Chapter 4 – Casting out the Demon of Fear

Run One

“The first duty of life is still that of subduing fear.”  – Thomas Carlyle

The SCTA doesn’t allow you to get on the salt and just go as fast as you can on the first run.  That’s how people can get killed.  Going really fast on asphalt is risky enough.  Going fast on salt adds other dimensions of danger.

You have to “license up”.  For your first run, you get a class D license, which allows you to go over 125 but not over 150.  Once you do that, you get a class C license that allows you to exceed 150 but not 175.  When you demonstrate you can do that safely, you can then go over 175 but not 200.  Finally, a class A license permits you to exceed 200 – but not with these tires.

By taking it in stages like this, it allows you to learn about your bike and the salt.  If there is a problem, hopefully you will learn before it gets catastrophic.

I had to buy the right riding gear for this.  They wanted a rider wrapped in leather.  Leather is the most resistant to abrasion should you go down at high speed.  I bought a leather riding suit, but it took the assistance of another person to get it on me, and I felt incredibly claustrophobic in it.  I could hardly move, and I could not get it off by myself.  I had to control my heart rate and claustrophobic anxiety – and I was in my house.  When I got it off after having it on only ten minutes, I was soaked in sweat.  What would happen when I got out on the salt at 100 degrees?  I was worried.  I sent it back and got a bigger size, and then repeated for a bigger size still.  I still needed help getting it on and off, and was worried about the heat.

Chris had two Suzuki Hayabusa’s for me to ride.  One was a stock bike, 2010, 1350 cc, red, which tested on a Dyno at 200 hp.  The other was a white one that was Turbo Charged with a lower gas tank, special bodywork and modifications.  It tested at 320 hp!  It was an incredible beast.  It would spin the rear tire on the salt at any speed – even up to 180 mph.  I had to be very careful with throttle control.

Finally, in the late afternoon of Day 1, I was cleared to take my first run.  I got help putting my 25-pound leather suit on.  I put my boots and helmet on.  I walked to the start line where my team had the bike ready to go.  It was hot.  I was sweating in the suit from the heat and from being nervous.  What would happen?  How would this go?  Would I twist the throttle on a 320 hp motorcycle and spin out?  One way to find out….

I got on the Turbo bike at course 2 and waited for the starter to give me the signal that the 3-mile course was mine.  With slick tires, slippery salt, and 320 hp, I rolled the throttle on very slowly to not spin the wheels.  The bike felt good.  Real good.  Patience….speed coming up.  9000 rpm. Then I missed my very first shift!  My brain was used to shifting up, but this bike shifts down to go up a gear.  It reminded me with the motor zinging up to 13,000 rpm when it hit neutral.

The bike pulled strong as I let it loose.  I watched the conveyor belt of salt go under me faster and faster.  100 mph.  120.  Feels great.  I tucked.  I was worried that I would have trouble picking my head up far enough with my back and neck curved as they are.

The SCTA times your average speed between mile 1 and 2, 2 and 2 ¼, and 2 and 3.  My job to get my C license was to average between 125 and 150 in any one of these sections of the course.

130….140…feeling good.  I rolled more on.  I felt the animal I was on had so much more it wanted to show me.  150….155…and I rolled it down and pulled off after I saw the mile 2 marker. 

What a relief!  I could see forward while tucked (even though it was like looking through your upper eyelids.  I didn’t sweat to death in my suit.  I didn’t crash.  I could control 320 hp on a slippery surface.  Wow!  This was going to be ok after all…well, it’s ok so far. 

Sometimes we let the demons of fear stop us.  We dwell on how hard or scary something will be and the fear grows in us until it stops us.  Controlling fear and not manufacturing any more of it than is necessary is something we must do to live to our potential.  Whether we are in a spelling bee in second grade, sharing our ideas at a meeting, or doing anything we haven’t done before.

