planning a 3-day trip down there together in mid-February. i have, in fact, been there before:

that's me, breakdancing in T1. as the poster implies, i had been taken out by some kid on a POS bike in the very first session of the day. that's his crappy bike under my flying Triumph.

nonetheless, i have been back down to Jennings since then. it's a fun, technical track with a good surface and decent weather in months when it's really too cold around here. Brian has never been, yet he has throw down something of a gauntlet, claiming he is going to beat my best laptime at Jennings, by 2 seconds, by the end of the weekend. if it were somebody i didn't know, i would probably grin and say something to the effect of, "hey - maybe so." then i would wait until the weekend in question & go throw down some halfway decent laps, letting my riding speak for itself. not to be too arrogant, but i would probably end up passing the person making the claim.

there're a number of factors at play here: 1. first and foremost, i am immensely competitive. 2. i have been on this track before (and i was not the fastest). 3. Jennings is a tricky place - half the track is balls, half is brains. 4. every time i get out on the track, i learn something, and i try to progress. 5. i have been riding for over twenty years. 6. i have raced various vehicles since before i had my driver's license, and finding the racing line is apparently in my genetic makeup.7. last but not least, Brian has never, ever, gone faster than me on the track. not by a long shot. last time out, i got on his bike with his setup and in a single 20-minute session beat his best lap time by nearly 20 seconds. one 2.54-mile lap, twenty seconds faster. obviously, Brian is talking shit. and i love it, because it instantly opens the door for me to talk shit right back.


so when i got his text this morning asking if i'd been to Jennings before, i was like, "oh hell no. he's not gonna backpedal out of this one already." and so the following mad SMS conversation ensued - 


me: Yes. But don't be gettin ur excuses lined up this early!
Brian: How many times? What gearing?
me: 3 or 4 times. It's where i met Doc the 1st time. I would use -1, +2. 
B: If u have been there that many times, i should get at least a 2 sec handicap.
me: You don't really want to start out admitting defeat with a "handicap," do you? Natural talent should be able to overcome, right?
B: I will overcome!
me: There you go. I will come to Beaverun and beat your best laptime by 2 seconds. Maybe 5. The gauntlet is now thrown.
B: the beave is my best track u will need 2 pack a lunch...and then some.
me: I will find some vid.
me: oh and...FIRST SESSION.
B: not possible
B: T8 is a wide open kink into bstretch. drift right 2 edge or u aint doin it right. if u do it right the proper line in the backstretch is very bumpy. make sure your [steering] damper is up to snuff.
me: i will take it [*the steering damper] off. 2 secs. 1st session.
B: not at the beave. not happening. i am sure of it.
me: we will see in August. maybe sooner.
B: i can go n e time to the beave.
me: i will do a 1:10 at beaverun before lunch (this last was later in the day, after i found this video on YouTube of an "A" group rider doing laps at around 1:10)





...i have yet to get a response from this last. i don't know what Brian's best laps at Beaverun are, but i have the feeling they are around 1:20.


Brian is a good friend, but he never seems to have good weekends when we're at the track together. i think at some level i intimidate him. i'm not going to be the guy who outright says, "dude - you're delusional. i put 20 seconds on your best lap at Road Atlanta on your own bike. you don't really have the skill or mindset to put two seconds on me at a track i'm good on." i want him to relax & start to put things together. the mistakes he's making are largely from always being too tense, and i've told him as much in serious conversation. but when the talking of smack begins, i have to skillfully circumlocute these cold hard realities. my problem with talking smack is that sometimes i don't know when to stop. i feel like as long as i can back up the claims i'm spitting (or take a little verbal beatdown cheerfully), it should go until the logical conclusion of somebody shutting the hell up. i think i may have hurt people's feelings in the past, however, by occasionally going for the jugular.


because nothing hurts so much as the truth when it comes to shit-talking. 

burying a trailer

i heard a story this morning about a guy who, in active alcoholism, was left by his wife. she had kicked him out & filed for divorce. apparently, this man was in construction and had access to some heavy equipment. he decided in the midst of his life problems that if she was gonna leave him, she was by God not gonna get the house. so one day, while she was at work, he took a trackhoe, dug a great big hole, and buried the entire mobile home. there's some doubt as to whether this is a true story, but being a good alcoholic, i can understand that this was a rational response to what was going on.

i completely relate to the level of bitter, devious, selfishness exhibited in this story. in my drinking years, i participated in more than my fair share of bridge-burning and buddy-fucking. ya gotta take care of #1, right? luckily, i've been able to make most of the amends that i needed to, and most relationships that are important to me have been substantially healed. there's still one girl, named Doreen (something), to whom i really owe a sincere amend. the amends process is often misunderstood by the world outside of the recovering community. the media has generally portrayed it as some hapless ex-drunk running around hat in hand, apologizing for the stupid shit he did in his neighborhood while he was drinking, "i'm here to say i'm sorry i ran over your mailbox," or "i'm sorry i tried to make out with your wife at the Christmas party." it's usually depicted to be sad & tragic & ultimately pointless, because the character in question suffers a relapse, ending the sitcom episode hammered, doing something else (or the same thing) stupid.

my understanding of it is based on the definition of amend as;
"To change or modify in any way for the better; as,
(a) by simply removing what is erroneous, corrupt, superfluous, faulty, and the like;
(b) by supplying deficiencies;
(c) by substituting something else in the place of what is removed; to rectify. [1913 Webster]

this is important - it makes no sense to even bother making the apology if my behavior is not going to change. possibly the most important part of recovery for me is the challenge of not engaging in the selfish and self-destructive patterns of my past. i have to stop cheating on my girlfriends and/or wife. i have to become conscientious, aware & concerned with things other than myself. i'm still pretty fucking selfish most of the time - it's a constant challenge. i have to consistently make the attempt to substitute the selfless for the self-centeredness i've worked so hard to remove.

so, back to Doreen. an acquaintance of mine was infatuated with this girl. i was stationed near Albany, NY, going to nuclear prototype training in the upstate woods of New York. it seemed most of the girls in this little town looked to the Navy boys for an escape, a way out of small-town doldrums. as we partied in between shiftwork, we attracted the local ladies, who brought their friends as well. i cannot remember the dude's name, but he kept talking about this girl. finally, we both showed up at the same party & Doreen was there, and she was very pretty. and i saw that he was too shy to make the move on her. so i did - mostly out of some vague jealousy of this guy. at some level, i perceived him to be cooler or more fortunate than i, so spitefully, i took "his" girl. i had responded to my own low self-esteem with the ego-inflation of selfish pillaging. seems i may owe that dude an amend, as well. Jim something, maybe?

i didn't realize or care to admit it was a mistake until Doreen and i got to my next duty station. i pretty much abandoned her there, first emotionally, then physically. i think i sent her home on a bus. i was all about getting what i wanted at the time.

a few years ago, in my second year sober, i had to go back up to the same upstate NY town for training with Serotta custom bicycles. i could not, -still can't- remember Doreen's last name. i was going to try to call her and make that amend. i take my utter lack of recall as God's sign that perhaps Doreen didn't need to be reminded of me.

and she probably still doesn't. i need to leave that trailer buried. my amends will have to be changing my behavior for the better, leaving the pillaging & burning to those still in that part of their journey.