unblinkingly as he stirred sugar into his cup. ‘I think it’s amazing, court is fascinating.’
‘So is my arsehole.’
We walked out into the sunlight with Jason expounding the virtues of the legal learning curve, how it was all a challenge, not a giant waste of time and money. ‘You’re just not interested in anything that doesn’t have an engine or a gun involved,’ he said, grinning.
I conceded this was true. In fact, while he’d been rabbiting on about the fascinations of law, my mind had drifted off and I was thinking about the salt.
‘And stop drawing robots, for fuck’s sake.’
In the end we all just got fed up paying the lawyers, I guess, and settled.
Ten months, three days and eight hours since I rode the BDM-SLS. (Give or take a few hours or days.) Spent largely doing nothing of significance whatsoever. Apart from Sid’s arrival, I worked, changed nappies, went to swimming lessons, did the dishes, rode my motorcycle every day and slept well. My writing is uncomplicated and by implication my life can be very similar. Besides, I don’t want to bore you with my normal activities and mortgage repayments.
This is how it went along until my phone rang. It was Colin—the time had come and our shot at Speed Week 2012 was upon us. And suddenly it was like a rising wave with about 400 other excitable bogans, emailing each other, cyber-chatting about the weather conditions, swapping tips (some very dodgy) on everything from airfuel ratios and traction, to places to stay (I can recommend a gay-friendly motel), all preparing for our moment of salt-lake glory.
One of our first jobs was to get the bike through the final shakedown. This is the formal vetting and scrutineering of Speed Week vehicles at Tailem Bend test track by the Dry Lakes Racers Association. David Hinds and Peter Noy, two immensely likable gents from the DLRA, contacted me to organise the shakedown, and Colin, Rob, Ed and the uni lads dragged the bike out of storage and started prepping her. They had also redesigned and fixed the lifting issue, and made a few other modifications to finetune her performance. She was ready to roll.
I booked flights and the motel at Tailem Bend, then went to work like one of my robots while my mind opened up the heavily barricaded door that had been holding back an overflowing stream of salt-filled motor–cycle dreams. The speed, the passionate lunatics I was going to meet and hopefully set records with. No matter what’s going on in your life at the time, the moment you step onto the salt, breathe in the dry outback air, you’re ready to leap on your bike or into your rocket-powered homemade car and smash it down the track as fast as you can. Salt-lake racing crystallises the mind; it penetrated everything I was doing and I felt suddenly elated, anticipation quickening my heart. All I wanted was my shot down the track—I wanted to know if I could do it, if the bike could do it, if it was the drug I thought it was.
My slow walk through the university grounds was contemplative; I had done this several times before. As I get older I’m prepared to accept that time does indeed speed up, and, sure, there were periods when it felt like Speed Week would never come, but, shit, now that I was back I couldn’t believe how fast the last year had gone by. It was almost a carbon copy of the scene I walked into one year ago, as I rounded the corner to see the same faces packing the bike into the trailer—a Groundhog Day.
Colin muttered over his clipboard, Rob fiddled with spare parts and Ed hovered around with his pants falling off his arse. Ed has this look, and from the first time I met him I started calling him ‘Flock of Seagulls’. His thick hair defies gravity without the aid of product, and has a kind of retro-cool mid-80s Brit pop flair to it. He’s like a cross between Morrissey, Thomas Dolby and everyone from Joy Division, except taller. Combine this look with Ed’s natural ability to remain
‘So is my arsehole.’
We walked out into the sunlight with Jason expounding the virtues of the legal learning curve, how it was all a challenge, not a giant waste of time and money. ‘You’re just not interested in anything that doesn’t have an engine or a gun involved,’ he said, grinning.
I conceded this was true. In fact, while he’d been rabbiting on about the fascinations of law, my mind had drifted off and I was thinking about the salt.
‘And stop drawing robots, for fuck’s sake.’
In the end we all just got fed up paying the lawyers, I guess, and settled.
Ten months, three days and eight hours since I rode the BDM-SLS. (Give or take a few hours or days.) Spent largely doing nothing of significance whatsoever. Apart from Sid’s arrival, I worked, changed nappies, went to swimming lessons, did the dishes, rode my motorcycle every day and slept well. My writing is uncomplicated and by implication my life can be very similar. Besides, I don’t want to bore you with my normal activities and mortgage repayments.
This is how it went along until my phone rang. It was Colin—the time had come and our shot at Speed Week 2012 was upon us. And suddenly it was like a rising wave with about 400 other excitable bogans, emailing each other, cyber-chatting about the weather conditions, swapping tips (some very dodgy) on everything from airfuel ratios and traction, to places to stay (I can recommend a gay-friendly motel), all preparing for our moment of salt-lake glory.
One of our first jobs was to get the bike through the final shakedown. This is the formal vetting and scrutineering of Speed Week vehicles at Tailem Bend test track by the Dry Lakes Racers Association. David Hinds and Peter Noy, two immensely likable gents from the DLRA, contacted me to organise the shakedown, and Colin, Rob, Ed and the uni lads dragged the bike out of storage and started prepping her. They had also redesigned and fixed the lifting issue, and made a few other modifications to finetune her performance. She was ready to roll.
I booked flights and the motel at Tailem Bend, then went to work like one of my robots while my mind opened up the heavily barricaded door that had been holding back an overflowing stream of salt-filled motor–cycle dreams. The speed, the passionate lunatics I was going to meet and hopefully set records with. No matter what’s going on in your life at the time, the moment you step onto the salt, breathe in the dry outback air, you’re ready to leap on your bike or into your rocket-powered homemade car and smash it down the track as fast as you can. Salt-lake racing crystallises the mind; it penetrated everything I was doing and I felt suddenly elated, anticipation quickening my heart. All I wanted was my shot down the track—I wanted to know if I could do it, if the bike could do it, if it was the drug I thought it was.
My slow walk through the university grounds was contemplative; I had done this several times before. As I get older I’m prepared to accept that time does indeed speed up, and, sure, there were periods when it felt like Speed Week would never come, but, shit, now that I was back I couldn’t believe how fast the last year had gone by. It was almost a carbon copy of the scene I walked into one year ago, as I rounded the corner to see the same faces packing the bike into the trailer—a Groundhog Day.
Colin muttered over his clipboard, Rob fiddled with spare parts and Ed hovered around with his pants falling off his arse. Ed has this look, and from the first time I met him I started calling him ‘Flock of Seagulls’. His thick hair defies gravity without the aid of product, and has a kind of retro-cool mid-80s Brit pop flair to it. He’s like a cross between Morrissey, Thomas Dolby and everyone from Joy Division, except taller. Combine this look with Ed’s natural ability to remain
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