The salt courses closed at 5:00.  We only got one run in on day one.  It was enough.  We headed back to our hotel a couple of exits away in Wendover, the town where the Enola Gay took off from to end World War II.  Lots of history was made out here in the desert of Northwest Utah.  I felt I was a small part of it now.

Salt, Speed and Dust – Chapter 3

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone” – Neale Donald Walsh

200 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats in a motorcycle I had never been on before – that was the goal.  But there was more to it.  As it turns out the longest off-road race in the United States was a couple of days later – “Vegas to Reno”, 514 miles.  “Ok, let’s do that too – it will be epic!”  I was an experienced desert racer, and I had raced a 300-mile race in Nevada two months earlier.  “I got this”, I thought.

Ok, one trip, two goals, lots of planning and preparation complete.  One thing at a time.

We pulled onto the salt at Bonneville early on a Saturday morning.  The salt is very white.  The sun bounces off of it and you need dark sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat.  The threat of exposure is real.

The texture is like rough finished concrete, smoother in spots, and rough in spots, with the occasional rut or hole.  Untouched, the salt has bumpy lines in it forming patterns.  It’s as if a thousand moles were lost under there.  I always wondered how thick the salt is.  50 feet?  200 feet?  I had no idea.  It turns out the salt is from 3” to 7” thick.  That’s it. 

Bordered by beautiful brown mountains, the white salt is a flat jewel in a valley.  I couldn’t help myself – I tasted it.  No surprise – it tasted like salt.

The organizers drag the course to make it smooth.  They have two courses.  One is three miles long with three miles to stop and one is five miles long with three miles to stop.  They prepare alternate courses.  Think of six runways parallel to each other. Speed Week goes on for six days.  On days one and two they will use one course.  The salt gets chewed up from accelerating wheel traffic, so on days three and four they use their first alternate, and on day five and six the second alternate.  I had no idea how important all this would be to my quest.  I was learning fast. 

That’s what happens when you do something new.  You have to learn even the very basics of it.   Here’s the line. Here’s where you start.  Here’s how you know when to start.  Here’s where you ride to.  Here’s what you do then.…

The whole event is put on by the SCTA – Southern California Timing Association.  It’s tightly controlled.  Step one – registration.  Step two – drivers meeting.  Step 3 – Rookie orientation.  They take you down the track in your car or truck and you get to see what the course is like, and where to turn out to the return road which is about 120 yards from the course parallel to it.  When you make a run, they do not allow you to ride or drive back to the starting line.  You have to be towed by your chase team or on a trailer to return.

We had 10 people on our support/chase team and three vehicles – an RV set up in the front row between courses one and two, a passenger van, and a flatbed truck with a box trailer to haul the bikes.  It’s a significant operation and necessary to get the job done as I would come to realize.

I was nervous.  I had never been on these bikes before, and I didn’t know if I could tuck tight enough and still see, given a big gas tank in your chest.  I didn’t know what it would feel like.

I kept telling myself that if anyone could do it, then I could too.  Hours went by in the hot sun and we took the steps to get to the starting line and get the bike out on the salt.

At tech inspection, I stayed in the background while Dean, our mechanic, and ex road racer stayed with the bike and the inspector.  We had the wrong tires they said.  They were not rated for over 200 mph and because of that, they put a speed limit on the bike of 200 mph.  We were not to exceed it.  There were debates and questions about whether the tires were safe at 200+.  In the end, the inspectors won, and we were not allowed to hit our goal unless we changed tires.  We were frustrated.

Then the inspector asked, “Where’s the rider?”  Dean pointed to me.  He asked me to come over and sit on the bike.  Then he said, “Ok, turn the ignition on”.  I looked down.  I hesitated.  I thought “Oh crap.  Where’s the ignition?”.  It wasn’t obvious.  I broke into an embarrassed sweat.  The inspector waited.  Here I was at Bonneville to take this bike over 200 mph and I didn’t even know how to start it!! 

I played like I was deaf and didn’t hear him.  The inspector finally reached over and turned the ignition on. 

This was going to be some experience….

Salt, Speed and Dust – Chapter 2

“She never felt ready, but she was brave, and the universe responds to the brave”

2018 was a huge year for me.  I had finished all four races in Baja in the Ironman class, only the third rider to ever do so.  The last race was the prize, and the one I had chased for three years.  I had become one of only 25 riders to ever finish the Baja 1000 Ironman solo, and was the oldest guy to ever do it.  It took me 34 ½ hours on the bike.

It took years of work.  After something like that, you ask “What’s next?”

In 2019 I raced some in the desert including a failed attempt at the Baja 1000 where I took a wrong turn that cost me 70 miles of extra riding, and ultimately, my hands gave out; I could not hold onto the bike anymore.  I have a bad knee, and it’s getting worse. I remembered Chris’s invitation and the Salt Flats.  I called Chris.  “It’s time”.

I didn’t set the goal, Chris had set it for me.  Go over 200 mph on one of these Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycles.  It sounded really fast to me.  Sit there and twist the throttle until you hit 200?  How hard could that be?  What could go wrong?

I had no idea what the 200-mph barrier really meant, how difficult it would be, and what it would really take.  Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

Like when I started my business.  If I knew all the discomfort and hardship and suffering I was signing up for, well maybe I’d have weighed my options.  Sometimes it’s better to keep your eyes on the prize and not know what it will take until your deep into it and committed.

The Bonneville Salt Flats are located in northwestern Utah on the Nevada border.  Bonneville is named after Benjamin Bonneville, who was an Army Officer that explored the Western United States back in the 1800s. The salt flats were first discovered to be drivable when Bill Rishel drove a Pierce-Arrow across the salt in 1907.

Soon after this test drive, word began to spread that Bonneville was drivable and the first land speed record was set there in 1914 by American race car driver, Teddy Tetzlaff who was well known for his Indy 500 racing fame. Tetzlaff would set this first record in a custom-built 200hp car known as the Blitzen-Benz. To set this record, Tetzlaff was able to get the Benz up to 141.73 mph on the flats.

Despite Tetzlaff setting this land speed record, promoters had a tough time getting more drivers to attempt setting records at Bonneville. This proved to be a problem till the mid-1930s when a local Utah man by the name of Ab Jenkins began setting long-distance and endurance records at the salt flats.

Jenkins kept setting his own endurance and land speed records at Bonneville and in 1932 he was able to attract the attention of the car manufacturer Pierce-Arrow.

Pierce-Arrow was testing a new 12-cylinder car at the time and they contacted Jenkins to see if he could help them improve the performance since, at the time, it was slower than the v8. Jenkins did some tuning to the engine and he then came up with an idea to test the performance of the new 12-cylinder. He would drive the car as fast as he could at Bonneville for 24-hours straight to show how powerful and durable the engine is and prove to the racing world that Bonneville was indeed the place for land speed records.

Jenkins ran the car on a 10-mile course that was set up at Bonneville. He would only stop every two hours for fuel and during the 24-hour period he never once left the driver’s seat. His average speed during the endurance test was an amazing record of 112.916 mph.

He would then make another endurance run using the Pierce-Arrow in 1933. During this run he set a new record by getting up to an average speed of 125 mph. Three of Britain’s top racers John Cobb, Sir Malcolm Campbell, and Sir George Eyston happen to be in attendance and became interested in setting some of their own records.

The rest is history.  Racers came out year after year to set new records in various classes of vehicles.  To this day, records are broken in class after class as racers go home and modify their vehicles to go even faster and one-up the previous record holder. 

I watched two movies – “The World’s Fastest Indian” and “Out of Nothing” and came to appreciate the Salt Flats and the long history of man’s pursuit of speed there.

But me?  I had never ridden on foot on a Suzuki Hayabusa and here I was going there to attempt something that had not been done until not so many years ago on a motorcycle…

Salt, Speed and Dust – Prologue

It was a few years ago I suppose, when Chris Haines lit the spark.

Chris Haines is my desert racing support team owner.  In his day, Chris has won a LOT of races in Baja, and he’s in the Off-Road Racing Hall of Fame.  His shop is in Southern California.  I was there for a short visit and I see these two beautiful street bikes.  He starts telling me about them and about the Bonneville Salt Flats and let out a soft invitation – a challenge even.  It was so foreign to me.  I let it go. 

I had desert races to run in Baja.  My quest to finish the Baja 1000 solo had not been completed yet.  I’d spent thousands of hours riding motorcycles in my time, but not that kind of motorcycle.  That’s not for me….or….nahhh….

The places we go, and the people we meet.  That’s what shapes our lives. 

Everyone’s heard it – “hang around interesting people”, and the corollary, “be careful who you hang around with”.  Maybe the person I was with that day offered to take me hang gliding, or mountain climbing or some other adventure.  Maybe they would try to hustle me and offer me a scam investment, or offer me drugs, or show me some other behavior on the lower tier of what humanity has to offer.

The people we get with have an influence on us – and some will cause us to take a fork in the road that has a profound impact on our lives. 

This is the beginning of a story, right here on Think Daily.  It’s a daring adventure, and a personal challenge.  I hope you enjoy it.

To be continued…

Loving others

“When you make loving others the story of your life, there’s never a final chapter, because the legacy continues.  You lend your light to one person, and he or she shines it on another and another and another.” – Oprah Winfrey

It’s in all of us.  Show it.  Don’t ration it. 

Express it a little more today.

"We dig our graves with our teeth"

The other day we stopped for ice cream.  There was a long line.  It was a big one, and ohhh, it tasted so good!

Well, I didn’t eat lunch because of it, and I felt like hell after it.  My body was trying to process the giant flood of dairy and sugar.  My digestive system took all the energy from the rest of me to deal with it. I had to lay down and rest!

I pondered what would happen to me if I made a habit of it.  

“We dig our graves with our teeth.” -Fannie Hurst

Stop drinking sugar

Soda, fruit juices, iced teas…the single best thing you can do to improve your diet is to stop drinking sugar.

Take Control

There were times in my life when I felt things were going off the rails or a situation was bad and I felt powerless.  Maybe it was a persistent disempowering relationship that I didn’t want to disrupt, but at the same time I was being disrespected or kicked around.  Maybe it was an employee who had some good qualities, but bad ones that offset it.  Maybe it was something that was no good for me or my spirit but hadn’t done anything about yet.

Sound familiar?

I got my power back by (finally) making a decision and taking control.  By speaking up and acting.  Maybe you have to be fed up enough and hurt enough, and maybe you just have to stop delaying the decision.  Either way, make a decision for you, even if it won’t be a popular one for someone else. 

Take your power back.

Confident but Open

If you don’t understand paradox, then personal development advice can seem a little confusing at times.

A paradox is when one thing is true, and the opposite is also true.  It also may be a statement that contradicts itself.  Like work hard and do what it takes, but get enough sleep, to cite a very simple example.

Being confident in what you are doing and being open to learning may seem contradictory.  But let’s explain the nuance.  If you go into the world confident NOT that you know everything or that your beliefs are right, but confident that you can figure things out and are as able as anyone to succeed, it is a great predictor of your success.  But being overly confident that you know how to do it best is a weakness.  You must be open to learning from your mistakes and from others, rather than proving you were or are right. 

In what area are you not confident enough?  What area are you too confident?

Willing to look foolish?

That’s the only way you can make bold moves forward.  Do things you have never done before.

Sometimes you will look stupid because you are not good at it yet.  

But you have to be willing to be bad at it before you can be good at it.

Are you willing to look like a beginner?